Saturday at 8 pm in the hall Alley space It becomes an alternative world, transporting viewers – if they immerse themselves in the adventure – to an unknown dimension. The space is filled with smoke and it is difficult to clearly distinguish shapes or figures. A warning of what is to come: a work in which the boundaries between the visible and the invisible, lights and shadows, transparency and opacity are blurred. Some of it the pitthe new creation of Choreographer and dancer Letizia Mazur with Gianluca Zonzini Where two time travelers arrive at the same place from which they started and ask themselves: What is the limit of the experience?
Mazur and Zonzini have known each other for many years. He took lessons with her, and they soon felt a great connection and became friends. Zonzini has worked on many of Mazur's projects, first as an assistant director and later as an actor and co-creator. Some time ago the desire to direct a work together arose and they encountered this creative process. Mazur says in an interview with, “We started sending each other videos of things that excite us, generally unknown worlds or inexplicable phenomena and what happened to the person when he encountered that.” Page 12.
In 2022 they launched Sociologist Manuel Hermelowhich explores from various disciplines such as Performance, poetry and literature. Hermelo was also an original member of the Legendary Black Organization, a student group that distanced itself from traditional theater and committed itself to interventions in public spaces during the 1980s. “That year we would get together once a week to dance and improvise without having to make decisions, and it was very freeing,” the choreographer recalls. He says the title clicked immediately: “We liked the word.” the pit Because it has several meanings: it is a type of meteorite impact, a hole, a scar from something that happened, or an unusual and massive phenomenon. It refers to outer space.
During this process they examined Hermelo's texts and drawings of the body. “We wanted the work to be very ambiguous and very unclear in terms of construction,” Mazur explains. In a sense the pit becomes incomprehensible, Like a journey, when it is narrated, it loses something because its power lies in the experience of that which permeates the here and now, similar to the cosmic horror that HP Lovecraft knew how to express in the literary field: the unknown beyond or the familiar that becomes strange. In the show someone asks What does it belong to? It would be difficult to explain this to you because here – as in the best proposals that combine text, dance, performance and poetry – there is no linear plot but an invitation to cultivate the senses to inhabit the created world.
There comes a point where the human race cannot explain what it is experiencing. The focus of the work is on the inability to process experience. “This limitation can happen to you in a bond or with an alien being, the unknown or the mysterious is beyond that and here too,” notes the artist, recalling that some issues have already appeared in previous works such as Bones. On the Buenos Aires billboard there are many products that explore the need for escape from different angles. When asked about this, Mazur said: “I think those of us who practice theater seem to need to transform, build, imagine and move to other levels of reality. By putting on the jaw of a dead donkey, you are already someone else.
in the pit There are few picturesque objects that are of great interest because of their texture and the poetics of that relationship with materials, with body, with image and word: bone remains, a key or volcanic material that allow us to reconstruct part of past history, clues to a mystery that may never be solved. . A crater is a trace of what once happened and may eventually happen again. “I believe that humans need to build layers of imagination to imagine, perform rituals, and transform experience.”. He adds: “What we call reality is of course based on imagination and cultural subjectivity.”
How to generate language that is attractive to eyes accustomed to special effects on multiple screens? This is a huge challenge for independent theater when it comes to creating universes. “We can't compete and we don't want to, it's something else. There is a vehicle that we decided to defend,” says Mazur. Spatial and lighting design was done by Mathias Sindon, sound design was created by Jorge Creo, costumes were created by Beto Romano and set design was created By Enzo Galante and Ariel Vaccaro And from this combination arises the pit Mazur explains that it is not “a story that takes place in space, but rather we are from here, there and nowhere.” Light, for example, is an element that is present from the beginning of the process: “I do not see light as something that comes later, but rather as an element that dialogues with the time of the work and is realized. I think it reflects what fascinates me about the reality of being on stage and dancing: the relationship between the visible and the invisible, the tangible and the immaterial. Thanks to light we see, and at the same time, we cannot touch it. He is an enigmatic presence in the works and is an integral part of the fabric he builds.
When asked about how to produce a play on the independent circuit today, Mazur admitted: “I have no idea how to do it and I don't know how we did it. Sometimes, I had a really bad time because it was very difficult to take. After the first show, I was devastated.” Offering a freelance job for the first time does not mean losing one of your members. I live from what I work, and I do not have a parallel economic reality so I had a huge conflict with dedicating a lot of time that hurts me because I am not 20 years old anymore and today I see a completely different relationship with the activity In the independent circuit, we all become managers by force, but it is painful that it costs a lot. With the experience I have and access to resources, it should be easier but it is very difficult for me, so I think about how people with no experience can do it. With that. Society needs a culture that is alive, investigating, creating and asking questions, but that is constantly diminishing because we cannot pay for gas.. “The cultural sector feels this and so does the entire country.”
*the pit It can be seen on Saturdays at 8pm at Espacio Callejón (Humahuaca 3759). Tickets are available for Theatrical alternative.
