carlus padrissa
DIRECTOR "LA FURA DELS BAUS"
"Nothing can stop art from happening"
Barcelona, 6/05/2020
INFO:
Carlus Padrissa is a founding member of the world famous Catalan theatre group, La Fura dels Baus, which was created in 1979. After many years of performances around the globe, in 1992, together with Alex Ollé he directed a production of Mar Mediterrani, mar Olímpic to music by Ryuichi Sakamoto, which was performed in 1992 at the opening ceremony of the Barcelona Olympic Games. Carlus also directs the artistic activities of The Naumon Ship – an old cargo ship sixty metres long weighing one thousand one hundred tonnes which has been transformed into a cruising contemporary cultural centre. Carlus Padrissa has been creating performances directing theatre pieces, but he has been also directing opera productions in many major operatic scenes around the world, such as Arena di Verona, Odeon Herodes Atticus Athens, Bayerische Staatsoper Munchen, Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence.
Carlus Padrissa is a founding member of the world famous Catalan theatre group, La Fura dels Baus, which was created in 1979. After many years of performances around the globe, in 1992, together with Alex Ollé he directed a production of Mar Mediterrani, mar Olímpic to music by Ryuichi Sakamoto, which was performed in 1992 at the opening ceremony of the Barcelona Olympic Games. Carlus also directs the artistic activities of The Naumon Ship – an old cargo ship sixty metres long weighing one thousand one hundred tonnes which has been transformed into a cruising contemporary cultural centre. Carlus Padrissa has been creating performances directing theatre pieces, but he has been also directing opera productions in many major operatic scenes around the world, such as Arena di Verona, Odeon Herodes Atticus Athens, Bayerische Staatsoper Munchen, Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence.
Olympic Games, Barcelona 1992.
"Naumachia"
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The cover of the book for the 40 years of the group.
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We met back in 2007, when he created the show "Naumachia" in Barcelona. It was an experience I will never forget in my life: Singing opera arias by hanging 30m above the river of Newcastle, or on the top of a huge moving globe, or inside a gigantic clepsydra. And then, a walking giant gave birth to a whole person, right in the middle of the audience. It was a beginning of a new era: A beautiful "Enfant Terrible" entered in the opera world. In the years to come, Carlus together with the team of La Fura dels Baus staged many operatic performances around the world, continuing to create images, impossible to forget. A deeply sensible and gentle man, with eyes full of compassion, humble, creatively nervous, with a strong ecological consciousness, Carlus also possess what we call "the third eye". He is visionary and bold enough to show us on stage his visions of the -sometimes very scary- future. But, he is also sometimes allowing the audience to decide the ending of a story, only to make us all feel that we are capable to change humanity's future, if we decide to do so.
By @kassandra_dimopoulou_official
By @kassandra_dimopoulou_official
This year, your group La Fura dels Baus celebrates 40 years of its creation and there is a new book published.
Yes, and the title of the book is “La Fura dels Baus en Cuarentena” ("The 40 years of La Fura dels Baus") which is a very "funny" game of words because the word "cuarantena" sounds like "quarantine". It is written by art critic Mercè Saumell Vergés and is talking about our group from the beginning till now.
How is it possible that you personally and your group always have been ahead of your time?
I have this quality since I was a little boy. I am born on April 13 (my sign is Aries) and this means that I love to be the first to do things. My quality is to adapt immediately in any new situations. What I am about to say, is a very intimate thing: My mother had a bone disease, it is called "Osteochondromatosis". This disease was making her bones change, for example, she used to work a lot with her right arm and this arm grew fast bigger than the left one. My brother inherited the same thing and he had to do some operations when he was a small boy. I know it is a disease and any disease is considered as a problem, of course , but I always considered it as a quality, too, in sense of a rare capacity of the human body to adapt to changes. Like a mutation, if you like... You know, all living creatures had to change throughout time, in order to adapt to different environments and survive, but these changes took a really, really long time. So, I like to think that this disease of my mother, may as well be a rare quality: a much faster way of the human body to adapt to changes. I didn’t get this disease from my mother, physically, but I sometimes like to think, that I inherited her ability of change and adapt intellectually, in the way I think. I am very good and fast when I have to deal with new situations, new things, when I have to resolve new "problems". I am not as good in repeating things. Our group, La Fura dels Baus, is born like this, in a kind of revolutionary way and we did lots of new things: We performed in “strange” alternative places, where others haven’t performed before, we did new non conventional dramaturgy -in opera as well- but also during the Olympic Games, back in 1992 in Barcelona, where I directed a very different opening which has never happened before. In the beginning, people said “no, this is very different”, but at the end it was very well received and inspired future directors for directing future openings in the Olympic Games.
Yes, and the title of the book is “La Fura dels Baus en Cuarentena” ("The 40 years of La Fura dels Baus") which is a very "funny" game of words because the word "cuarantena" sounds like "quarantine". It is written by art critic Mercè Saumell Vergés and is talking about our group from the beginning till now.
How is it possible that you personally and your group always have been ahead of your time?
I have this quality since I was a little boy. I am born on April 13 (my sign is Aries) and this means that I love to be the first to do things. My quality is to adapt immediately in any new situations. What I am about to say, is a very intimate thing: My mother had a bone disease, it is called "Osteochondromatosis". This disease was making her bones change, for example, she used to work a lot with her right arm and this arm grew fast bigger than the left one. My brother inherited the same thing and he had to do some operations when he was a small boy. I know it is a disease and any disease is considered as a problem, of course , but I always considered it as a quality, too, in sense of a rare capacity of the human body to adapt to changes. Like a mutation, if you like... You know, all living creatures had to change throughout time, in order to adapt to different environments and survive, but these changes took a really, really long time. So, I like to think that this disease of my mother, may as well be a rare quality: a much faster way of the human body to adapt to changes. I didn’t get this disease from my mother, physically, but I sometimes like to think, that I inherited her ability of change and adapt intellectually, in the way I think. I am very good and fast when I have to deal with new situations, new things, when I have to resolve new "problems". I am not as good in repeating things. Our group, La Fura dels Baus, is born like this, in a kind of revolutionary way and we did lots of new things: We performed in “strange” alternative places, where others haven’t performed before, we did new non conventional dramaturgy -in opera as well- but also during the Olympic Games, back in 1992 in Barcelona, where I directed a very different opening which has never happened before. In the beginning, people said “no, this is very different”, but at the end it was very well received and inspired future directors for directing future openings in the Olympic Games.
So, this moment must be very interesting for you!
Yes, I am very excited about what is happening right now, because I see that the future brings lots of new things, in art. You know I am ambidextrous (meaning, someone who writes with both hands) and when I was at school as a young boy, when we where naughty, the teacher made us write a phrase like “I will not speak in the class”, a thousand times and so I took three pencils in one hand and three in the other, and I wrote with both hands, so I was writing six phrases instead of one and this way, I was finishing much faster! I was helping my friends, too! I guess this is my quality, to adapt fast. I also have many defects, for example, I am not very organised.
COVID-19: What do you think is happening right now to the world?
It is certainly a big change and I am sure we will face many more quarantines, this is not the last one. We will all have to adjust to this situation. In our directions of La Fura, we had many stagings showing/ imagining the future, like, for example, “Norma”, where humanity was living on a planet full of plastic waste. Or in our recent staging of Beethoven 6th Symphony. In this case, we let the public decide the end by voting through their Smart Phones. According to their vote, we performed a different ending every time: a different choreography for every case, which was decided at the last moment. If the vote is for “optimistic ending”, it meant that humanity would survive on Earth and humans will adjust somehow to the environment and the changes. If the vote was for “pessimist ending”, then the Earth would go on without humans and only a few humans would survive, escaping to another planet, perhaps Mars. Quarantine has also created something beautiful: the atmosphere is much clearer, now that the aeroplanes don't fly. I can now see the moon so much clearer than before and I must then think of Norma's aria- prayer to the moon: "Casta Diva".
How would art and artists have to adjust to a new era, probably full of quarantines?
The future is, I think, in digital art. We will have to perform on line, in order to adjust to the new situation. More quarantines will happen, we cannot stop being artists because of that. We can use new technology, like 3D, to create digital scenery. We can rehears on line and perform on line, if we have to. Artists from all over the world can unite and create small things at first, like small theatre pieces, or chamber operas, later bigger. It’s already happening. Nothing can stop art from happening. The audience will have to pay something to watch, of course, we have to make money, too. The money will not be much at first, but we have to make it happen.
Future projects?
We are currently composing a new opera called "Sphaera Mundi", because in 2022 it will be 500 years since many European sailors started sailing around the world. After such a long time, we have not yet assimilated that, if we want to overcome pandemics like COVID-19, we will all have to "row" in the same direction, because in this life, we all "travel" in the same "boat".
Art is…
Art can be everything for me and everything can be art, if we are capable to create and transform our daily lives into small artworks.
Yes, I am very excited about what is happening right now, because I see that the future brings lots of new things, in art. You know I am ambidextrous (meaning, someone who writes with both hands) and when I was at school as a young boy, when we where naughty, the teacher made us write a phrase like “I will not speak in the class”, a thousand times and so I took three pencils in one hand and three in the other, and I wrote with both hands, so I was writing six phrases instead of one and this way, I was finishing much faster! I was helping my friends, too! I guess this is my quality, to adapt fast. I also have many defects, for example, I am not very organised.
COVID-19: What do you think is happening right now to the world?
It is certainly a big change and I am sure we will face many more quarantines, this is not the last one. We will all have to adjust to this situation. In our directions of La Fura, we had many stagings showing/ imagining the future, like, for example, “Norma”, where humanity was living on a planet full of plastic waste. Or in our recent staging of Beethoven 6th Symphony. In this case, we let the public decide the end by voting through their Smart Phones. According to their vote, we performed a different ending every time: a different choreography for every case, which was decided at the last moment. If the vote is for “optimistic ending”, it meant that humanity would survive on Earth and humans will adjust somehow to the environment and the changes. If the vote was for “pessimist ending”, then the Earth would go on without humans and only a few humans would survive, escaping to another planet, perhaps Mars. Quarantine has also created something beautiful: the atmosphere is much clearer, now that the aeroplanes don't fly. I can now see the moon so much clearer than before and I must then think of Norma's aria- prayer to the moon: "Casta Diva".
How would art and artists have to adjust to a new era, probably full of quarantines?
The future is, I think, in digital art. We will have to perform on line, in order to adjust to the new situation. More quarantines will happen, we cannot stop being artists because of that. We can use new technology, like 3D, to create digital scenery. We can rehears on line and perform on line, if we have to. Artists from all over the world can unite and create small things at first, like small theatre pieces, or chamber operas, later bigger. It’s already happening. Nothing can stop art from happening. The audience will have to pay something to watch, of course, we have to make money, too. The money will not be much at first, but we have to make it happen.
Future projects?
We are currently composing a new opera called "Sphaera Mundi", because in 2022 it will be 500 years since many European sailors started sailing around the world. After such a long time, we have not yet assimilated that, if we want to overcome pandemics like COVID-19, we will all have to "row" in the same direction, because in this life, we all "travel" in the same "boat".
Art is…
Art can be everything for me and everything can be art, if we are capable to create and transform our daily lives into small artworks.
