Anna Serrano IN RESiDENCE at the School Montjuïc

“CUANDO HAGO ESTE EJERCICIO ME DAN GANAS DE SOLTARLO TODO EN ESTE PAPEL”

THEATRE PROJECT

The theatre director Anna Serrano's aim behind this residence project was to create a space where the students and she herself could contribute everything they knew and discover everything they did not know of the performing arts. A space where they could investigate new ways of approaching the theatre by developing their own language. The intention was

to use the theatre as a channel through which everyone could speak and express themselves. To enable all the participants, herself included, to be irrational and very intuitive. To be able to play with images, songs, non-theatre texts, films, Instagram and anything that came up along the way. The residence was set out as an experiment not just for the students but also for her. The first months, from September to December, were a period of getting to know one another: Anna, the students, the teachers and the Teatre Lliure as well. They were also months during which attempts were made to establish work routines that would get the work off the ground. So in the first few months, Ana presented her work as a director so that the students could see her unconventional theatre style, especially with regard to the positioning of the audience and the relationship between the spectators and the show. During their shows, the two groups entered a common space which they shared under equal conditions. There was no difference between the audience’s space and the actors’ space. On the other hand, she established a work route. Sessions were divided into two stages: the first involved warm-ups, where Anna would propose exercises that were repeated in every session and used for warming up the body, creating a safe space and learnt by the students and, above all, for entering sessions collectively. The second stage would see specific exercises relating to the project Anna wanted to carry out. They were more preparatory exercises at the start; later, specific exercises to create stage material, and finally, more focused on the presentation itself. The school of fish was a very important warm-up exercise. It was an exercise that became a metaphor of the residence: managing to move everyone in an organic and fluid way. It was worked on throughout the course and became a scene in the final presentation.

The first few months saw the students visiting the Teatre Lliure to find out about the facility that was collaborating in the residence and see the number of people and specialist professions behind a theatre production. One of Ana's concerns and objectives throughout the processes was that the students should see the many, varied theatre disciplines and performance languages.

After Christmas, now that the routine was more integrated and the group more confident, Anna was able to start drawing out stage material from the students themselves. Her idea was to end up making a theatre show collectively based on their own experiences. Which was why she made many different suggestions as to where the ideas, information and emotions could be drawn from… With and for the students. Some of these proposals involved: telling a true story and a false story; recounting a dream; playing stage games based on a costume, an image and a personal object; telling a story from mobile images; sketching a personal map of everyone, or doing stage exercises based on all the languages that the group knew how to speak…

Particularly notable during this period was the automatic-writing exercise that was repeated during many of the sessions. After carrying out an exercise, Anna put on music and the students had to write down, without stopping, everything that came to mind. It was a long-awaited moment, as it enabled them to have a private space within the collective creation and there they would really feel free to let their thoughts take off and express themselves. The automatic writing was so important during the process that it became a scene in the final presentation.

The second term saw the group make another important trip: to see a show directed and performed by Anna Serrano. This showed them a lot about her style as a director and her experience with audiences and the students understood many of the things that Anna had been working on with them.

It was during the final part of the residence, above all in the third term, that Anna organised all the material which had cropped up during the course, to establish a script for the public presentation. And the last few months were basically centred on rehearsing and giving shape to this presentation, the theatre show created by everyone.

There were also several trips during the third term. The group went to the Teatre Lliure twice to work on and rehearse their piece in the theatre's facilities. And they also went to the Lliure to see a show recommended by Anna: El temps que estiguem junts.

THE STUDENTS DISCOVER ANNA'S WORK AS A DIRECTOR

It was very important during the residents for the students to get close to and discover the style of Anna's theatre, as it was a far cry from conventional theatre. She posted videos of her shows on several occasions and spoke to the students about how she understood theatre. And the students were also able go to the theatre to see and experience a show directed by Anna, This is Real Love. That was on 1 March at the Sala Beckett.

A group of mothers accompanied the group and they were also able to meet Anna: that was how the residence reached out to the students’ family members. This factor was very positive and important for the school. It was one of the aspects most highlighted by the school.

VISIT TO THE TEATRE LLIURE 11/12/2018

One of Anna’s goals was for the students to see the number of professions and disciplines behind a theatre production. To this end, the guided tour that the students were given of the Lliure's facilities went down very well, seeing that, after they had been welcomed by the theatre's acting director, Clara Rodríguez, they were able to visit all the facilities accompanied by members of staff from the theatre: Maria Rosales, the stage manager, spoke to them about technical organisation on stage; Rai Garcia, the technical director, showed them the control room, the technical storage rooms and the technical mechanism under the seats; Montse Olivella, the head of costumes, explained the whole process for making costumes and showed them the costume workshop and storage room; Olga

Álvarez, the producer, showed them the rehearsal rooms and explained the whole rehearsal and production process for a play, and Ona Campillo, the communication secretary, told them about the entire process that audiences went through, from purchasing a ticket to leaving the theatre, and how they were received by audience-assistance staff.

The students were very impressed by the number of professions involved in a play. And many professional possibilities cropped up in their thoughts.

STUDENT VISIT TO THE TEATRE LLIURE 22/5/2019

Besides going to the Sala Beckett to see This is Real Love, directed by Anna Serrano, the students went to the Teatre Lliure to see the show El temps que estiguem junts, which Anna had recommended. This was a show in a very different style from hers, but created from a similar process to In Residence’s. This enabled the group to see their own process from the outside. El temps que estiguem junts was a creation show directed by Pablo Messiez and performed by actors from La Kompanyia Lliure, a company made up of young actors who, for two years, under the auspices of the Lliure, had been working in a professional environment. The production was a creation show that spoke precisely about time shared by a group of people. The students understood the subject well, given that it corresponded to what they themselves had been experiencing while taking part in the residence.

REHEARSALS AT THE TEATRE LLIURE 7 and 21/5/2019

The two prior rehearsals the students did at the Teatre were also important, as they did them directly in the foyer, the space that Anna Serrano chose for presenting In Residence.