#19
Performative action at the Born Centre de Cultura i Memòria.

19 June 2019

The Born Centre de Cultura i Memòria first contacted the ICUB and later the Antic Teatre as it was interested in collaborating with the In Residence programme and the Antic Teatre. They understood that they shared some common ground that could facilitate collaboration, including: sharing the same territory or neighbourhood and having a common interest in working on historical memory. It was here that Txalo Toloza and Laida Azkona were in tune with Born CCM, as both had been aiming to (re)write history and shed light on events that History (with a capital “H”) had never explained. This is the case with the colonialism, exploitation and the annihilation of territories and communities in Chile and Argentina — Extraños mares arden (2016) and Tierras del sur (2018), Azkona-Toloza.

The presentation was held at the Antic Teatre on 31 May and on 1 June.
The two performances of the piece #19 took place on 31 May and 1 June. We suggested giving the performances at 8 pm and during our usual timetable as the aim was to bring normality to the piece and make it public not just to families but also to local residents and the Antic Teatre's other audience communities. Attendance on both days reached 80%, despite the fact that some of the family members could not come.

The students had dinner at the Antic Teatre on both those days, with a meal service provided by Sindillar/Sindihogar (household carers’ union), its headquarters being in the Centre de Cultura de Dones Francesca Bonnemaison, a facility fairly close to our space. The show was recorded and a photo report made which was subsequently sent to the Institut Pau Claris’s tutors.

The most flattering comments from the audience groups attending came, obviously, from the family members but above all from the neighbourhood’s local residents. Some of them were linked to the associations and others not.