TODOS CANÍBALES (ENGLISH)

Todos CanĂ­bales

an experimental opera

“ (...) We are all cannibals. After all, the simplest way to identify oneself with the Other is still to eat him” Claude Lévi-Strauss

CREW

Voice, live illustration: Christian Fernández Mirón Dance, live illustration: Roberto Martínez Nou Ensemble Cello: Myriam García Contrabass clarinet: David Romero-Pascual Electric guitar: Jose Pablo Polo Electric violin, live electronics: Fran MM Cabeza de Vaca Videosynth: voluble.net Lighting design and technical direction: Benito Jiménez Set Design: Roberto Martínez Cannibal Table: Ebanistería Wood Good Graphic Design: Pablo Alvar Martínez Tattoo: Ignacio Abadín Photography: Rocío Ballesteros, Antonio-Diniz Almeida, Julio Albarrán Teaser: Francisco Cuéllar Original texts: Raúl Alonso Other texts: Fee Reega, Issei Sagawa, Armin Meiwes, Claude Lévi-Strauss Concept and direction: Fran MM Cabeza de Vaca.

W

e admire great explorers. Those whose lips break open in the cold, whose limbs go numb and freeze at a height of eight thousand metres, but who human like us, return with the tale of an adventure that could be our own: having been where others could not reach. We don’t care that the cost is so high, nor do we question the mental health of these sacrificed emisaries.

But let us now turn our gaze towards the reverse of those great heights, the dark and slithery shadow that humanity casts on itself in the opposite direction. In such a place lie also those who, moved by a similar spirit of conquest entrenched in an uncharted drain of the spirit, decide to undertake (or simply do so) a journey to those other places where most also do not reach. Territories fenced by dementia (that intermitent and imprecise mental state), by boundaries of anxiety and barriers

of solitude and self-destruction. They are the exporers of the abyss, taking this term by Vila-Matas further into its meaning. Those who also bring back the testimony of their deed, often in the form of poems, songs, paintings or photographs.

The metaphoric dimension of cannibalism, from Christian Communion to the sociological references by Levi-Strauss or the cannibal manifesto of artistic modernism in Brasil, is no more than a holographic projection that has been drawn for centuries from the history of true cannibalism, a tale charged with superstitions and imagery itself. Observed with infinite curiosity and strangeness by the social sciences and anthropology, it’s path is as wide as that of humanity itself, beginning with Homo Antecessor’s ancestral gastronomy or the ritualistic man-eating of many American tribes (the Guaranis, Anasazis, Aztecs), Africa or New Guinea, and reaching and indulgent mediatic admiration in certain extreme situations

(such as the crashed 571 flight over the Andes) in which survival depended on the consumption of human meat.

In the year 2008 spanish television TVE aired the documentary “Interview with a cannibal” which featured the man known as The Rothenburg Cannibal. I became shocked by the story of these two real characters: Armin Meiwes, a cannibal forged through childhood traumas, maternal repression and sadistic obsessions that spoke coldly of his project for romantic union. And even more interesting: Bernd Jüngen Brandes, a masochist that ended his obsession in an extreme plan of macabre script and spooky staging (everything was recorded on video; the jury was incapable of watching).

Two beings who, like both sides of a single drama, like twin particles of matter-antimatter, like gloomy phantasmagoric versions of one doppelgänger... turned their encounter into a destructive point of no return.

I realised this story could become, not free of certain risks, an excellent dramatic context to investigate the emotional underground mentioned earlier, to try and leave a testimony of those abbysal experiences. A search that had begun musically in works such as “Scratch” (2009, for ensemble and electronics) with texts

by Louise Bourgeois, “El cielo bajo tierra” (“The sky under the earth”, 2010, for ensemble) with texts by Dostoievsky or, digging deeper into given territory, “Underground” (2010, for ensemble and electronics) with texts by Leopoldo María Panero, Thomas Bernhard and photographer David Nebreda, true explorers of the abyss. Later, in July 2011, I had the chance of engaging in the exhibition “Alles Kabbinalen?” in Me Collectors Room Gallery, Berlin (curated by Jeanette Zwingenberger, a co-production with La Maison Rouge, Paris) and connect with a vast diversity of approaches by many artists to the anthropological and aesthetic phenomenon of cannibalism from diffe-

rent points of view, perspectives and artistic techniques. The foundations of our project continued growing, enriched with powerful thoughts and images that were begging to be translated into sounds, to be taken to a stage, be danced, given a voice.

Difficult to describe (contemporary opera, electro-acoustic live music, vocal improvisation, action painting, contemporary dance, spoken word, online project / net art, theatrical music, audiovisual installation...), this project aims to leave a sublimated testimony of the exploration pursued by these extreme beings. Be them mad, mentally ill or subversive and guided by a wild and unconscious telluric root to our animal spirit.

Without fear (or with all fears) and without prejudice, we will try to view cannibalism as another profile of our complex history, that of a humankind who has turned its worst fears into reality, those already shown in childrens stories, in mythology or so many other forbidden chronicles. But

also a metaphoric canvas to write about everything that connects us to them, our damned journey companions. Of what humanity lies in their striking acts and what cannibal we hide in ourselves. For we are born and feed from another body, we are blessed with the transubstantiation of bread into meat and wine into blood, we love biting and scratching the skin of those who love us and drinking their cells as a gesture of complete surrender. But we also devour each other with wild social behaviours, every day we are bombed by mediatic exhibitions of bodies as attraction to consumerism and we participate tamely in a society ruled by economic and political games of depredation amongst equals.

Resigned, we shamefully accept what others simply took past the frontier that separates us from the precipice: that we are all cannibals.

Madrid, November 2011.

Fran MM Cabeza de Vaca

“ (...) The High Court of Frankfurt sentenced Armin Meiwes, also known as “the Rothenburg Cannibal”, to life imprisonment for the murder, dismemberment and partial eating of another man. (...) The Frankfurt Regional Court considered that Armin Meiwes had murdered Bernd Jürgen Brandes from Berlin, whom he met through an Internet chatroom, for sexual reasons on March 10, 2001, later eating some parts of his body. (...) The cannibal first detached the penis from his victim and fried it in a pan so they could both eat it together, as Brandes requested. When he was agonising, Meiwes finished Brandes off with a knife, disemboweling and dismembering him to later bury several body parts in the back yard, storing others in the freezer for consumption in the following days. Meiwes could not be sentenced for cannibalism as this practice was not stated as a crime in Germany. (...)”

El Mundo, 9/Mayo/2006

Fran M.M. Cabeza de Vaca

MUSIC F

ran M.M. Cabeza de Vaca is a composer. He studied a Degree in Composition at Conservatorio Superior Rafael Orozco de Córdoba and at Conservatorio Superior de Música de Aragón with José María Sánchez-Verdú. He also studied electro-acoustic composition with Alberto Bernal at Aula de Músicas Experimentales, Madrid. He has premiered instrumental and electro-acoustic music in several national festivals (Temporada CDMC-Auditorio 400 at MNCA Reina Sofía, ENSEMS Valencia, Festival de Música Española de Cádiz, CGAC Santiago de Composela) as well as international festivals (Festival de Mérida in Mexico, Festival de Orford in Canada, Foro Internacional de Música Nueva in Mexico DF). He has participated as a composer and musician in several stage performances, collaborating with choreographers such as Muchelle Man, Guillermo Weickert, Fernando Lima or María Cabeza de Vaca, works seen in national and international festivals (Festival de Otoño de Madrid, feSt de Sevilla). Among other audiovisual works, three documentary feature films with José Luis Tirado can be highlighted (among them, the documentary opera Paisaje de Retroprogreso), as well as his permanent active participation in the audiovisual collective ZEMOS98. He also directed the stage performance Veo una Voz, with actress Ana Barcia. https://soundcloud.com/fran-mm-cabeza-de-vaca

ORIGINAL

TEXT Raúl Alonso R

aul Alonso (Córdoba, 1975) has a degree in Philosophy from the UNED and Diploma in Programming, Postgraduate taught by the Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, University of Alicante.

He has authored a number of research articles on Aesthetics and Social Anthropology published in academic journals and the media, and is part of the editorial team of the journal History and Genealogy of the University of Cordoba, and Links of History, University of Castilla -La Mancha.

He is also author of the bilingual critical edition of the Libre dels tres reys d’orient, and updated editions of the Book of friend and loved, Ramon Llull, the novel Zanoni, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, and adaptation current Castilian works of St. Teresa of Jesus Book of life and Way of Perfection, and the Treaty of prayer and meditation by San

Pedro de Alcántara, the latter in collaboration with Rafael Antunez. All these titles are published in Editorial Cántico.

The poetry of Alonso displays in notebooks My Kiss (Journal of the Minotaur, 1997), a new music press (A paper on water, 1998), with Juan Antonio Bernier and Eduardo Chivite, and Decomposition (Journal of the Minotaur , 1998), and books The Plague (Follas Novas, 2000), Book of Disasters (DVD Editions, 2002); Bodhisattva Love (Hyperion, 2004)

and The Plague [remastered] (Editorial Cántico, 2012).

It is part of the artistic team of electronic opera All cannibals, composed and directed

by Fran MM Cabeza de Vaca, as the author of the original texts. In his writings and adds an intense cultural activist, organizing independent literary cycles. His work has been included in several anthologies, and has the distinction of I Young Poetry Prize Radio 3, RNE, and Ricardo Molina Cordoba City Award.

“Only Cannibalism unites us. Socially. Economically.

Philosophically. The unique law of the world. The disguised expression of all individualisms, all collectivisms.

Of all religions. Of all peace treaties�

Cannibal Manifesto, (Brazilwood Manifesto), 1928 Oswald de Andrade

Christian Fernández Mirón

VOICE, INTERPRETATION, LIVE DRAWING

C

hristian Fernández Mirón is a vocalist devoted to experimentation and improvisation. He focuses his search on the potential of extended voice and body, moving between the lyrical and the experimental, from the familiar grounds of pop music to wild and untamed abstraction.

Captivated by free improvisation, he has conducted ensembles and FOCO orchestra, as well as organised the conducted improvisation project Conductions, where the audience is shown the basic system of this gestural process and invited to generate a piece from their neophyte position (Studio Banana, 2008; Actividarte -special for children-, 2009; CA2M, 2010). A workshop by Chefa Alonso in 2005 opened a world of possibilities and put him in touch with the local improvisation scene of Madrid. New collaborations arose as vocalist for FOCO orchestra (La Casa Encendida, Palau de la Música, La Casa de los Jacintos, Alabanda). Also the duo Tur Tur el Gigante alongside Nathaniel Robin Mann of Dead Rat Orchestra (UK) aimed towards exploring intimate and

profound sounds and scenes, exploiting the smallest resources with their voices, bodies and objects.

In parallel to his passion towards improvisation, Christian develops the experimental pop project Sef, which has played a vast array of concerts in unusual formats, from a hair salon to an old gymnasium or a seven hundred seat theatre.

In parallel to music, he also works as an artist, curator and educator. Amongst his latest projects: the co-curating of Terraza Matadero (Matadero Madrid), a three-month summer arts festival, co-curating of Reformance (CA2M - Picnic Sessions), the recycled performance festival, the synesthetic investigation workshop Dibujo y Sonido as part of Proyecto9 (Sala de Arte Joven) or the latest editions of Conciertos Mínimos, a series of musical encounters around the concepts of intimacy and collectivity organised by ¡JA!, collective founded by himself and Rocío Ballesteros. www.fernandezmiron.com

Roberto Martínez

DANCE, INTERPRETATION, LIVE DRAWING R

oberto Martínez obtained his degree in Fine Arts at UPV Bilbao. He discovered contemporary dance with Idoia Zabaleta, continuing his training with the post-graduate course Contemporary Dance in Sevilla’s CAD and expanding his choreographic background at CDC, Toulouse. His personal work revolves around the peforming arts, exploring the use of dance, paint and illustration, always in close collaboration with musician Pablo Peña, in charge of creating and performing the music of his creations. “El pintor y la modelo” or “Gala Fantoche” are some of his highlighted works. He has been a member of sevillian collective Mopa, developed many collaborations with artists and companies, both national and international, both as a dancer, performer, set designer, art director, assistant director, choreographer, illuminator or costume designer.

His latest collaborations link him with Abraham Hurtado, with whom he has developed installations and video creations or Francisco Camacio/EIRA with whom he creative “Andiamo!”, his stage work for 2012.

Foto: Luis Castilla

“Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.

Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.�

John 6:48-58

NOU ENSEMBLE

N

ou Ensemble is an instrumental group resident in Mallorca. It is composed of young musicians focused on the interpretation of repertoire from the XXth and XXIst centuries. Since it was established in 2009, Nou Ensemble has performed in more than 40 concerts around Spain and Europe, in prestigious festivals and concert halls such as the National Music Auditorium in Madrid, VI Smash Festival in Salamanca, Bernaola Festival 2011 in Vitoria, XVIII Contemporary Music Days in Segovia and IX Spanish Music Festival in Cádiz. It is also the resident group of the Encontre Internacional de Compositors Festival in Mallorca and organizes

the Rémora Concert Series, noted for the importance placed on scenic dimensions and thematic coherence of its projects.

Nou Ensemble´s commitment to contemporary music is visible through the various premieres it has performed by composers such as José María Sánchez-Verdú, Marisa Manchado, Xavier Carbonell, and Anthony Bonner. Since 2010, Nou Ensemble is the resident group of the Carmelo Bernaola Composition Prize, supporting young Spanish composers’ new creations. Nou Ensemble usually works with soloists and conductors such as Jean Pierre Dupuy, Francesc Prat, Andrés Salado, Ricardo Descalzo, Avelina Vidal, Ekkehard Windrich

MUSICIANS

DAVID

ROMERO-PASCUAL 1983, Soria (Spain). He began his musical studies of clarinet when he was eight years old. In 2006 he was graduated as Superior Clarinet Professor obtaining the highest grades.

Later, he was specialized in contemporary music for bass clarinet.

Now, he is totally immersed in the contemporary music’s world and interdisciplinary projects, working with professional composers, dancers and musicians from around the world. Always looking for new resour-

ces of the sound with instruments like contra-bass clarinet, electric clarinet and the new technologies. Also he is interested in other styles of music like mediterranean folk music, Jazz and free improvisation playing tenor and alto saxophone.

He has played in the most prestigious halls of Spain, Germany, Holland and China, joined different professional symphony orchestras, chamber music groups, contemporary ensembles and like a soloist.

He was principal clarinet of the Youth Symphony Orchestra Euskal Herria (EGO) in the Basque Country (Spain) and was bass clarinet player in The World Orchestra (TWO).

Actually, he is principal clarinet of NOU ENSEMBLE (Ensemble of Contemporary Music), he is immersed in a new project about Eric Dolphy’s life and teach clarinet in the Professional Conservatory of Music in Burgos (Spain).

Myriam

García Fidalgo

S

he was born in Ávila in 1982. After graduating in 2005 in the Conservatorio Superior of Salamanca, she attended a specialization course at the ESMUC (Barcelona) with Professor Damián Martínez. After that, she moved to Austria, studying at the Anton Bruckner Universität in Linz with Professor Andreas Pözlberger, obtaining in 2011 the Master of Arts with honors. 2013, she obtained, also with honors, the Master “Performance

Practice in Contemporary Music” at the University of Graz under the guidance of Klangforum Wien.

Especially interested in contemporary music, she has participated in courses such as Impuls Akademie Graz, the Ensemble-Akademie Freiburg (with the Ensemble Recherche) , Acanthes and the Ensemble Modern Akademie, and has participated in Festivals like Musikprotokoll Graz, Klangspuren Schwaz, Festival de Lucena, Festival Escena Contemporánea Madrid... As a chamber music player, she has performed in Italy, Austria, Spain and South-Korea. As a solist, she has performed “Eros” (Luis de Pablo) and “Berge . Träume” (Klaus Lang). She has been an assistant teacher in the Lucena International Course of Music and the Nova Orquesta Galega das Artes.

She is member of Ensemble Zeitfluss (Graz) and Nou Ensemble.

JOSE PABLO POLO

M

adrid, 1984. Composer, improviser and guitar performer. His time is divided between two principal activities: contemporary repertoire performing (soloist, Nou Ensemble, Ex Corde Guitar Quartet) and composing for many ensembles and soloists.

He has performed in several festivals and concert halls such as LVII Festival Internacional de Música de Granada, IX Festival Nei Suoni de Luoghi (Italy, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Albania), VII Festival Lent (Slovenia), II Festival Internacional de Música de LLeida, IX Ciclo de Jóvenes Intérpretes Auditorio Conde Duque, Auditorio Nacional de Música de Madrid, XXX y XXXIEn-

contre de Compositors, XVIII Jornadas de Música Contemporánea de Segovia, Festival Bernaola 2011, VI Festival Smash, XIV Festival Internacional Zemos98, XIII Festival Escena Contemporánea…

His works have been performed at the Auditorio Nacional de Música de Madrid, XXXI Festival Internacional de Segovia, VIII Ciclo de Música Contemporánea de Valladolid, XIII Ciclo de Música de Cámara RTVE, IX Festival de Música Española de Cádiz, Auditori Enric Granados de Lleida, Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, XXXIII Encontre Internacional de Compositors, Fundación Juan March, Festival Rémora/2, Fundaçao Eugénio

de Almeida (Portugal) by performers as Jean-Pierre Dupuy, Taller Sonoro, Nou Ensemble, Sebastián Mariné, Avelina Vidal, Carles Herráiz, Miguel Romea, RTVE Choir, Per Sonare Duo, Tempus Fugit Saxophone Quartet, Zobel Duo… He develops his creative work from sound-investigation and improvisation with “non-musical material” such as parasitic noises, tuners, toy instruments, non-conventional instruments, non-conventional spaces... These ones are used to develop new perceptive connections between instrument, performer and audience. www.josepablopolo.com

“You devour me and I devour you: he who is devoured first loses.

I am a hungry cannibal like most cannibals are” Casi todos los caníbales, Fee Reega

VOLUBLE.NET voluble.net

unites Benito Jiménez and Pedro Jiménez, specialised in creating and producing political remix videos, showing the value of improvisation, the mixture of saturation (with intentional explosive value) and great visual humor.

They belong to the first Mexican net.label Música para Espías and are both part of ZEMOS98.

Since 1996 the have presented live audiovisual works in festivals such as Freestyle (Barcelona), borderhack (Tijuana / San Diego), IFI (Vigo), ZEMOS98 (Sevilla), Zèppelin (Barcelona), How latitudes become forms (Minneapolis), Fadaiat (Tarifa /Tanger), Arterial (Huelva), Contemporary Art Centre (Rusia) and Casa Invisible (Málaga).

LIGHTING DESIGN AND TECHNICAL DIRECTION

B

ENITO JIMÉNEZ is a freelancer working as lighting designer and technician for drama and dance companies as well as flamenco and music bands. He has taken part of digital art exhibitions and architectonical projects (Over the Game, Cultura VJ) and is one of the co-founders of ZEMOS98 working as technical director of its annual Festival since 1998. He has also coordinated projects like Escena Mobile, Intervenciones en Jueves, Vulgaris-arte, Endanza, ZEMOS98 Gestión Creativo Cultural, Eutopía y radarq.net as a technician.

He has been working on voluble.net since 1996, an art collective that develops and publishes sound and audiovisual mix projects, installations and laptop music, with whom he has participated in festivals and exhibitions like Walker ART center (Minneapolis), Borderhack (Tijuana/SanDiego), Transacciones/Fadaiat 04 (Tarifa/Tánger), Klubradio.com (Berlin), Música para Espías (Mexico DF), MNAC (Moscow).

PRODUCTION SUPPORT ZEMOS98 ZEMOS98 is a team of cultural workers.

We try to create critical thinking, we try to deconstruct the mass-media messages, we try to weave networks, relationships and communities. We try to work in the intersections and margins. We try to work (g) locally, behind the borders. We try to take care of our networks and we try to reuse and remix all of our contents. We try to organize a Festival every year and we try to create a New Media Laboratory called 98LAB to learn about this things.

So, basically, we try things. www.zemos98.org

TRES, SERVEIS CULTURALS Tres. Serveis Culturals is a company engaged in the management of cultural projects.

From the beginning, we have carried out activities related to culture and education.

In addition to managing our own projects, we organize, plan and produce all kinds of public and private projects.

We have always enjoyed research and we eagerly look for new experiences. This is why we’ve created #espaideformacio3 (http://espaideformacio3.wordpress.com), a common research space, where we analyze, share and discuss cultural projects and experiences that will lead to new ways to culture. www.tres-sc.net

“A work of art is the result of having been in danger, of having gone to the extreme of an experience that no man can overcome” Rainer María Rilke

TEXTS IN ENGLISH, GERMAN AND SPANISH. APPROXIMATE DURATION 60 MINUTES.

Todos Caníbales www.todoscanibales.org info@todoscanibales.org +34 664 014 652

TODOS CANÍBALES is produced by Nou Ensemble and ZEMOS98, with the collaboration of endanza - espacio vivo, caS (centro de artes de Sevilla) and Encontre Internacional de Compositors (Fundación ACA)

CON TACT