Wednesday 8 June 2016

Bucket Dramaturgy: Nir Paldi @ Edfringe 2016

Bucket List
WORLD PREMIERE
Pleasance Dome, Queen Dome, 3rd – 29th Aug 2016 (not 16th & 23rd), 3.50pm (5.20pm)
The internationally acclaimed Theatre Ad Infinitum bring to life the epic tale of one Mexican woman’s fight for justice. 

Created following conversations with close collaborator Vicky Araico Casas, Bucket List tells the story of Milagros, a Mexican orphan girl. 

When her mother is murdered for protesting corporate and governmental corruption, Milagros finds herself with only a bloodstained list of those responsible. Determined to make them pay, Milagros embarks on a passionate quest for justice - no matter the cost.

Nir Paldi (Director)  

How did you go about gathering the team for it?
The entire team except for our designer is compiled of artists with whom we’ve worked before. Ad Infinitum uses a very specific way of making work that is quite challenging both on the body, as the work is very physical, and in terms of the levels of creativity expected from everyone. We create through a long devising process in which everyone must chip-in with ideas and propositions. 

The work always looks at big political themes that we all feel passionate about so things get heated sometimes. We are very honest and direct, and the rehearsal room can switch from us bursting out laughing one second to tears a second later. The general atmosphere in the room is exposing and emotive and at the same time for this to work everyone needs to feel free to be themselves. That’s why I like working with the same people for years and years. We get one another and everything is in place to start working. 

Having said that, it’s always very refreshing when we get someone new on board. It makes you articulate the way you work and rethink it.  

How did you become interested in making performance?
There isn’t a particular moment in my life in which I decided to be a theatre maker. I always wanted to be one even before I knew how to give it a name. But by my early twenties I was already able to imagine running an independent theatre company.  

Was your process typical of the way that you make a performance?
Very much so. It’s a long process of periods of devising in the room and sharing the work in progress with an audience and gathering their feedback. We expose the work at very early stages and we bring the audience into the making of the piece. 

Following a period of devising I spend time rewriting the text and coming up with ideas for staging, working with designers until we come back into rehearsal. Bucket List was made over fifteen weeks of devising (and many more hours of creation spent working on Bucket List outside the rehearsal room).

What do you hope that the audience will experience?
We always try to take a theme and conjure its complexity in the space. We want the audience to go through a journey in which, like the characters, they feel conflicted and witness the complexity of the subject at hand. Things are not black and white. There are many grey areas and we constantly need to navigate our way through them. We also always try to make our performances thrilling and completely engrossing. 

What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?
Working in a room full of contemporary, critically thinking artists and exposing the work to audiences and integrating their feedback into the making process. Working in this way helps make sure that the theme you want to look at is actually being dealt with properly and that the piece is exciting and never boring.  

Do you see your work within any particular tradition?
Around 90 percent of the artists we work with have been trained at the Lecoq School in Paris. The pedagogy is at the heart of our theatre making.


Pleasance Dome, Queen Dome, 3rd – 29th Aug 2016 (not 16th & 23rd), 3.50pm (5.20pm)

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