MEMORIES
OF A LULLABY
-
the need to remember and the wish to forget -
Scotland
Premiere of Brighton Fringe Bursary WINNER show at Refugee Festival Scotland!
Memories
of a Lullaby – the need to remember and the wish to forget - is
a one-woman show about Saras' experience growing up in Venezuela. It draws from
multiple true experiences in order to reveal the constant tension between
horror and beauty, desperation and hope. This performance explores how
socio-political conditions shape us as individuals, while attempting to give a
perspective on how reality differs greatly depending on where we are
born/raised in the world.
Saras
skillfully combines storytelling, physical political theatre and visual art
elements to give a full-on, yet tender show by a performer with first-hand
experience of the events she portrays. At the end of
the show, not only will we have travelled through 25 years of history, but
also, a 2meters painting will have been created.
“The piece has the ability to
touch audiences deeply” Tim Licata – Plutot la Vie Artistic
Director
What
was the inspiration for this performance?
To be able to share my personal story which I had
to hide within myself for so long. I could not hold anymore the pain inside
myself created by the tension between the terror I experienced while living in
Venezuela: the sound of gunshots I could hear every night, the corruption I
witnessed, the ever-present fear that death was around the corner; alongside
the beauty of the land I come from, my family, my friends and the constant sun!
For many years, I was unable to talk openly about
these experiences, even with my closest friends. However, two years ago I felt
the need to open it all up, and felt ready to share it with others. I wanted to
create something beautiful from my memories and to share them from an honest
place.
At first it was a personal show, but soon it
became universal, touching the experiences of many people around the world
currently undergoing similar situations.
Memories of a Lullaby – the need to remember and
the wish to forget - not only - has
allowed me to understand more about the unimaginable situation that people in
Venezuela are experiencing but also, it is giving me the opportunity to inform
audiences about it.
Throughout the piece, I combine three art forms: storytelling,
physical theatre and visual arts, as I am creating a large scale painting
during the show. Bringing
many different colours and emotions into one place, I realised that this show
started because I wanted to share and heal my own past experiences about my upbringing
but now, I feel I have become the bottle that has crossed many waters, walked
many soils and this show is the message contained inside it.
How
did you go about gathering the team for it?
I have been working on this show for the last two years, and have
gathered an exceptional team, joining my process in its different stages of
development of the show:
Firstly, I worked with: Yael Karavan, director/creative advisor - The Karavan Ensemble. I
met Yael couple of years ago in Edinburgh. That time, I was working on a little
piece with two other artists and Yael came to mentor us for one day. I really
liked her way of working and her thinking so few weeks later I emailed her with
this project and she was happy to join me as my director/creative advisor.
She has really helped me to bring out these experiences from my past,
exploring the material I have inside in order to create these piece. She has
also been very respectful to the material as well as my vision for the show and
its message.
Then, Gavin Taylor, composer/musician join in. I have worked with Gavin previously on my
other solo show Blooming Surprise - a story about loneliness, hope and love. I
really enjoyed working with him so I invited him to create a very special
bespoke track for one of the most important parts of the piece.
I have also reconnected with my ex-classmate a talented feminist
philosopher Marelis Loreto Amoretti who has written philosophical articles for
me about Venezuelan situation but also about certain subjects I was exploring:
they helped me understand more myself as well as the fact that, to some extent,
I am the result of a rotten society.
This process has made us very close now and I feel, her words have become a very important part on the understanding of Venezuela’s current difficult situation.
This process has made us very close now and I feel, her words have become a very important part on the understanding of Venezuela’s current difficult situation.
Luis Perez Valero, Venezuelan composer/musician, has been the last
artist to join the team! He has created a very powerful sound track that I use
in the most significant moments of the show.
How
did you become interested in making performance?
I always had a passion for the arts!
In fact, I asked my mum the other day if I always
was an artist… “does painting on the walls count?” she said.
Since I was 8 years old, I remember sitting with
my grandmother either knitting, or making some crafts, or I would be drawing.
At 16, I was studying philosophy at Central
University of Venezuela. When I was 18, I took a break to go and study Fashion
Design: I graduated cum laude and soon became the fashion designer at Indiani – a Venezuelan label – while
running my own label Bjaki. When I
became fashion teacher at the institute I graduated from, I came back to finish
my Philosophy studies at the university.
I was 25 years old when I saw my first ever
theatre clown show!!! Con las Alas
Despiertas (With Awaken Wings) by Victor Stivelman. I still remember it.
I was sitting in the first row, “glued” to the
seat and totally terrified when the theatre clown artist came towards the
audience… I was thinking “not me please, not me!!!!”
At the end of the show, I thought: “I want to be
a theatre clown artist!”. I loved the depth, beauty, honesty, transparency and
playfulness of the piece.
At the time, I was writing my philosophy
dissertation based on Beatrice Longuenesse's book: Kant and the Capacity to
Judge. I was still working on my small clothes label Bjaki. However, I join a
clown workshop with Victor Stivelman, the theatre clown deviser, performer and
director of Con las Alas Despiertas and after few weeks of training I created
my first solo-clown piece as well as a duet with a lovely clown called Leonardo
Sivira. We performed at Clownerias –
an event with pieces created during Victor's workshops.
After performing at that event, I left everything
behind to become a theatre clown artist. Three months later, I was part of a
theatre clown group premiering our show Lapsus: Deslices Extra-ordinarious at
the Aleph in Pasto, Colombia and touring it as part of International Theatre
Festival at Cali, Popayan and Pasto.
I now also work with physical/visual theatre,
storytelling, dance, immersive installations as well as continuing with my
visual art practice.
Additionally, I have created CloWnStePPinG
– a hub to further the understanding, promotion and development of theatre
clown as an art.
Was
your process typical of the way that you make a performance?
Yes, and no.
Yes, because I always make performance based on
my own experiences, beliefs and knowledge.
No, because, perhaps, this is the first time I
invited a director to help me shape my show from the very beginning stages. It
is also the first time I work with a philosopher!
However, I can intuitively, say that my approach
to create anything changes in every moment. As my good friend will say so
accurately in his latest book: “those who live fully constantly change, they
are never the same”.
What
do you hope that the audience will experience?
Hope! To be able to appreciate a reality that
many in the world experience daily and yet, continue to move forward.
For me that Hope - to some extent - resides in
art and that has helped me to heal some deep wounds, allowing me to speak my
truth through my work.
As well as that, this show - in itself- would be
the hope at the end of the tunnel that possibly the Venezuelan people cannot
yet see... and for our audiences, it would hopefully be an eye opener to this
unimaginably tough reality.
Do
you see your work within any particular tradition?
Possibly part
of experimental multidisciplinary theatre.
What
Saras has to say about the show:
During
the show, I talk about my family, my friends, the sun warming my skin, the time
I was kidnapped by corrupt police, the dead body I saw through my bathroom
window when I was 8. Emphasizing the constant battle between the memories I
wish to remember and the ones I feel the need to forget. I recreate the beauty
of the landscapes, the lively Latin rhythms while at the same time the deaths
that can occur from simply using a mobile phone in public places. Reminiscing
my lullabies made out of gunshots through the nights.
There
is an exploration of Venezuela's unimaginable situation nowadays: the lack of
food, medicines supplies and the constant and never-ending fear and struggles
they experience daily.
“The
combination of visual art and spoken and visual narrative helped vividly to
created a strong, multi-layered powerful and moving picture of your own life
experience” Simon Hart – Manipulate Festival Director.
Refugee Festival Scotland
After each show there will be a Q&A session and Silent Auction of the Painting with some of the proceeds to go to a Refugee Charity.
Venue: Scottish Storytelling Centre
43-45 High St, Edinburgh EH1 1SR
Time: 19:30
Running Time: 110min -including Q&A and silent auction
Dates: 15th & 16th June.
Venue: Borders Book Festival
Harmony House/St. Marys Rd, Melrose TD6 9LJ
Time: 19:30
Dates: 17th June.
Venue: CCA
350 Sauchiehall St, Glasgow G2 3JD
Time: 18:30
Dates: 19th June.
Dates: 15th & 16th June.
Venue: Borders Book Festival
Harmony House/St. Marys Rd, Melrose TD6 9LJ
Time: 19:30
Dates: 17th June.
Venue: CCA
350 Sauchiehall St, Glasgow G2 3JD
Time: 18:30
Dates: 19th June.
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