A PROJECT MADE OF VOICES

This project flows directly out of the work I have developed over the last years and that examines the themes of memory and the trace, moving between the study of perceptive memory, documentary research (related to the history of dance), and the study and analysis of corporeal memory. It is a ramification of my research and creation work that finds its sources in Kurt Jooss’s The Green Table, by studying its history and that of its transmission and impact, both at the time of its creation and through its history. During a period of six years, and through an extended research and documentation process, I have collected textual and iconographical material, composed primarily of archival documents – texts, articles and images (photos and movies), as well as of interviews with audience-members and dancers. I have harvested the traces The Green Table left behind, not only among those who saw it performed at different moments of history and in different countries, but also among the several generations of dancers who performed it and transmitted it.

Following this labour of research and creation work, and in the frame of a greater project, I would like to explore a new form in which I would like to tackle the questions of echo, resonance and sediment; focussing mainly on the audio recordings I have produced through the past process.

Indeed, the research I initially foresaw has been transformed, little by little, and throughout the entire research process, into a rhizomic journey composed of a multiplicity of power-lines that I have followed, as well as others that I have been forced to abandon. The different types of material I have collected, form an archive arising from assembled records and bring together, not only elements found in existing archives, but also documents – principally concerning intangible memory – created throughout the research process and linked with oral history. It is the questions highlighted by this experience and the density of this archive, its diversity and the wealth of themes it assembles, that drive me to want to engage with it in greater depth, thus using different media.

Two different objects could compose the form that I would like to explore here. The first one will be conceived focusing in the content and in the meaning of the material used in the form of a documentary object, and the second one will focus on the voice as a physical material, allowing me to play with words, languages and accents, tones, intonations, intentions and speed, to develop an abstract approach.

concept, documentation and editing Olga de Soto
project supported by Bulegoa Z/B (Bilbao)
residencies of research Azala Espazioa (Lasierra, ES) & Bulegoa Z/B (Bilbao)

08 - 12 MAY 2017, Research residency, Azala Espazioa (Lasierra, ES)
15 - 23 JAN 2018, Research residency and listening session, Bulegoa Z/B, Bilbao (ES)