an ode to time - maría pagés ode to time “ does maría ... it is a fiction that we never give up...
TRANSCRIPT
AN ODE TO TIME
“Does María Pagés dance? Planted, just as any other human being, on the earth we tread,
she differs from us in that the ground - where her feet start to draw out questions and answers
- is not just the essential base that assures that the movement will not be interrupted with
each forward movement or withdrawal. With María Pagés, the floor mysteriously acquires a
power of levitation, just as one could imagine the ground being able to detach itself from the
Earth and dissolve into the air, to follow the roads her arms lead her along. It is known that
the genius of Dance lives in María Pagés, we all know this and we proclaim it. But there is
more to this woman; she dances and by doing that, she moves everything that surrounds her.
Neither the sky nor the earth rest unchanged after María Pagés has danced.
José Saramago, Nobel Prize for Literature
Origin
AN ODE TO TIME
A NECESSARY DIALOGUE WITH MEMORY
An Ode to Time is a flamenco choreo-
graphy about the ephemeral, perma-
nence and eternity… Drawing on her own
professional and life experience, and intro-
ducing reflections made by Plato, Marguerite
Yourcenar, Jorge Luís Borges, John Cage,
Octavio Paz, Marcel Duchamps... Maria Pagés
reflects on the effects of the relentless irre-
versibility of Time on the body, desire, art
and Life.
In this choreography, a fruit of maturity, the
choreographer from Seville continues her
permanent dialogue with flamenco dance,
which forms part of her own memory. She
does this in a serene way, without taboos, in
order to extract the best of its sap - interpre-
ting it from her own singular viewpoint and
conception of dance, choreography and the
flamenco performance.
AN ODE TO TIME
For María Pagés, tradition has always
been her source and her agora
Discovery
AN ODE TO TIME
She cannot conceive her art without being cons-
tantly aware and observant of its cultural herita-
ge, created by the force of genius and perseverance,
by all whom have dedicated their lives to it.
From the depths of her multi-faceted personality and
the syncretic creativity that characterizes her work, and
in an intimate interchange -accompanied by 4 female
and 4 male dancers and 7 musicians playing live- Maria
Pagés interacts with her flamenco remembrances, as
much on a dance level as a on a musical one, imbibing
their essences and taking nourishment from them.
Origin
AN ODE TO TIME
Discovery
AN ODE TO TIME
Discovery
AN ODE TO TIME
POETIC PRINCIPLE
What is this weave,
of what will be, what is and what was?
What is this river
Through which the Ganges flows?
What river is this whose source is inconceivable?
What river is this
That sweeps along mythology and swords?
To sleep is useless.
The river snatches me up and I am that river.
I was made of a poor material, of mysterious Time,
Perhaps the spring is within me.
Perhaps the days emerge, fatal and illusory,
From my shadow
It flows in dreams, in the desert, in a basement.
Heráclito, Jorge Luis Borges
AN ODE TO TIME
Listening the Guernica
AN ODE TO TIME
PHILOSOPHICAL PRINCIPLE
What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is; If I wish to explain it to him who asks, then I no longer know
San Agustine
The concern about the subject of Time permeates human life, its grand and marvelous para-
doxes. Time does and undoes it all. It remorselessly governs the outcome of life. It is pure
movement. It is a straight line, polyhedron and circle at once. There is nothing more subjective than
Time when it is accelerated by emotions or paralyzed by a delay. It rules over individuality and its
folds, and structures the community. It is all and yet is nothing. It is a fiction that we never give up
trying to endow with form and meaning. To sift it, understand it or to understand each other?
Sketch, María Pagés
AN ODE TO TIME
It is bridge and abysm. It establishes the conflicts
that spin out human existence. It tries to regulate
–always in a fragile balance- the conflict between the
present and the future, the origin and fundament of
the clash between order and freedom, security and
sense, desire, reality and the illusion of happiness. On
the other hand, it regulates the conflict between a pro-
mising future and a past that obliges us, between the
plenitude of the moment and the liquid character of
all that has been. Birth and death, for example, do not
mean an absolute beginning or an absolute ending, ra-
ther they help unfold the experience of eternity throu-
gh the passing of time.
Time is the enigma of existence, but also the key, the
substance and the challenge. Time to be born,
time for love, time for heartbreak, time for you-
th, for passion and enthusiasm, time for learning
and wisdom, time for melancholy -that announ-
ces imminent transformations- time for war,
time for transcendence and for hope.
Piety
AN ODE TO TIME
Dancing with Hebe
AN ODE TO TIME
IDEA
An Ode to Time is a flamenco perfor-
mance built around a choreography,
a lighting design, a music, a ‘mise en scène’,
and a dramaturgic account of temporality –
with its rhythm, movement and ripples. Its
components are sewn together by an organic
semantic complicity, which at the same time
interweaves all the aesthetical and ethical
principles that compose the performance,
and the symbology that serves as a base to
what aspires to be transmitted.
Supported by the sublime tradition resi-
ding in flamenco dance and music, Maria
Pagés narrates the seasons of the joy of
being alive, of euphoria, of love, of desire,
of the elation of the senses and the body,
of beauty, of utopias; but also the times
for melancholy, for withdrawal within one-
self, for fear, for war and for memories, as
an ethical space in which to choose a path.
It’s autumn
AN ODE TO TIME
The choreographies in An Ode to Time
gather up the rhythmic essence of how
we live out the experience of temporality, both
concretely and emotionally, what repercussion
it has on us, how feelings are affected: day,
night, our obsession for measuring time, for
shaping time, for idolizing the instant, and our
continual search for the sense of eternity... In
this Pagés-signed choreographic universe -ins-
pired by the equation of time, kinematics and
the theory of relativity- movement, rhythm,
the collective determination of the dance
Corps and the uniqueness of each of its mem-
bers all live together in harmony.
The staging is minimalist by conviction, ma-
king use of elements that imply an intense,
symbolic and dramatic load, such as the use
of a pendulum which metamorphoses throu-
ghout the performance into a clock pendulum,
a moon, a sun, a swing...
The lyrics, from original poems written for the
performance, narrate the dramaturgical thread.
They have been conceived to maintain the in-
tensity of narrative from the first ‘quejío’ (cry
of lament) in the first scene to the ‘Canción Po-
pular de los Cuatro Muleros’ (Popular Song of
the Four Muleteers), that closes the circle, ope-
ning the winter to the promise of springtime. A
‘Soleá de Triana’, the ‘Seguiriyas’ from the ports
and from Jeréz, ‘Cantes de Trilla’, ‘Temporera’,
‘Toná’, Alegrías de Córdoba, Cantiñas, Vidalita,
Alboreá (different Flamenco song genres)...all
take on a significantly vigorous presence.
Sketch, María Pagés
AN ODE TO TIME
The music, that is totally original,
emanates from a transversal style
of direction, and from the musicians
-singers, guitar, cello, violin and percus-
sion- as well as the awareness, interpreta-
tion and integration of musical paradig-
ms composed by Ígor Stravinski, Pyotr
Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Bernard Hermann,
Antonio Vivaldi and Georg Friedrich
Härdel. Considered as a structural cha-
racter, essential to the performance, the
music becomes a dramaturgical thread
that explores new languages, to feed off
them without surrender.
AN ODE TO TIME
STRUCTURE
An Ode to Time is ruled by chronological temporary
principles, which serve as a basis for the narrati-
ve, rooting it in Time’s symbolic dimension and its vital
signs. The performance is narrated in twelve movements
(twelve seconds, twelve minutes, twelve hours, twelve
months?), structured in four seasons, which unfold in two
temporary spaces: spring-summer and autumn-winter.
During the primavera-verano (spring and summer) sce-
nic cycle, which symbolically refers us to vigor, enthusiasm
and the joy of living, An Ode to Time reflects on origin,
discovery, youth, ludic mirrors, love and Utopia.Sketch, María Pagés
AN ODE TO TIME
The springtime choreogra-
phies inquire into the birth
of the universe and humanity, the
apparition of this last with the ima-
ge of how the universe emerged.
Later, the thematic axes run throu-
gh the cycles from the discovery
of life, to the consciousness of
what life is about, its beauty and
its unsustainable difficulties, and
the creation of hope – the only uto-
pia within our reach that enables us
to transcend over our fragility and
our ephemeral character.
Sketch, María Pagés
Dancing with Hebe
AN ODE TO TIME
Dancing with Hebe
Water horizons
AN ODE TO TIME
Saturn devouring their sons
Listening the Guernica
Listening the Guernica
Listening the Guernica
AN ODE TO TIMEI’m afraid
PROGRAM
1.ORIGIN
Trilla y tonás
Lyrics : El Arbi El Harti
2.DISCOVERY
Seguiriyas
Lyrics : El Arbi El Harti
3.DANCING WITH HEBE
Soleá
Lyrics : El Arbi El Harti
4.TELL ME TIME
Bulería al golpe
Adaptation of “Oda a los números”
of Pablo Neruda
5.YOUR WIND MOVES ME
Alboreá
Lyrics : Marifé Santiago
6.WATER HORIZONS
Alegrías
Lyrics: El Arbi El Harti
7.IT’S AUTUMN
Vidalita y Milonga
Lyrics : El Arbi El Harti
8.I’M AFRAID
9.SATURN DEVOURING THEIR SONS
10.LISTENING THE GUERNICA
11.PIETY
12.WE ARE THE MEMORY TREE
Trilla y tonás
Lyrics : El Arbi El Harti
ARTISTIC CREDITS
DIRECTION, CHOREOGRAPHY, COSTUME DESIGN
María Pagés
DRAMATURGY AND TEXT
El Arbi El Harti
MUSIC
Rubén Levaniegos, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Antonio Vivaldi,
Georg Friedrich Hände, Sergio Menem,David Moñiz,Isaac Muñoz,
Música Popular
LYRICS
El Arbi El Harti, Marifé Santiago
LIGHTING
Dominique You
SOUND DESIGN
Albert Cortada
CHOREOGRAPHY ASSISTANT
José Barrios
DURATION
80 ‘
CLOTH PAINTING, CONFECTION
Taller María Calderón
PHOTOGRAPHY
David Ruano
ARTISTIC CAST
DANCE
María Pagés
Eva Varela
Virginia Muñoz
Marta Gálvez
Julia Gimeno
José Barrios
Rafael Ramírez
Felipe Clivio
Oscar Manhenzane
SINGERS
Ana Ramón
Juan Juanelo
GUITAR
Rubén Levaniegos
Isaac Muñoz
VIOLIN
David Moñiz
PERCUSSION
Chema Uriarte
DIRECTOR
María Pagés
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
El Arbi El Harti
+34 606 582 318
GENERAL COORDINATION
Dominique You
+34 659 472 737
PRODUCTION
Nadia Benot
+34 639 101 440
ADMINISTRATION
+34 915 223 326
A PRODUCTION OF
María Pagés Compañia
IN COLLABORATION WITH
Teatros del Canal, Fundación Baluarte, Festival Castell de Peralada, Teatro
Campoamor, Les Nuits de Fourvière, Teatro Circo de Albacete, Teatro Tomás
y Valiente de Fuenlabrada.
WITH THE SUPPORT OF
María Pagés Compañia
Hortaleza, 20 - 1º dcha
Madrid 28004
+ 34 915 223 326
www.mariapages.com