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LIGHT YEARS AWAY (2016)

Performance 60'

 

"​ An invitation to feel very different, an ode to freedom, of minds, prejudices and from all struggles of everyday life. A regenerating experience indeed. What you make of it depends on how much you are willing to follow your artist-guide into this journey to the caves-minds. In the darkness, your mind must fill the sensorial void, and I succeeded in feeling surrounded by people rather than in an unknown audience or in a crowd, and in an environment that may have been also unknown, but not for this reason hostile, a perspective that the artist-guide pressed multiple times. I felt that the people in the audience where there, real people, and were experiencing what I was experiencing. A liberating sensation in a world where people is communicating less and less directly, and trusting each other even less. If you can’t free your mind, the performance will appear to you pointless, and it would entirely your loss".

Andrea Vianello - Archaeologist

(read full article) 

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Between 1960 and 1980, my father and his two brothers were members of the Edelweiss Speleology Group. This group explored the Ojo Guereña cave in northern of Spain, one of the largest caves in the world.

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The brothers, born in the conservative town of Burgos just after the Spanish Civil War, found a way to escape the poverty and isolation of life under the Franco dictatorship. Leading parallel lives, they worked in offices or factories during the week, seemingly free, but in reality oppressed, and in their free time, they discovered caves. Beneath the earth, they found the freedom that they missed above ground.

 

LIGHT YEARS AWAY examines caves as a living space. I'm interested in the individual and collective perception of such spaces: a minimal architecture populated by discoverers, prehistoric peoples, animals and tourists. The cave is moreover a mental world that is the product of our collective imagining of underground spaces and darkness.

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LIGHT YEARS AWAY is a visit guided by speleologists into the darkness of the theater. This is a film out of the screen,  a documentary without faces, a performance illuminated by a torch. Immerse yourself in this darkness. Try to look, without really being able to see. Listen and engage your imagination.

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Concept and performance: Edurne Rubio
Sound: David Elchardus
Camera: Alvaro Alonso de Armiño, Gregorio Méndez & Sergi Gras.
Editing: Edurne Rubio
Artistic advice: María Jerez, Loreto Martinez Troncoso, Jan De Coster, Didier Demorcy.
Technique: Gregor Van Mulders & David Elchardus

 

With the spelunkers:
Teresiano Antón, Miguel Angel del Alamo, Fernando Javier Benito, Fortunato Lázaro, Ana Isabel Ortega, Pedro Plana, Miguel Ángel Martín , Pablo Martín, Fernando del Río, Elías Rubio, Eliseo Rubio, Gabriel Rubio, Palmira Rubio, Francisco Ruiz and Carmen Vadillo

 

Production: Kunstenwerkplaats Pianofabriek.
Co-production: Beursschouwburg, Kunstencetrum BUDA
Support: Vlaams Gemeenschap; Vlaams Gemeenschapscommissie; Grupo de Espeleología Edelweiss; Monumento  Natural de  Ojo Guareña Burgos de la red de Espacios Naturales de la Junta de Castilla y León; Fundación de Patrimonio Natural  de Castilla y León; Netwerk, centrum voor hedendaagse kunst; Espacio Tangente; "What is third", Casa Encendida.

 

Thanks to:
Christophe Albertijn, Saray Alonso, Damna Barredo, Mathilde Besson, Ana Buitrago, Yann Betant, Charo Calvo, Geni Diez, Eric Dewamme, Caroline Daish, Ivan Jadin, Sara Manente, Mayte Martinez, Ana Belén Palacios, Irene Rojas, Maxime Vertruyssen, Paul Xhaard, Groupe de Recherches Spéléologiques de Comblain-au-Pont, L’atelier AP BAC 3 de l’Erg and AD HOC sound Services.

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Language versions: Spanish / English / French
English translation: Alex Reynolds/ French translation: Amaia Urra

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