“Devorating the void”, a fusion of acrobatics, physical theater and dance about the link between the disease and the interpreter

“I always tell that bulimia and anorexia marked my development in different areas of both girl and adult. And there is something very cruel in how beliefs are developed around how a more functional is to others, as one has to be to be accepted, to like, and to succeed,” says Paula Palomo (ex the sand and the discovery), creator of “Devouring the void”, The new Cia show too fat ,. A proposal that combines acrobatics, physical theater and dance. In which disciplines, techniques and languages ​​are masterfully combined by both interpreters.

An autobiographical work. An original contemporary circus proposal that seeks to internalize ourselves in the relationship between the disease and the interpreter, that woman-one who crosses the scene seeking to dissipate madness through fiction, overflow and poetry.

Devouring the void closes the trilogy initiated by the Cía in 2016 and you can see every Sunday at 20 in the central; A new contemporary circus space located on Manuel A. Rodríguez 1566 (between Galicia and Tres Arroyos), Villa Crespo. We talked with Palomo.

Paula Palomo: The Gorda word always had a weight, worth the redundancy, very important. Throughout my life, I never ceased to be a trigger for millions of things that I would have ever chosen for me. Many times they talk about a “need” to resignify a word. In my case, it did not go through a necessity. Back in 2016, I wanted to be ironic with myself, transgress my own beliefs, play that I might forget what for me was always the fat word. Too fat, alludes to something too big, too good, too incredible, fat of creativity, huge content and overflowing on stage.

Q.: How is this trilogy closed for minced meat and the edge of things?

PP: It was that first work where I deposited everything I had in my imaginary. Each of the scenes of that piece, has its own life and could, even today, develop individually. With the premise of transforming the horrible beauty and utility, in this work the character of El Oso, and also here for the first time this woman who despairs for eating strawberries without being able to achieve it. “The edge of things” tells the story of this woman-oso. Totally autobiographical, the unipersonal, evokes different moments from birth, to the maturity of that character that is me. An exacerbated work of emotion.

Q.: And how is “devouring emptiness”

PP: It is a much more raw work. The trilogy closes with the staging of this relationship between the disease and the bear. How the pathology dominates and how in some way is dominated. As both entities reach an agreement, since they will live forever. How the bear finally manages to be the protagonist of her life. I think that ” devouring the void ”’is what was missing to count. And although it can be frustrating to know with a disease that will not cease to be, it is also comforting to understand and show that one can learn to live without being dominated so that it does so much.

Q.: How is that internal world of women-hay and its existence?

PP: From the beginning I wanted to be able to tell my story from a place that would run a bit of the earthly and the palpable. Thus arose the idea of ​​a character between the human and the animal. Zoomorfa Anthropomorphic. That woman who at times feels vulnerable and empty, transforms into a beast with claws and fangs and faces her fears. Something of his physicist always made noise. Something of his sexuality, something they told him about how it was, how it had to be, it bother her. Something of pretending to be small, of not taking place in space, of ceasing to be, of disappearing, inhabited this woman/girl for years. The bear is the awakening of the beast. It does not refer to ceasing to be fragile or vulnerable, it also refers to being strong and fearsome. This bear is brutal and powerful but also extremely sensitive and soft.

Q.: What autobiographical data as a biodrama did you take, and which ones are fictitious? What is the pathology you deepened and the different cycles?

PP: Starting for the second question, I live with TCA from a very small. I believe that these types of pathologies have an obvious genetic/neurological support, and of course a predisposition to suffer from them. Throughout my life millions of factors helped the pathology settled strongly in me. Since you can leave, but the request for help is quite complex when you are ashamed of what you do. Once the pathology is based, the relapse periods are constant, cyclical. Only from my thirty years, when he enters into recovery, the relationship with the disease began to change. Everything that I take to the scene in the work is autobiographical. The anecdotal, really happened. And I assure that I was so governed by the disease as I can assure you that today it is me.

Q.: What place does the circus and acrobatics have in the performing arts? What did you learn and took from the sand and discount?

PP: Acrobatic disciplines appear more and more on stage, combined with other languages. Dance and theater have long incorporates them. And the circus has progressively begun to have a place in the independent theater scene, in the calls and in the festivals. That said, I think it continues to make its way and try to settle as a more formal and regulated discipline. Adolescent, or almost adult, in that limbo, I saw for the first time. As I tell the work, they showed me what I wanted to be and do. I did not know so clearly until I started working scenically in the circus environment.

Q.: How do you see the current moment of that discipline?

PP: It makes me very necessary that a difference between circus, and contemporary circus can be made, in the same way that there is classical dance, contemporary. I think all disciplines are going through a difficult time. But in particular, being someone who is not used to receiving subsidies, the economic and social situation is something I always surf, as I could. I think we live in a privileged country in terms of training. The teachers we have are exquisite, in fact, people from other countries to take classes and workshops with us. I always think that some state support, a circus law that covers us, etc. It would mark the difference

Q.: How is this new theatrical space support in Villa Crespo?

PP: Complicated, but we continue to grow. For now, I could say that we sustain ourselves. Classes are the basis of our economy and functions serve us to continue advancing in development and equipment as a room. We have a billboard of shows that covers works of contemporary circus, dates where there is live music, projections, samples, performatic varieties, and the peculiarity that the shot happens every two months, a meeting of students on stage that gives the possibility to them that are instructed in the central to inhabit the stage. I think it is not the most conducive time to support independent theater rooms, numbers do not give and state aids are in a limbo.