-The Vortex Mixer is a live film, but it’s a “handmade” filmmaking
-Really? What’s it about?
-Well, it’s a science fiction musical comedy thriller with touches of terror and action and with romantic karaoke and martial arts in regional dress, in which the girl fights evil.
-Oh, in that case I’m going right now!
A project by Cris Blanco
artistic assistants: Anto Rodriguez and Oscar Bueno
music: Cris Blanco and Oscar Bueno
video production: Oscar Bueno , Rubén Ramos and Cris Blanco
lighting: Jorge Dutor and Ignasi Solé
stage props and wardrobe: Anto Rodríguez and Oscar Bueno with the collaboration of Jorge Dutor and Elena Nogueira
technical director: Roberto Baldinelli
Coproducción
TNT-Terrassa Noves Tendències escèniques/CAET, Mercat de les Flors/El Graner y La Casa Encendida. Con el soporte del Departamento de Cultura de la Generalitat de Catalunya. Artistas en residencia de CA2M y La Casa Encendida. Hangar.org Apuntes en sucio de Teatro Pradillo y Espacio práctico
The Vortex Agitator is a multigenre “handmade” film shot and edited live on stage.
It is a homage to film and theatre, a DIY Hollywood film that overflows the boundaries of the screen.
Research into visual and stage apparatus is part of the process that I have explored in recent projects. In The Vortex Mixer, my point of departure is the desire to work with different film, theatre, and music genres and formats, studying their conventions in order to question their specific norms and mechanisms.
Hence the title “The Vortex Mixer”, which is also the name of a device used in laboratories to stir up and mix substances.
The result is a live collage of genres that interact with each other, straying from the codes that define them, questioning them and playing at changing the rules. Why does a symphony orchestra playing dissonant chords immediately bring to mind horror films? What happens if we put Galician bagpipe folk music over the credits of a James Bond Film? How would E.T. and a bishop get on in the Far West? What about a flamenco dancer and a ninja on a spaceship?
What subgenre would we get if we cross a suspense ballet and martial arts? Or a Greek action tragedy and a silent film featuring nuns?
The device is a closed-circuit camera system that allows the audience to watch the constructed scene live on screen, and at the same time see the making-of on the stage. Spectators can choose at all times whether to focus their attention on the fiction, or on the construction behind that fiction.
I am interested in the tension that arises between the conventions of fiction (when you suspend disbelief and feel that you are inside the film) and the rather unglamorous construction of the illusion (see the cardboard set).
Teaser: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VADNiDvAU8w
Interview (spanish): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2oihQbu1RE
Full video: https://youtu.be/aXoJL-2ifBM
SHOWS
– Premiere 25 September 2014 at Festival TNT, Terrassa
– October 2014. La Casa Encendida, Madrid
– December 2014. Secció Irregular, Mercat de les flors, Barcelona
– March 2015, Festival Alt, Vigo
– March 2015. Festival Showcase de la Suite, Sevilla
– 14,15 and 16 May 2015, Teatro Pradillo, Madrid
– 8 to 17 October 2015, Sala Hiroshima, Barcelona
– October 2015, leal-lav, Teatro leal de la laguna-Tenerife
– November 2015, Espacio Digital, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
– December 2015. El Graner, as part of the FID, Barcelona
– January 2016. Azcuna Zentroa (La Alhóndiga) Bilbao
– May 2016, Be festival, Birmingham
– August 2016, Festival IC, Salvador de Bahía
– September 2016, Universidad Nacional de las Artes, Buenos Aires
– October 2016, Teatro Principal, Palma de Mallorca
– December 2016, Doropaedia#13 Fundació Miró, Barcelona, (fragment)
– 24 February 2017, Teatro Jofre, Ferrol.
-15 March 2017, Festival SACO, Teatro Campoamor, Oviedo
– 24 March 2017, Teatro del Bosque, Móstoles
– 31 March 2017, Aula de Teatro , Segovia
– 21 April 2017, Universidad Carlos III, Madrid
– 13 May 2017, DDD Festival, Porto
– 24 May 2017. Presente Futuro Festival TeatroLibero Palermo
– 4 July 2017. IPAM Grec Festival, Mercat de les Flors, Barcelona
– 4th May 2018 100% Festival, La Villette Paris
– 1st -8th June 2018 Concéntrica Festival, Cornellá, Barcelona
– 11th October 2018 RBLS Festival for teenagers, Barcelona
– 19th, 20th and 21st September Biennale Lyon
-21 de mayo Teatre Artesá El Prat de LLobregat
——————
-8 de diciembre 2019 UNAM Mexico DF
-13 de diciembre. Salamanca, México
cris blanco 