Personal growth
In Argentina a “colectivo” is a bus, and that´s how the artists who form the Colectivo Laboratorio take us to the “face-stop”, where image and being cross paths, hardly recognising each other. Their theatrical proposals are always of the kind that leave a deep impression, the kind that, there in the stalls, make you give up something that you thought was important about yourself, so that you leave renewed, full of deep doubts to work on, as if you had a new mental playroom. This time they´re presenting Hamletgrafía, based on Shakespeare´s masterpiece and the future that arises for all of us from the grey of every day. After three years´ work, actors from the Laboratorio Escuela have developed a very physical, and psychologically demanding, piece, describing the fall into self-awareness which comes before you can begin to expand on being, or not being.
Directed by Jessica Walker, Hamletgrafía is a deep walk fed by the talent developed at the Escuela de expresión corporal dramática Laboratorio based in Barcelona. It’s a project around experimental creation in theatre. As they say “el trabajo corporal y el crecimiento personal dan forma al principio básico de este Laboratorio-Escuela: crear en esencia. Esto marca la vía de acceso para el encuentro del cuerpo, que es capaz de experimentar, descubrir y repetir un diseño corporal dramático y llevarlo a escena de manera rigurosa, poética y sincera. He ideado una formación, a través de los cuales aprenderemos juntos como se vive y se desarrolla este proceso creativo”.
Hamletgrafía represents a new step in their walk to body and soul experimentation. They come from the Shakespeare’s classic and they go on with sweat and tears falling into introspective pools from which no one can get out unharmed. They talk about Hamlet as “una obra infinita, una figura llena de huecos que cada uno llena con su propia vivencia de la vida. Es por eso, y por lo profundas que son las líneas que conforman esa figura incompleta, que Hamlet es una obra eterna”. And we hope their creative impulse in the sea of experimental forms in which Colectivo Laboratorio sails with no fear will be eternal too.
Text by Juan Carlos Romero
Photo courtesy of Colectivo Laboratorio