They don’t make the effort to understand our work or give it a new interpretation The media is conservative. They’re afraid to put us in the category of theatre.”Neal is not putting up with any journalistic carping about the definition of theatre, either. “Periodo Villa Villa is a genuinely new type of performance,” she declares. “There is always discussion in the press and the theatrical establishment about whether we are theatre,” Baldinu concedes “But we find it funny Our show is something new for critics.
When theatre leaves the conventional stage, it starts to draw on other artforms. Our policy is: never say never to anything.”It’s not just me wondering about De La Guarda’s theatrical credentials, however. “At first people said to Jimi Hendrix, `this is not music’, but within three years they recognised that it was music, it was just different. We’re using other disciplines to grow – that happens too in rock ‘n’ roll and cinema. He is backstage at the Utrecht Theatre Festival in Holland and laughs off questions about the show’s legitimacy as part of such a gathering “It’s obvious that this is theatre,” he asserts. But people at these warehouse events are tired of cars crashing into each other and music so loud your ears bleed.
De La Guarda are about generosity, pleasure and giving.” Giving you the shakes, maybe.Periodo Villa Villa forms the centrepiece of LIFT, but the nagging question remains: is this grab-bag of acrobatics and artiness actually theatre at all? Isn’t it just Chipperfield’s Circus with added rain? Won’t audiences find themselves agreeing with the eminent Frenchman who (nearly) said, “C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas le theatre”?Diqui James, the other creator of Periodo Villa Villa, sits next to Baldinu at a rickety trestle-table by a Portaloo and swigs from a bottle of Coke. They may fly through the air with the greatest of ease, but it still looks terrifying.Hippy and trippy – all flashing lights and beaty music – the show chimes with rave-generation culture. It seemed to go down especially well in Utrecht in Holland last month with a couple I had earlier seen staggering out of a coffee-house called “Headshop”. Periodo Villa Villa boasts enough gasp-inducing, visceral effects to leave you in need of chemical assistance yourself.
It is truly shared-experience theatre, as you emerge clinging for dear life to the person whose personal-hygiene habits you doubted but an hour before. Dazed and confused yet strangely uplifted, you feel like Diego Maradona after a particularly heavy night.Lucy Neal, the co-director of the London International Festival of Theatre (LIFT), where Periodo Villa Villa is being performed this week, raves herself when describing the show. “This kind of work with a high-energy dance edge and performers hurling themselves about has a tendency to be hard and threatening. Whether slam-dunking each other into the walls or criss-crossing in the air like deranged Red Arrows, the company must have pretty steep insurance premiums. “We’re working with emotions, which you don’t have to explain. You can play to 800 people without saying, `I’m the king and he’s the doctor.’ Everyone picks his own message. Emotions don’t have interpretations.”During the hour-long show, the audience certainly run through the full range of emotions.
They are drenched by an indoor rainstorm, a hail of plastic toys and a ticker-tape snow storm reminiscent of the 1978 World Cup Final in Buenos Aires. At the same time, they are dazzled by the sort of dare-devil stunts usually confined to Arnold Schwarzenegger movies. Equipped only with harnesses attached to the scaffolding structure and seemingly inexhaustible supplies of energy, the company deliberately eschew words or the imposition of any sort of message. They ridicule the notion, for instance, that the act of snatching away audience members is a symbol of the Disappeared during the military regime in Argentina.
Pichon Baldinu, the co-director of Periodo Villa Villa, rejects the very concept of words with a dismissive wave of the hand “They’re not necessary,” he states. “L’art pour l’art” may be a French expression, but I’m sure it holds good in Argentina, too. Suddenly the actors smash through the ceiling, swooping vulture-like on unsuspecting members of the 800-strong audience, and you’re into a breathtakingly different world, a maniacal cross between Billy Smart’s circus, Marat/Sade and Mad Max.
