AIRE

A scenic ritual of five diverse bodies, articulated around the opposition generated between the normative and the different, the everyday and the strange, the ordinary and the unexpected, the beautiful and the ugly.

Originally, the word norma in Latin meant "a square used by carpenters and masons." However, in its etymological evolution, it came to mean "rule, model, precept, command, or guide for behavior." The set of laws that regulated and constituted the Roman people became the breeding ground for contemporary normative systems and European civil codes.

Today, inherited from Roman thought, we continue to assume that norms form the foundation of our societies, guiding the behaviors, actions, and activities of individuals and groups. And although the relevance of norms in social construction has remained the cornerstone of community life for centuries, the normative also carries a paradox—the idea underlying belonging or exclusion from its parameters.

NORMA proposes a critical reflection on the concept of normality, exploring the interaction of identities represented through the filter of the body. Immersed in the era of globalization, the body presents itself as an image/product, while the classical paradigm still lingers in our collective imagination as an old and powerful ghost from the past. We become slaves to systems in which appearance and seduction dominate, while essence is repressed, giving rise to categorization, comparison, shame, and fostering new prejudices, stereotypes, discrimination, and stigmas... In short, a plurality of bodies is displayed from both the center and the margins, where the norm imposes itself upon difference, raising new questions: How do we see ourselves? What makes us feel "normal" in the eyes of others? Are we not all unique, unrepeatable, and exceptional beings?

In contemporary cultures—ever more mixed, complex, and fast-paced—it seems crucial to be "inside" what is considered normal. This fact suggests certain tensions in the construction of our identities: inside/outside; acceptance/rejection... but also privilege or exclusion. This project proposes an investigation into the symbolic dimension of the body: fragments of bodies, dances of bodies, the mutilated body, the diversofunctional body, the migrant body, the menstruating body, the cross-dressed body, the bionic body, the animal body. Simply, bodies.

Like a camera wandering from one body to another, from one flesh to another, out of focus and decentered, Ruz addresses these themes by questioning the mystery of beauty and ideas of order, system, measure, monotony, security, balance, and proportion, confronting them with the ugly, the disproportionate, the disorder, chaos, deviation from the canon, excess, the twisted, the lacking. By deforming, altering, and disturbing the form, the audience is invited to look at themselves in the mirror of other identities.

Through the use of scenic tools such as choreography where unity becomes multiplicity, spoken or sung voice, a soundscape blending the analog and the digital, an exhibitionist set design, a live dramaturgy, a mutating wardrobe, and an atmosphere that shifts between the dreamlike and the sublime, NORMA generates a visual poetics in constant flow and oscillation, where contrast denotes both strength and subtlety. A scenic ritual of five diverse bodies, articulated around the opposition generated between the normative and the different, the everyday and the strange, the ordinary and the unexpected, the beautiful and the ugly. A dystopian fantasy of resistance to normality through color, light, skin, irony, and surrealism. A plea for individuality, the exotic, and the out-of-place. The celebration of the rara avis.

Credits

Direction and Choreography
Antonio Ruz

Dramaturgy
Rosabel Huguet

Costume and Scenic Space Design and Realization
Roberto Martínez

Lighting Design
Olga García

Music
Aire

Texts
Excerpts from the books De la interacción sujeto-mundo and Manual para seres vivos by Gregorio Aspeteguía

Performers
Begoña Quiñones, Chelís Quinzá, Carlos Carvento, Alicia Narejos, and Manuel Martín
Choreography Assistant
Elia López

Photography and Video
Juan Carlos Toledo

Production
Paola Villegas / Gabriel Blanco - Spectare

Production Assistant
Andrea Méndez

Distribution
Valeria Cosi - Tina Agency

With the support of
IMAE Córdoba, Teatro Central Sevilla, Tanzbiennale Heidelberg, and Teatros del Canal Madrid