CARAVANA DE CENTÀURIDES: A CRIPPLE-QUEER ALLIANCE FOR PLEASURE RESEARCH (ES)
We are a group of people with different trajectories that coincide in spaces of activism and non-hegemonic art from the corporal and gender dissidences. We are part of a beautiful affective -political- anti-ableist, queer and anti-racist network in Barcelona. We have been working from artivism as a tool for transformation and a response to violences. We find it difficult for our art to move in artistic circuits, since it is only considered worthy of showing in “special circuits”. And that distinction of “special” perpetuates the discrimination of artists with diversity. We investigate the disease, the look of society towards people with functional diversity, vulnerability, sexuality and pleasure. We are Nodual, Elena, Xavi, Izaskun and Àrid: a caravan of centàurides wishing for new horizons.
Parcitipating artists
XAVIDUA (ES)
Performer and ARTivist for the rights of the people with disabilities. Affected by the polio epidemic in June 1961. Since 2010 in the world of integrated dance participating in dance workshops with companies such as Cando Co, Cía. Jordi Cortés, Alta Realitat, Marisa Brugarolas, Adam Benjamin, Stop Gap, Thomas Mettler. Performer and integrated dancer in the company “Liant la Troca”. Integrated dancer performer in “l’Associaciació KIAKAHART, Arts en Moviment”. He collaborates in the collective “En torno en la Silla”, co-creating free design objects of support for mobility for people with disabilities. Speaker at TEDx Talk Madrid 2015. He collaborates as an accessibility reporter for the “Codi de Barris” program between 2016 and 2018. Between 2019 and 2022 he participated as an actor and dancer in the Dutch dance documentary A way to B, by Jos de Putter and Clara van Gool.
ELENA PROUS CLIMENT (ES)
Graduated in Nursery in 2006 and an expert in Literary Creation from the Camilo José Cela University, she is currently studying a Master’s Degree in Humanities at the UOC. She has been part of the Independent Living Movement since 2010 and other working groups around functional diversity. She works from different methodologies, bringing the body at the performance “Aguanta tú que puedes” that has been part of the Poetic Days of impossibility in December 2021 at the Reina Sofía Museum and the ONCE Art Biennial in 2022. Combining text and scene in the Performance “Who Can Disobey?” La Virreina Centre per l’Imatge in January 2019. And with the artistic installation “Habitar las Réplicas” in Tabakalera of San Sebastián in Feministaldía 2022. She writes in magazines and web such as: infomedula.org, derechos humanos ya!, Feminist Publication La Madeja, Pikaramagazine, el Diario.es and El Salto.
PATRICIA CARMONA (ES)
Performer, ARTivist, facilitator and a person with functional diversity. Diploma in Social Education from the Universitat Autònoma of Barcelona. Founder of the dance-theater collective “Liant la Troca”. Activist for transfeminist alliances with people with functional diversity, she has actively participated in different projects such as the short film “Nexos”, where the sexuality of bodies that do not fit into the parameters of body normality is made visible. Body facilitator. She offers movement workshops, dance and sexual-erotic workshops for people with functional diversity. She currently directs the project “Tu cuerpo, tu campo de placer”, a feminist project starring from and for women, lesbians, trans, non-binaries, with functional diversity, with the aim of giving visibility and creating a new sexual imaginary that includes all corporalities.
IZASKUN BARBÀRIE (ES)
Pianist, composer, DJ facilitator in Ecstatic Dance and actor. They have worked as a classical piano player until their condition in chronic fatigue. They are a member of “Trans*poesía”, a music-poetic project of love and politics around the trans experience. They have composed and performed the music of Akompasado, by Jordi Cortès contemporary dance company. They are the creator of “Patas Arriba, guerrila poético musical” (@patasarriba21), together with the poet Gemma Almagro. They have founded “Ecstatic Dance Barbàrie project” (@ecstaticdancebarbarie), a safe space for BIPOC, neurodiverse people and sexual, gender and functional diversities. They promote the visibility of transfeminist and functional diversity movements and participate in the integrated dance company Liant la Troca. They are a collaborator of “Associació Endometriosi Catalunya”.
ÀRID SOLDEVILA (ES)
Master of ceremonies, rhapsode, facilitator, carpenter. Singer and writer of the rap group “BOCAdeBABA” and the rap-metal group “Prosòdia”. They moderate events such as Rima Hip Hop Fest, Cabaret Trans, Festival de Curts de Terror Can Batlló, Assajar és de cobards, Cabaret de Risc de 9barris. In 2021 they performed in “Heroïnes o res”, directed by I. Morales and D. Climent, premiered at the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya. In 2022 they participated in the research residency “Ramas y Rizomas” with La Cosateria Teatre, at the Sala Mutant in Valencia, and in the creation -assistant director and sound space- of the piece “En mi piel todos los bosques”, by L. Lloret Veciana, premiered at the Sala Ultramar. They participated as an interpreter in “Amor, matrimoni i altres assumptes menors” at Sala Beckett Barcelona, in the context of Grec 2022. They write and promote videos. Workshop teacher on rap, creation and LGTBIQ+ diversity.
Taken residency at
Nau Ivanow
Nau Ivanow is a space of welcome, accompaniment, research and innovation; a haven where companies will find the warmth needed to work unhurriedly and in good conditions. Residencies are the main focus of what we do. Our aim is to provide decent working conditions, always accompanying the artists and providing them with the resources they need. Nau Ivanow’s projects are underpinned by three major working axes: creation, accompaniment and work with the territory. And all of them with one common denominator: internationalization, which permeates each and every one of our projects.
UP
The purpose of UP is to develop and upskill the independent performing arts throughout Denmark. We define the free and independent performing arts as individuals, collectives and companies who work professionally with performance and primarily for and with independent performance groups, project supported companies, and lesser established theatres. Often without permanent access to a stage or a venue.
Kunstplaats Vonk
Kunstplaats Vonk is a studio and residency space for visual and performance arts in Hasselt and Genk, Belgium. At their 3 buildings they support artists with artistic feedback, an international network, presentation opportunities, studio-space and a financial contribution (for the residencies).
Caravana de Centàurides is a project formed by a group of people with different backgrounds who coincide in spaces of activism and non-hegemonic art based on bodily and gender dissidence. They are part of an affective – political – anti-capacity, leather and anti-racist network in Barcelona.
Photo Credit: Kasper Hjorth
Who is Caravana de Centàurides?
We are a writer, two performers, a DJ who is also a pianist and a rhapsodist. We are part of a large affective and political network that has made us converge in spaces of activism and non-hegemonic art from the point of view of bodily and gender dissidence.
Photo Credit: Kasper Hjorth
What led you to present yourselves to the Moving Identities call?
The desire to be able to meet and create in a non-precarious way, the desire to share, to network with other artists and the hope that perhaps we could opt for the residency as it was a call that appealed to diversity.
Photo Credit: Kasper Hjorth
What are you interested in investigating during the residencies?
We are interested in investigating the complicities that arise in liminal spaces, specifically the crip-queer alliances, through the dialogue between physical theatre, music, words and telepathy. Among other things, we want to explore support products and technical aids designed for functional diversity, to open up meanings that transcend the medicalising logic and to experiment from the point of view of rupture, waiting and pleasure.
Photo Credit: Kasper Hjorth
“Artivism” in your projects is a tool for transformation and a response to violence. How do you develop this methodology?
We don’t know if we would call it a methodology, but basically it’s being aware that everything we do both in the preparation and on stage, or in what we say, is not random, they are not random issues, and it has a lot to do with us and with all the discrimination that exists in the performing arts, and ultimately in culture in terms of functional diversity and queer identities.
When your realities are so invisible, the simple fact of being becomes a political act, and in this case, art serves as a platform for us.
Photo Credit: Kasper Hjorth
What motivates or excites you most about being part of the Moving Identities project?
In a way we haven’t chosen it, but it motivates and excites us to think that everything we are building in terms of accessibility within the residency, and in the different spaces where we will develop our work, will remain for the future, for other artists with functional diversity.
It is also very interesting for us to explore the different methods and knowledge of the members of this group, as it is the first time we come together, and we see a lot of potential in our identity, experience and knowledge.
Photo Credit: Kasper Hjorth
Interview with Caravana de Centàurides at UP.
With the project manager Camilla Gürtler, UP director Mikkel Harder, and host artist Lars Werner Thomsen.
Watch interview here
Video credit: Jacob Stage
