Based on her research project “Rehearsals for Nothing”, Monica Valenciano is still shaping a long term process that began in 2017. Her idea is that this should develop through a cycle of contiguous, interdependent pieces.

Like cards that can be shuffled, these pieces can be mixed to produce different compositions and readings all revolving around an exploration of language using the voice of the body - Writing and the Acoustics of movement - The function of the Weaving of space and the Body as a Place of Apparition, the Orchestral or Polyphonic Body.

This new cycle began in 2017 with the piece Imprenta Acústica (14 borrones) de una Aparición (Acoustic Imprint (14 sketches) of an Apparition), produced by Naves Matadero (Madrid) and L’animal a l’esquena (Gerona), in collaboration with El Bailadero.

The second piece, Mnemosyna, created in collaboration with Patricia Caballero, was produced by the Festival Salmón-Mercat de les Flors (Barcelona), La Poderosa (Barcelona) and the festival Mes de Danza (Seville).

In this new residency at L’animal a l’esquena Mónica will begin work on the third piece in the series, with the title Octavia Errante (Tercer Pasaje)/Wandering Octavia (Third Passage). The residency will involve a fresh encounter with other artists and performers, with the central theme: Work as a Place, Information, Training and Transformation of this strange body we all move around in.

“The voice of the body as an inexplicable event. We work with the act of apparition, the world that manifests itself through us and since we don’t understand, we dance… apparitions are always minimal and involuntary, they always occur between one movement and another.” (Mónica Valenciano)

“A new syntax entails a new foreign language within the language” (Roland Barthes).

The art of passages
The art of the swerve
The gift of suspension
Motion in repose, repose in motion
When not only are bodies in space but space in the bodies
The state of play
How to imply rather than explain
How the practice of attention makes way for intention
The territory opened up by an abandonment of will, to reach the idle state that offers up the body as a place for Apparition
The secret of images, every shape on the way to becoming another… without being disturbed by meaning
In the imagination everything is listening, perceptions are heightened and what’s coming, as yet unnamed, makes its presence felt
The ever fresh images that form our roots
Practising active silence, the capacity to create space, allowing something to appear, is almost the basis of movement
The audibility of the body lies in the revelation of its voice