ALFABET/Towards a score for object manipulation/Thinking with our hands

The aim of the research project ALFABETO is to decipher the complex score for manipulation that is used in the creative process in the theatre of objects. This challenge will be met by writing a Theatrical Essay looking into a possible methodology for composition with objects and all kinds of other materials.

Every family of objects needs its own expressive code, its own unique language. The difficulty lies in knowing how to make out the alphabet, later building simple sentences so as gradually to achieve your own native and original discourse. Learning how to listen, and the abstract, poetic interpretation of objects, is an exhaustive and exhausting process, but also a thrilling one. It is a journey into the abyss of the individual and collective unconscious that often fits completely organically into the time of exploration, play and study, like an old friend. This procedure requires constant training by the performer, so as to gain, through daily practice, the capacity to find the essence of the dynamics of expression and meaning of everyday objects and all the material around them. With great perseverance and concentration, gradually a score for manipulation will emerge, that will grow ever more autonomous, mobile and expansive.

To give a detailed description of this long path through the theatre of objects, somewhere between intuition and composition, to reach a score for concept, movement, writing and music, is the aim of this research project, ALFABETO. It will materialise in the publication of the theatrical essay ALFABETO/Hacia una partitura de manipulación objetual (ALPHABET/Towards a score for the manipulation of objects), as well as a lecture. It will be the starting point for the creation of the poetic piece entitled ALFABETO/Pensar con las manos (ALPHABET/Thinking With Your Hands).

ALFABETO combines two typed of analysis that are ambivalent, simultaneous and feed into each other. Literary writing, reflective and analytical, allows us to transcribe work from observation and words/verbs, while performance writing creates spontaneous scores that are the immediate reflection of the manipulator “thinking in action” (hence the term thinking with your hands). To bring together these two kinds of analysis that co-exist in my work, is the great challenge of this research. It is the project born from the thinking hands of a self-taught artist.

ALFABETO expresses the double nature, theoretical and practical, of “trial and error”.