GUERRILLA

GUERRILLA presents the confused and contradictory inner universe of a group of people that inhabit the same moment in time, move through the streets of the same city, share the collective consciousness of the same continent, and are affected to a greater or lesser degree by the same consequences. Even so, they don’t know how to face a world that has changed too much since the beginning of the 20th century and that is in constant need of new rules, symbols, and tools for its interpretation. This is why, just as in a real ‘guerrilla war’, we have subdivided into small groups that, day after day, rummage through the same historical ruins in search of new gods, new enemies, and new answers, hoping to find some meaning or some other truths that will make everything disappear once and for all, in order to rebuild and destroy, over and over again, the history of Europe.

GUERRILLA describes the subtle, organised, and directed war that exists within the heads of each individual in a crowd, and that when reading between the lines makes an apparently unified situation point to multiple universes. Like waves in the ocean, these people are part of the same group; but their spontaneous thoughts, their ideas, their pasts and their aspirations delineate a landscape that is multi-circumstantial, contradictory, and expansive – in contrast to the simple, unchanging image of leisure and relaxation seen on stage. The projected text above their heads is the connecting thread, which, by means of narrative, relates these people’s thoughts, desires, and memories. The text traces the tangled and complex chart of a landscape that appears serene; there is no conflict evident on stage, as the battle is taking place inside their heads. And within the depths of these interior confines, where freedom has at last been enclosed, there’s a war of ideas that awakens each day and goes to sleep each night and is never resolved. GUERRILLA observes the tensions experienced in Europe: incendiary thoughts from inside a comfort zone; love that is too easily distracted; excessive seizing of the day; the constant presence of history; individual solutions to collective problems; material polytheism; the eternal dilemma between passion and reason. If everything is progressing in an apparent state of peace in which we feel safe, why is it that inside our heads we involuntarily declare war?

An electronic music session, a Tai Chi class, a conference: these are the separate parts of the piece. The actions take place in the near future in three different cities. The participants in these events dance, talk, and listen. And the written text, loaded with the most intimate thoughts of those who have diluted the unchanging mass of people by their presence, is compared to and superimposed upon the rhythmic, constant image they project.

The piece combines fictional and documentary text. The latter is based on a series of interviews previously conducted with a small group of people who inhabit the same moment in time and the same location, in this case, the city of Brussels. This is a work of documentary drama based on a collaboration between the company and the participants. It is the first time the company has worked in this way.