Alicia Sánchez y Compañia: El Teatro de Movimiento (ASYC) performed on October 28, 2005, as the first in the new Woodruff Dance @ the Rialto series. This series is a collaboration among the Woodruff Arts Center, Georgia State’s Rialto Center for the Performing Arts and Several Dancers Core. ASYC is a contemporary “theatre of movement” group from Mexico City that performed two pieces, “Between you, me and the others” and “Out of Synch” at their debut Atlanta show.
SDC: What is your background personally? How did you become involved with Alicia Sánchez y Compañia?
EG: I have been working with the group for 6 years, acting as Artistic Director for the past year. My early training was in acting, not dance, though I was always interested in physical theatre and physicality was always important in my training as an actor. I started acting in Guadalajara and moved to Mexico City to study acting, where Alicia saw me perform in a theatre piece in which I was movement director for the actors. I started working with ASYC as assistant director for the piece based on Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. Alicia asked me to join her company as a performer with “Between You me and the others.” In that piece I have a monologue that has been reworked many different ways over the life of the piece, but was seen at the Rialto as a duet--the monologue with another person dancing.
SDC: Tell me about the pieces your company will be performing at the Rialto.
EG: “Between you, me and the others” is a piece about CITY, Mexico City, what everyone feels of the city and what is the main thing keeping us there. The performers began by asking themselves “why are you there if there are things there like the city being fast and violent, that can make you run?” Each dancer/actor has a personal story that they made corporal as part of the work. This has been an important piece for the company because it has toured internationally to Prague, Montreal, New York and to almost every republic in Mexico, and now, of course, to Atlanta. People view it as funny and bright, they feel the culture of Mexico City through real sharing, even hard experiences shown in a very funny way mixing theatre and dance. People enjoy it because it’s fresh and it speaks to young people.
"Out of Synch" is a piece based loosely on Oliver Sacks’ book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. The performers read the book and improvised based on the characters, which were a “fountain of creation” to improvise with because the characters are very corporal, crazy, surprising. Originally commissioned by Queens Theatre in the Park NYC 2003, “Out of Synch” has not been performed in Mexico yet, but in New York and now, Atlanta. The original score is by Alejandra Hernandez and was written during the creation of the other aspects of the piece. Music is another character for Alicia, not just accompaniment. In the process, the composer was brought in at about the middle, after the performers have improvised and created some scenes. Alicia has an idea from the movement of what she wants the music to be and will bring the musicians into the rehearsal to improvise along with the dance until they have something that feels right together.
SDC: I’ve noticed you have a French performer in the company. How did he become involved with the company?
EG: Nicholas Martel is French actor, who was working in Mexico on an exchange with a French theatre and Alicia asked him to work on “Out of Synch.” Often because he is so tall it’s as if the other dancers in the piece are his alter-egos, his imagination.
SDC: How would you say ASYC compares to other dance groups working in Mexico today?
EG: ASYC is different from other Mexican dance groups right now in that we are independent, and we do “theatre of movement,” meaning we integrate theatre and dance methods in creating work. We use a script for a piece, have both actors and dancers as performers in the work. We also work with playwrights like Edgar Chias, who wrote a script based on the writings of Paul Auster, for which he won an award for originality. Because we are one of a few independent companies, Alicia is able to take risks creatively, like making the piece, TR3S, based on Beckett, for which she ultimately won acclaim.
SDC: Tell me about the projects you are working on currently.
EG: “Giselle, Si es El” is a new, free and contemporary version of the ballet. Alicia says it is “not post-modern but neo-Baroque.” Giselle is a man, and an actor, not dancer. The piece is framed as theatre inside a theatre inside a theatre because the real audience is in the theatre watching a character who is a stagehand, who is watching a dance group rehearse the ballet Giselle. Co-direction for the piece is by set designer/sceneographer, Jorge Ballina, who won a Gold Medal for set design at the World Stage Design conference in Toronto in 2005 and earlier in Prague. He’s obsessive to work with on the script because he outlines second by second, action by action, for the characters. This piece is one of the biggest productions in Mexico with sponsors such as a bank, university and the Mexican national arts endowment that allow us to do a long run of the piece like a theatre season. It's very exciting that we have this sponsorship because we’re doing 27 shows and will be paid for all of them.
