JONATHAN BURROWS & MATTEO FARGION: BOTH SITTING DUET & BODY NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE

Both Sitting Duet and Body Not Fit For Purpose are part of Bajo el mismo techo (Under The Same Roof), a series of workshops and performances by Jonathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion running from November 19 to November 26, 2018. Bajo el mismo techo is a program organized by Azala (Lasierra) in collaboration with Tabakalera (Donostia-San Sebastián), Bulegoa z/b (Bilbao) and inTACTO festival (Vitoria-Gasteiz).

Both Sitting Duet & Body Not Fit for Purpose
The work of Burrows and Fargion radiates delight even as it makes the audience think. Over the past twelve years the two artists have built a body of duets which mix the formality of classical music composition with an open and often anarchic approach to performance and audiences, bringing them a worldwide following.

Both Sitting Duet was the piece that made their reputation back in 2002, setting the tone for an original mix of humour and fierce intelligence that marks out what they do. In San Sebastian they’ll follow it with their 2014 Venice Biennale performance Body Not Fit For Purpose, which clashes an angry politics against the empty joy of dancing, unravelling the link between meaning and action and raising questions in the midst of our laughter.

Duration: 60’ no interval
Limited seating available

Both Sitting Duet and Body Not Fit For Purpose are supported by public funding through the National Lottery from Arts Council England. Speaking Dance is co-produced by Dance Umbrella London and supported by Arts Council England.

PROGRAMME:
Both Sitting Duet & Body not fit for purpose
Date: Monday, November 19
Time: 19:00
Venue: Bulegoa z/b (Bilbao)
Performance with Jonathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion followed by a conversation with the artists. 

Any Table Any Room
Dates: November 21-23
Venue: Festival inTACTO at Museo Artium (Vitoria-Gasteiz)
Laboratory directed by Jonathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion, with Blanca Arrieta, Miguel Ángel Pérez Ávila, Zuriñe Benavente and Hannah Frances Whelan.

52 portraits
Date: Friday, November 23
Time: 19:00
Venue: Festival inTACTO at Museo Artium (Vitoria-Gasteiz)
Screening and presentation by Jonathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion. After the presentation, the screening will be shown as an installation until Sunday, November 25.

Any Table Any Room
Date: Friday, November 23
Time: 20:45
Venue: Festival inTACTO at Museo Artium (Vitoria-Gasteiz)
Performance by Jonathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion, with Blanca Arrieta, Miguel Ángel Pérez Ávila, Zuriñe Benavente and Hannah Frances Whelan

Speaking dance
Date: Sunday, November 25
Time: 19:00
Venue: Sala Z, Tabakalera (Donostia-San Sebastián)
Performance with Jonathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion followed by a conversation with the artists.

Crossing the floor
Dates: November 25 and 26
Time: 11:00-17:00
Venue: Artist’s Space Set, Tabakalera (Donostia-San Sebastián)
Workshop directed by Jonathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion

To see the program: Azala

Jonathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion have been collaborating together since 1989, and their ongoing series of duets go on touring all around the world. The work is hard to place, combining intellectual rigour with unexpected humour, but it has its roots in a shared love of classical music, which they clash against an approach to performance that is at once open to audience but also anarchic and joyful. The two men have recently collaborated with video artist Hugo Glendinning on the year long online project 52 Portraits, which released a different gestural portrait of a dancer every Monday throughout 2016. Their most recent duet Body Not Fit For Purpose was a commission from the 2014 Venice Biennale, and in 2018 they began their Music For Lectures series, which invite speakers to give a talk on performance backed by a rock band. The duo were Guest Artists for the 2017 Berne Music Festival, and presented a four hour performance salon called Hysterical Furniture at the 2018 KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen in Hannover. Burrows’ A Choreographer’s Handbook has sold over 13,000 copies since its publication in 2010, and he is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Dance Research, Coventry University. In 2017 Fargion composed the score for Mette Edvardsen’s Oslo, and he has recently developed a series of international composition workshops for choreographers. Any Table Any Room opened at the Attenborough Centre Brighton in 2017 and is the duo’s first piece to invite local artists in each location to join them onstage after a three day rehearsal period.

Jonathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion are co-produced by Kaaitheater Brussels, PACT Zollverein Essen, Sadler’s Wells Theatre London and BIT Teatergarasjen Bergen.