Secuencia V: ‘Fertilidad, estratificación y muerte permanente, coda: Antracita’ in collaboration with Trio Zukan (2022)

IN 2021, we began conversations to investigate the potential sounds of this place with Trío Zukan and later the composer Hara Alonso and our neighbours from the Castilla y León Steel and Mining Museum joined the dialogue. The geological, historical, social and architectural layers began to emerge as I listened around this construction, like a speaker that emits latent frequencies.

The Sabero Valley’s cattle ranching past can be heard through the windows of the Engine Room. A call that blurs time, that confuses the before and after mining. We explore the corners of the machinery with our hands and project an irregular echo: another reading of the surface, another way of looking.

Together we think about what this place can tell us today and what role it plays in the reformulation of the imaginaries linked to the rural environment, to the mountain of León, to mining.
The piece that Hara Alonso, with the collaboration of Iðunn Einars, composes for Trío Zukan and the Machine Room tells us about the geological process of coal formation and the humans who extracted it. Look down, inwards, project sounds through holes and corners looking for resonance. It hits the windows, the machines, the walls. But it also talks about the other. Than she was before coal was coal. Of what will be Look up, outwards: a flute that invokes the echo of hanging mobiles moved by the wind, which summons the neighbors by playing a calf.

Sequence V is a call, a ringing of bells. An open invitation to listen inside and outside.

SECUENCIAS is a cycle of sound interventions in space.

‘when there is only surface left’, by choreographer Oda Brekke

Oda Brekke’s work departs from an interest in the innumerable traces that are discovered and produced when dancing. In this work the paradoxical aspect of the concept surface is a starting point. Evoking the sense of the most concrete and graspable; what is actually here, what can be seen or touched and pointed at. At the same time surface evokes the meaning of superficiality and appearance– a fasade stripped from solid structure and deep meaning.

Together with Lisa Schåman and Maia Means she has developed methods to generate dance material through a surface logic; a continuous movement and effort of emptying things out. The dance is directing them along textures and marks and through a specific rhythm they are faced with their own histories; of dance and of everyday interactions.

When there’s only surface left is made together with sound artist Hara Alonso and artist Mathilde Sundfjord Sæthre. In this work digital sound, textile and dance are put next to one another. In the process the concepts surface, trace and emptiness has been used as a filters to give specific attention to materials and their memories.

Choreography: Oda Brekke
Dance: Maia Means, Lisa Schåman and Oda Brekke
Sound: Hara Alonso
Textile and objects: Mathilde Sundfjord Sæthre
Dramaturgical advice: Karina Sarkissova
Administration: Interim kultur

Special thanks to Stina Ehn and Jack Ohlsson

Supported by Weld, The swedish Arts Council, Swedish Arts Grant Committee and the Nordic Culture fund.

Developed in residency at Weld, höjden, DC Väst, Konstepidemin and Dansplats Skog.

MATMO, by aerial dancer Eleonora Dall’Asta

Collaboration with the Italian-Panamanian aerealist Eleonora Dall´Asta and the sound designer Julián Osvaldo Díaz. Matmo comes from the words “materialism” and “monster.” This piece talks about how the air body, space and objects interact and transform, as well as their sound; if it is true that all aspects of the mind are the result of material interactions, in what do the objects and spaces with which we interact? The illusion becomes a focal point as that gift that we humans have to believe in what is not visible but that somehow helps us to stay alive.

This piece has been showcased among others in the festival Prisma (Panama), CirkusMania (Stockholm) and Fun Fatale (Czech Republic).

LIMITE ROTO [BROKEN LIMIT]

“límite roto” [broken limit] is a sonic and visual exploration on the genre limits, creating an amalgam of textures, rhythms, electronic and instrumental sounds. The research took place in an extremely special place, an empty keroxen tank in Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Spain), a venue with very special acoustics and a 180° screen. This project puts together a constellation of eclectic musicians: Hara Alonso, piano & electrónica, Sergio Castrillón, cello, Núria Andorrà, percusión and the dj and producer Tomás de la Rosa (aka Postman). The visuals are created bylive sound interactive video created by the artist Sabina Covarrubias.

“límite roto” happened during a KEROXEN artistic residency in January 2020.

LOS SONIDOS DE LA ESCUELA RURAL [THE SOUNDS OF THE RURAL SCHOOLS]

The sounds of the rural schools, from the active listening to the collective creation, arises from the collaboration between the Antonino y Cinia Foundation and the rural schools in Ribera del Porma (León, North of Spain). This project intends to bring a more open perspective on music education through experimentation, creation and interdisciplinary activities.

The project started in 2018 and it is carried on thanks to the collaboration between the musician and educator Luis Martínez Campo, Hara Alonso and the León Youth Orchestra (Juventudes Musicales de León).