UK: 'DE LA GUARDA' BUENOS AIRES UNIQUE DANCE/MUSIC THEATRE COMES TO LONDON

Record ID: 386700

  • Title: UK: 'DE LA GUARDA' BUENOS AIRES UNIQUE DANCE/MUSIC THEATRE COMES TO LONDON
  • Date: 1st July 1999
  • Summary: (PERFORMANCE CLEARANCE MAYBE REQUIRED BEFORE USE) CLIP OF DE LA GUARDA'S 'VILLA VILLA'
  • Embargoed: 16th July 1999 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Topics: Entertainment
  • Reuters ID: LVAB0Y1T70CKCA1CCOO1H11F3LG9
  • Story Text: A form of theatre has come to London that is quite unlike anything you will have seen before.It's the brainchild of a group from Buenos Aires who call themselves De La Guarda - others call them a group of mad Argentinians who swing about over astounded people's heads.They've been causing a sensation all over the world - from Belgrade to Brazil, and they're brought their final, polished piece to Camden's Roundhouse.
    The Camden Roundhouse has never housed a production like it - and is unlikely to again.Stage-hands say that four hours of preparations go into each nightly performance, from blowing up thousands of balloons, to putting up the paper ceiling that the performers will come tearing through, to securing the ropes and harnesses that give De La Guarda the ability to fly.
    It's not your usual pre-performance routine, but this show is not your usual piece of theatre.
    A product of a team of wild Argentinians who grew up in the dictatorship of Buenos Aires, De La Guarda - meaning 'Guardian Angel' - are a group of friends/siblings who met at drama-school, leaving it after a year to explore their own ideas.
    The creative duo behind the piece are Pichon Baldinu and Diqui James.They began work on 'Villa Villa' in 1993 when a club-owner allowed them to have a 15-minute spot before the main concert started to test out their ideas on an audience.
    Six years later and their experimental music/dance extravaganza is dazzling audiences from Belgrade to Brazil.
    Pichon says that it all evolved from a dream of creating a space where the audience were a part of the production, where people could share in the atmosphere with the performers: 'It's a story that's all around you, happening over you, around you - it's different to when you go to the theatre and you sit down in your chair that is your little place - you know that you are going to be there for one or two hours and you concentrate on that.Here we bring the people in and we ask them to become free.' The audience stand throughout the whole performance and absorb the onslaught on their senses that they're receiving all around them - colours, sounds, lights, movement, water...
    It's a release of energy that it's hard not to get caught up in.Diqui say that it's the creation of this space for freedom that is the key to the whole piece, although not everyone is able to allow themselves to be carried away.Audience reactions differ greatly from country to country: 'In some places we make the show and people react very quietly - like in Switzerland.Other people are crazy and start dancing from the beginning like in Brazil or in Belgrade.In Belgrade it was really nice to make the show there - the people had a lot of expectations and wanted to be part of something festive - to have a good moment.It was very strong experience."
    Creating something festive - a celebration - is what De La Guarda are all about.They are celebrating life in its totality - happiness, pain, fear, love, passion - all of the wild flying, chanting and dancing is an embodiment of these raw emotions.
    It's also a reaction to growing up in Buenos Aires during a dictatorship, where anything artistic was basically stamped out:
    "We come from a very painful time that was the '70s and '80s - the dictatorship.All the culture was killed, so after that we are like the next generation.There's a big gap between the oldest people and us.The government has no money to support us - it's a hard moment."
    This new generation that Diqui and Pichon are a leading part of now have a blank canvas before them.Diqui says the cultural life of Buenos Aires could go either way.It could either dry up entirely or spark a major artistic revolution.
    Whatever the outcome, De La Guarda are certainly not going to sit back and wait for events to happen - they're bound to be leading the way for a new future for the arts world of Argentina.
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