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Akrob@, which is the title of the project and the collective of acrobats, working on a structural reflection of acrobatics as a fundamental form of expression, providing a specific structure to a scenic language.

This project is developing out of a chapter in my PhD research on Circus Dramaturgy, dedicated to the acrobatics from its origins to its semiotics. At this point for for me it is important to approach dramaturgy as a way to consider a multiplicity of elements and demarcating their common ground rather than look at dramaturgy as a narrative.

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This methodological approach was put into a first practical experience when the project was granted a "dynamic residency” at Central de Circ, Barcelona in May 2018. The final presentation of this residency, gave the departing point to articulate an entire show that puts the acrobatic fundamentals at the service of a dramatic writing.

The subject and methodology used for this project were selected in January 2019 to be presented in a laboratory of Circus Dramaturgy, directed by Roberto Magro at Espace Catastrophe, Brussels.

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The aim of Akrob@ is to work on a system of transfers between conceptual notions, techniques and physical possibilities of the performers, analyzing acrobatics and its movement in space from a mechanical, dynamic and poetic point of view. It brings together it’s elements of origin to cross over into an innovative circus dramaturgy, focusing on acrobatic semiotics as an artistic form, emerging from itself without an existential need to borrow narratives from other arts to be complete. In the center of this work lies the question of the limits and definition of an acrobatic show and how does it relate to circus? In this tension there is a dramaturgical point of view to impulse the creation of an innovative language.

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"Acrobatics is a way of thinking the humanity, as well as the history of body practices and official art. Our current "acrobatic process" is expressed through a culture of rebellion and insurrection. The rejection of the docile, straight and conformed bodies plays with the principles of inversion, deformation, curvature, anamorphosis and balance, an apparent disorder translated into order. "To turn the body upside down", "to go to the end of the body".

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More than entertainment or exotic flames, "acrobatics of the extremities" (of the akros) reveals a meaningful art of living, where performance is considered literally and metaphorically.” – Agate Dumont, homo acrobaticus. constructing a dynamic space to question the modern industrialization of habitat and contrast that procedure with a more organic and eco sustainable way of approaching object design, architecture and urbanist considerations.

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The aim is to open a dialogue between some of Oskar Schlemmer’s theory and geometrical studies, how body draws the abstract space and our idea on how to appropriate, transgress and change space (this space including the notion of individual space, social space, political or colonized space). Using this as a behavioral protocol,proposing, practicing and simultaneously producing a innovative way of habitat. Schlemmer was a pioneer in incorporating circus techniques and acrobats at the centre of a research of an artistic language. In his work, he uses the specific skills of an acrobat’s physic to explore, demarcate and define space beyond a classical relation between body and architecture.

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This other relation we want to expand through the notion of play as a way of understanding our roles and participation in a social construction of individuality and collective network. In fact, we would like to use Alma Buscher’s Kleine Schiffbauspiel and Große Schiffbauspiel to research the idea of constructing objects and systems through favoring the appropriation of play. In this way,our research would attempt to use the physicality, risk and dynamic of play as a tool to alter architecture and let architecture alter movement pursuing a wider spectrum and dimension in our spacial awareness and interaction.

“Architecture against death is the design of space that forces people to think carefully about where and how they move through it – at the very least, an interesting way of promoting alertness. In these spaces, people therefore feel less bored, depressed, and more activated. The fundamental subject of this type of architecture is staying alive, coming alive to and staying alive to.” This residency would enable a practical and physical research challenging and reconfigure the particular approach and connection between architecture and choreography that already Shlemmer and Laban evoked in their times.

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Parallel to this and as an different element, the circus environment presents a specific philosophy of living and spatial understanding that can relate to another conception of gravity. This specificity of being and practice is driven by it’s quality of itinerancy and though that its potentiality of claiming public space. I would like to use this residency period to work in three axes: - a research about new technology and materials that tend to create innovative and sustainable ways of design and construction both in an object and urbanist scale.

Materials with memory, developed by biopolymers and ways to transform physical movement in energy. This opens also the consideration of collaborating with sciences, like bio technology in the way that Neri Oxman has been developing his work, towards an understanding of building for nature. - a movement research about the way that architecture sets the body movement and circulation.

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By using acrobats technics we want to approach other spatial considerations that could open up the conditions of gravity in space occupation related to movement mechanics, space dynamics and a poetic consideration of production. - a practical research that opens up the possibility of considering the actual production of this elements as an open source of presentation and understanding of this phenomenon. During this residency we have the goal to enter in a first phase of creation that confronts the modality of a habitat, by using the act of abstraction, movement and performance in a way, to deconstruct and reconstruct the immanent environment, its social structure and collective (mis)understanding. Putting up front a relational behavior that approaches each element in space, as such also the audience, the objects and the movement, as part of a transversal structure where each position and responsibility towards the other is fluid and can shift between presentation (performance) and being (functionality of presence).

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