Author Archives: Roberto Bacchilega

Theatre as Communal Experience

Theatre as Communal Experience

This theatre workshops aims at gathering around the necessity of grassroots, multidisciplinary, multilingual, transcultural artistic expression based on theatre, music, singings, visual arts, voice and body performance.
We explore the basics of the performative practice: posture, movement, presence, body, the other in the space, games and the voice in many of its expressions.
Our voices engage in spoken word, acting, text delivery and poetry in order to achieve a theatre and poetry performance.
Our bodies play roles and accompany impro’s and storytelling. Our practice originates from ourselves: memories, stories and sounds of stones and steps, images of repopulated land, memories of touching each other, smell of seaweed.

You are welcome to attend the 1, 8, 15 December 14:30-17:00 classes!

AstaroTheatro
Sint Jansstraat 37 Amsterdam
www.astarotheatro.com
www.ourfootsteps.nl

This workshop is by donation.
Highly appreciated if you can confirm your attendance in advance: info@ourfootsteps.nl

“Anyone can do theater, even actors. And theater can be done everywhere, even in a theater”
Augusto Boal

Astaroth the Devil – OpenPodium at AstaroTheatro

Astaroth the Devil
OpenPodium at AstaroTheatro
The stage of AstaroTheatro is open!
Friday 22 November 20:30
AstaroTheatro
Sint Jansstraat 37 Amsterdam
Entrance by Donation

Let’s reclaim the arts and let’s mock mainstream commodification and corporate banality in culture and life.
Let’s share performances challenging neoliberal narratives and exposing warmongering and human exploitation while opposing fascist ethno-states.

The stage of AstaroTheatro is open for radical, marginalized, racialized and queer artists and communities.
An evening of awareness, of joyful togetherness and mutual care.

​​​​​​​Participate? Perform?
info@ourfootsteps.nl
Or just show up at the event!

Theatre as Communal Experience

Theatre as Communal Experience

This theatre workshops aims at gathering around the necessity of grassroots, multidisciplinary, multilingual, transcultural artistic expression based on theatre, music, singings, visual arts, voice and body performance.
We explore the basics of the performative practice: posture, movement, presence, body, the other in the space, games and the voice in many of its expressions.
Our voices engage in spoken word, acting, text delivery and poetry in order to achieve a theatre and poetry performance.
Our bodies play roles and accompany impro’s and storytelling. Our practice originates from ourselves: memories, stories and sounds of stones and steps, images of repopulated land, memories of touching each other, smell of seaweed.

Five Classes: 17, 24 November; 1, 8, 15 December 14:30-17:00
Participants can attend one or more classes but it is highly recommended to follow all 5 of them.

AstaroTheatro
Sint Jansstraat 37 Amsterdam
www.astarotheatro.com
www.ourfootsteps.nl

This workshop is by donation.
Highly appreciated if you can confirm your attendance in advance: info@ourfootsteps.nl

“Anyone can do theater, even actors. And theater can be done everywhere, even in a theater”
Augusto Boal

Astaroth the Devil – OpenPodium at AstaroTheatro

Astaroth the Devil
OpenPodium at AstaroTheatro
The stage of AstaroTheatro is open!
Saturday 19 October 20:00
AstaroTheatro
Sint Jansstraat 37 Amsterdam
Entrance by Donation

Let’s reclaim the arts and let’s mock mainstream commodification and corporate banality in culture and life. Let’s share performances challenging neoliberal narratives and exposing warmongering and human exploitation while opposing fascist ethno-states.
The stage of AstaroTheatro is open for radical, marginalized, racialized, queer artists and communities. An evening of awareness, of joyful togetherness and mutual care.

​​​​​​​Participate? Perform?
info@ourfootsteps.nl
Or just show up at the event!

Vasilis Papadopoulos and Andrea Cabezuelo Ensamble at AstaroTheatro

Vasilis Papadopoulos and Andrea Cabezuelo Ensamble at AstaroTheatro
Saturday 26 October 20:30
AstaroTheatro
Sint Jansstraat 37 Amsterdam
Entrance by Donation


Contemporary Mediterranean Jazz Rock: Fragile vocal lines dressed with a jazz aesthetic and eastern Mediterranean ornaments outlining the sociopolitical lyrics against the apathy of the West, the horrors of war, the destruction of simplicity and tenderness. Compositions that remind you of Silvana Estrada and Jose Gonzalez with a more jazz rock attitude and shifted to the Meditteranean traditions and ways of expression. That is the Vasilis Papadopoulos and Andrea Cabezuelo ensamble. 

BANGS Festival – Devilish Moons

Amsterdam BANGS Festival
Devilish Moons

Friday 20 September, 18.30. Hiba Abu Nada Campus People’s University Amsterdam
Tussen Meer 85 Amsterdam
Saturday 21 September, 20.00. AstaroTheatro
Sint 
Jansstraat 37 Amsterdam

Out of the necessity and urgency to challenge decay, havoc and fragmentation of modernity, five months ago we started workshops and practices of fluid multidisciplinary theatre performance, street theatre and participatory theatre. This also developed in response to the brutal oppression of student movements and to the distress caused by being violently persecuted and marginalized by the patriarchal, colonial and capitalist state. But in our journey, we also encountered love, togetherness and the desire of creating that went in the direction of Inanna, this ancient storytelling of descent and ascent, of rot and regeneration. The energy originated by this poetic story, by this tale of loss and newly-found life, we wish to share with you in a community of bodies, minds and souls.

BANGS Festival – Whispers of the Wild

Amsterdam Bangs Festival
Whispers of the Wild
Zapatista Tales of Resistance and Connection

Thursday 19 September 20:00
Villa Intifada
Krom Boomssloot 47
Amsterdam 

Music, dance and spoken word originated by the universal Zapatista tales of nature, humanity and wisdom transcending borders.
A theatre performance where drops of rain meet the earth to become a river, a fish and a tree. They know all too well that real joy only lies in acknowledging the other.
This theatre performance is originated by months of communal workshops and rehearsals at AstaroTheatro in the spirit of resistance and connection.

BANGS Festival – Etude for Ears and Hands

Amsterdam Bangs Festival
Etude for Ears and Hands

Saturday 21 September, 15:00-17.30
AstaroTheatro
Sint Jansstraat 37
Amsterdam


“Etude for Ears and Hands” is a durational performative sound-session. You are welcome to come and go at your own pace. While the setting will be intimate, you can be as active or passive as you like – either relax and listen, or join into the making of a tactile soundscape. Drawing on foley techniques and ASMR practices, the session is about transforming everyday items into tools for producing unexpected sounds.

Tuning into the material world, “Etude for Ears and Hands” reflects on the radical potential of sensory experiences, proposing active engagement with our senses as a form of resistance.
Everyone is welcome to join!

 

BANGS Festival – Trash Skeleton and the dumpster divers (Three Plays)

Amsterdam BANGS Festival
Trash Skeleton and the dumpster divers (Three Plays)

Thursday 19 September, 19:30
AstaroTheatro
Sint Jansstraat 37 
Amsterdam

The first play is called “She’s looking up the symptoms online” and is about a woman needing to get over her ex by using a surrealist version of omegle/chatroulette. She explores her emotions and past relationship while talking to a tree, a masturbator, an anarchist who can fly and a whole lot more!

The second play is “Replacement home” and is about an anarchist needing to find a new building to squat for her radical family about to get evicted. The play takes several fourth wall breaking turns as things go horribly wrong but maybe you can help them squat in the end?

The third play is called “Trips to the void” and is about a trans woman coming to terms with herself as she takes acid and the void inside her consumes all the people invited to trip with her. This is about chosen family and coming to terms with who you are instead of being ashamed and alone!

Reflexions on Nothingness

Reflexions on Nothingness
A confused, nonlinear brainstorming
A call to give answers to many random questions

Why nothing seems to make a difference? When asking this question the many answers to that nothing space from society to politics, from awareness of genocide to theatre.
In this context, nothing includes knowledge and understanding of a phenomenology. Nothing confronts us with the awareness that we have of human destruction and exploitation while still doing nothing to improve the situation, nothing to make a change. And even when something seems to be done, this is just appearance, since nothing really happens in order to cease this systemic destruction and this exploitation, nothing really starts a process of system change.
Nothing really happens? Or maybe something happens. It’s hard to say, but by acknowledging that something happens, aren’t we simply trying to keep this entity called hope alive?

When we are faced with the dehumanization and exploitation of the other, shouldn’t we listen to the words of the poet of Think of Others?
As Palestinian genocide, geopolitical wars, environmental disaster, patriarchy, exploitative capitalism, imperialism and migrants drowning in the Mediterranean make their way to our consciousness, shouldn’t humanity react in a radical and unconditional way to put an end to all this?

As a human and as an artist I often feel the painful bite of frustration and hopelessness for all this. It’s just like to stand in front of the worst phenomenology ever, to touch catastrophe with your own hand while realizing that nothing is done to put an end to it. Humanity just let all this happen. Humanity does nothing to stop the horror. Even though being aware of the horror, people only seem to care about nothing but their own little private interests. Nothing meaningful happens. Nothing offers a solution. Nothing?

As an artist I’ve always been aware that “ars gratia artis” is a boring, futile, bourgeois nonsense and that arts don’t happen in a vacuum. Arts should confront society with its shortcomings, challenge corporate mediocrity and promote unconventional non-mainstream narratives.
As a theatre practitioner I’ve always been concerned about and confronted with the impact that my theatre, our theatre, produces. The impact of our theatre on people’s minds. Does our theatre, called AstaroTheatro, really make a change? Does it really make a difference? Does it engage with people’s minds, bodies and souls? Or is AstaroTheatro just the whisper of a moment in a world of nothing where nothing seems to make difference?
Sure, in its theatre practice AstaroTheatro creates participation and community on a daily basis. This has a value and it is often praised by its self-created communities. But how sustainable is this? How coherent, long lasting and grounded are these AstaroTheatro communities? To which extent does this participatory theatre touch people’s minds so that their actions refuse to contribute to the general nothingness of our times and on the contrary generate the needed energy to challenge systems of exploitation? How do AstaroTheatro narratives help our communities to envision a reality where another world is possible?

These days when being exposed to artistic contents, I can’t help thinking about how inconsistent they are in challenging the nihilism of present nothingness. And I can’t help thinking about how tiny AstaroTheatro with its tiny existence is also part of this inconsistency and this nothingness and thus unable to challenge the horror in order to offer a fertile ground to a world of sustainable humanity.
In theatre we more and more see inclusion, meaning the narratives originated by marginalized or racialized communities. So the presence on stage of performers  of color and performers with migrant backgrounds is out there to reassure us about an equal access to opportunities and resources of our societies. At first sight this is of course a positive development. But here comes nothingness. When these performers operate in a mainstream environment, how effective are their narratives for fundamental change? To which audience do they cater? Does their theatre contribute to social change, system change, or are we again of front of the “nothing seems to happen” situation?
And then how tokenized are theatre performers belonging to minority groups? If we talk about queer performers with queer narratives, how relevant is their work for visibility, acceptance and emancipation? To which extend does queer theatre challenge patriarchy and systems of capitalist oppression?
In the theatre landscape when opening spaces to performers from Palestine, Africa or any other exploited and oppressed part of the world, are we really witnessing a process of decolonization of the Western minds? Are we experiencing a transition, a change in the capitalist system and in its mindset towards a more sustainable and less exploitative society? And even when these performers cater to their own communities instead of a white audience, what is it? Is this empowering a given community or is it simply reinforcing systems of segregation and identity politics?

The power of artists. Cultural intifada. Resistance through art. How I wish all this could tear down the wall, how I long for a society where human value is not expressed in money and exploitation! If only the power of artists could contribute to stop wars and capitalism!
And when talking about value, how strange is it to transform an immaterial entity like theatre into some kind of commodity. A commodified theatre can then become the recipient for subsidies, fundings, investments, promotion, marketing. How can this even claim to challenge nothingness and contribute to anything other than bourgeois entertainment and hedonism? Is cultural intifada possible when the capitalist free market puts its hands on it?

The power of grassroots, community based theatre can be relevant because it’s less commodified and hierarchic and more joyful than mainstream theatre. It creates participation and solidarity. AstaroTheatro has always embraced this bottom-up participatory theatre and by doing so it aims at creating community and awareness by gathering around the necessity of grassroots, multidisciplinary, multilingual, transcultural artistic expression.
But make no illusions. Tiny AstaroTheatro in almost two decades of activity is also part of that “nothing seems to make a difference, nothing seems to make a change”. AstaroTheatro narratives have always been unconventional and non mainstream, they have always been inclusive and participatory, but unfortunately it takes much more than this to even scratch the surface and activate a process of system change. Recently someone told me that if a theatre performer can start a process of awareness in just one person’s mind, if he or she can contribute to the mindset shift of even one person, well that’s already a result worth living and working for. Maybe. But we live in a society that needs to be radically transformed into something way more sustainable so we need to see large, grounded and radical changes real soon. 

As AstaroTheatro struggles for its survival in this highly competitive and deeply unfair neoliberal society, as it operates in this capitalist world where rents and bills have to be paid, where financial solvability decides your very existence and continuity, the future is uncertain and nothingness is just around the corner.

So while I make no illusions for myself and for others, I keep creating, we keep creating an illusion called theatre because we need to tell each other stories in order to survive.
Quote: “We are creatures of narratives. Stories are the means by which we navigate the world. When we have no story that explains the present and describes the future, hope evaporates. Despair is a state we fall into when our imagination fails. Without a restoration story that can tell us where we need to go, nothing is going to change, but with such a restoration story almost everything can change” (Sustainable Humans)
We are a society of altruists governed by psychopaths, that’s why it’s crucial to foster politics of belonging and actions of care and healing. Sure, tiny AstaroTheatro is not going to make any radical change. But on the other hand to sit back and do nothing is also not a viable option to challenge nothingness. And while we are on the road, let’s just quote that “I become another” and that it’s “Because the house is farther and the road to it prettier” (Mahmoud Darwish)

Roberto Bacchilega
Artistic Director at AstaroTheatro