PENSCENIQUES – 2001

PENSCENIQUES is a theatre project based on the confrontation of different brain functions and inspired by theories of the “double bind”: a crisis in communication in which an individual or group receives two or more reciprocally conflicting messages. The stresses created by the dilemma of the double bind can result in irrational emotional responses. Underlying the project is Valiente’s fascination with the collision of different cerebral functions: long and short-term memory, thinking in the present and recollection, writing and reading, and so on – as ways of activating mental disorder and producing uncertain bodily behaviours.

These uncertain behaviours appear through instinctive reactions of the body changing constantly the logic of the performance.

PENSCENIQUES was performed at Drammatikkens hus, Oslo, in 2001. Responding to the work, critic Diane Oatley wrote that “it was primarily the condition of the performer’s “being”, with open face and hesitant, seeking, somehow broken, body… that was the most meaningful for me… I found it exciting to simply “be” within the meditative space that was created.”

DIRECTION & PERFORMANCE: Marcelino Valiente

Critical responses:

“Pensceniques… [created] a texture… of small moments of contact between myself as the viewer and the performer, moments that were almost blissful or sad [and that] the piece in no sense sought to rectify, resolve or explain. They remained in transit or suspended; although it was possible to connect particular actions to these [feelings], I think it was primarily the condition of the performer’s “being”, with open face and hesitant, seeking, somehow broken, body… that was the most meaningful for me. The face created a backdrop for what the body was saying, but without falling into the expressionless, blank stare so common in conventional dance. I found it exciting to simply “be” within the meditative space that was created.” (Diane Oatley,Writer)