Silver Lion 2015
Venice Biennale
Silver Lion 2015
Venice Biennale
On August 3, 2015, Agrupación Señor Serrano’s work was awarded the Silver Lion for innovation in theatre of the Venice Biennale in a ceremony held at the Palazzo Ca’ Giustinian. We are very proud of the prize and we believe that it is not entirely undeserved. However, not everyone thinks the same. It is fair to bring here the voices of dissent:
“The only real disappointment of the festival was Agrupación Señor Serrano to which this year was awarded the Silver Lion for innovation in theatre (we can’t see the possible reason for that): smart asses and malicious they presented a show in which the chase of American Indians, the hunting of Moby Dick and the capture of Bin Laden were put on the same plane. On stage, some platforms, a series of scale models of Bin Laden’s house in Pakistan, plastic action figures and miniature planes: and a camera amplifying all this on a large screen, as we have already seen in many shows. Where was all this going? I don’t know, from an ideological and political point of view, unless they pretended to trivially show the interweaving of fiction and reality. How original!”
Anna Bandettini, La Repubblica (16/08/2015).
Premiered on 10.07.2014 at GREC 2014 Festival de Barcelona.
Production currently on tour.
Through its trademark language (scale models, video projections, video editing in real time and willing performers) Agrupación Señor Serrano presents a scenic western where reality and its copies are mixed, drawing a merciless pop portrait of the decade following 9/11, the seed for the 21st century. Come and see.
The house where Geronimo is hiding in Pakistan. An exact copy of that house in a military base in North Carolina. A third twin house in Jordan, where a film is shot. The largest manhunt in history. A Sheriff obsessed with a white whale. The boy band Take That drilling for a historic mission. Cowboys and Indians. Airplanes and beers. Copies, reflections, imitations and cheeseburgers.
Geronimo’s house had three floors, two large courtyards and a small guest house. The whole compound was protected by a three-meters-tall wall. Geronimo lived there with his family.
Geronimo’s house had three floors, two large courtyards and a small guest house. It was protected by a three meters wall. It was 15,000 km away from the first house and Matt Bissonnette and his Navy Seal’s colleagues were training there for several weeks.
Geronimo’s house, identical to the previous two, was halfway to the first and the second. There, the actor Chris Patt and his colleagues were playing Geronimo, Matt Bissonnette and the Navy Seals.
The first house was built in Abottabad. The second, in Harvey Point military base, North Carolina. And the third was built by Columbia Pictures in Jordan, near the Dead Sea.
Three scale models of the house were built, too. One was built by the CIA to plan and explain the attack on Geronimo. The second was built by the production company of Zero Dark Thirty and was used in the film for the same purpose. The third is ours and it’s on the stage.
Creation: Àlex Serrano, Pau Palacios and Ferran Dordal / Performance: Àlex Serrano, Pau Palacios and David Muñiz / Voices: James Phillips (Matt) and Joe Lewis (young marine) / Project manager: Barbara Bloin / Video-creation: Jordi Soler / Sound design and soundtrack: Roger Costa Vendrell / Light design: Alberto Barberá / Scale models: Nuria Manzano / Costumes: Alexandra Laudo / Technology advisors: Eloi Maduell and Martí Sánchez-Fibla / Legal advisor: Cristina Soler / Project advisor: Víctor Molina / Photographer: Nacho Gómez / Management: Art Republic.
Agrupación Señor Serrano / GREC 2014 Festival de Barcelona / Hexagone Scène Nationale Arts et Sciences – Meylan / Festival TNT – Terrassa Noves Tendències / Monty Kultuurfaktorij / La Fabrique de Théâtre – Province de Hainaut
Festival Hybrides de Montpellier / Festival Differenti Sensazioni / Departament de Cultura de la Generalitat / Instituto Nacional de las Artes Escénicas y de la Música (INAEM) / Institut Ramon Llull
Critics Prize 2014, New Trends. Barcelona (Spain).
Award of the president of the Moravian-Silesian Region Miroslav Novák, Spectaculo Interesse Festival 2015. Ostrava (Czech Republic).
Lalka tez Czlowiek Distinction Prize, PIHT Festival 2016. Warsaw (Poland).