Agrupación Señor Serrano (Spain)

MARIA MATOS TEATRO MUNICIPAL
3, 4 and 5 May at 9.30pm (Thu, Fri, Sat)

Opening Show

_{Portuguese Premiere}

_{TICKETS ONLINE}

_{Technique: Live animation film and objects Language: English, with Portuguese subtitles For audiences over: +12 Running time: 60 min.}

^{Masterclass with Agrupación Señor Serrano: 5 May. Info here}

The 18th edition of FIMFA Lx - International Festival of Puppetry and Animated Forms opens with Birdie, a multimedia performance with live video, objects, Hitchcock’s The Birds revisited, scale models, 2000 mini animals, wars, smugglers, a massive migration and three performers handling this messy world with wit, criticism and commitment with humankind.

Melilla. Some men play golf while behind them dozens of immigrants, like Hitchcock’s Birds, balance precariously at the top of a fence, trying to climb over. This photography, taken by José Palazón, is analysed in every detail, set next to new visual material, and becomes both the starting point and destination of a visionary treaty on the migration between the movement of the galaxies, the flows of Internet, golf and the threat of flocks of birds.

Always careful of the dangers that can hide inside an image, Agrupación Señor Serrano creates a hyper-media portrait of a present torn between flows of goods and new walls.

It portrays a miniature stage, inhabited by thousands of stuffed animals, moved by three performers and with every detail filmed by video cameras. The resulting images are in turn projected onto a screen, altered by hand, or played in real time together with fragments Hitchcock’s film or data and information found on the web.

Birdie draws a parallel between Hitchcock's The Birds and the drama of immigrants. The denunciation, creativity, poetry and originality are the weapons of Señor Serrano, puppeteers of the digital age, they manipulate on real-time video, scale models, text, projections, objects and sounds…

^{"The outstanding Catalan company is one of those creative phenomena that are changing the face of the contemporary theatrical scene. With a brilliant invention, Birdie draws a parallel between a well-known film, Hitchcock's The Birds and a photographer's shot (…). Rarely - believe me - have I seen the theme of migration addressed in a key so moving​​​​."
-Renato Palazzi, Il sole 24 ore} 

^{"Masters on the simulation of the simulation, experts on craftworking the newest technology, on recreating the charm of a stop-motion film produced live (...), on pampering the willingness of the spectators to the magic by immersing them in a hallucinogenic odyssey (...), or directly inviting them to fly. (...) An impeccable story of humankind told in the three dimensions of a scale model."
-Juan Carlos Olivares, El País}

^{"The creativity of Agrupación Señor Serrano reminds us how often we see images without looking at them carefully, without making the effort of reading what they are trying to tell us. Señor Serrano does so through an admirable show (...). Capable of provoking storms in a glass of water and building fascinating visual and human landscapes with minimal resources used with a maximum of talent, Agrupación Señor Serrano flies very high together with this ‘Birdie’, free from rhetorical discourses and full of imagination."}

^{-Ramon Oliver, Recomana.cat} 

^{"An audiovisual narrative which combines the manipulation of dolls in scale models, prerecorded images, some fragments of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, and even an excerpt from an interview with the famous director. (...) A narration that fascinates thanks to the perfect combination of all elements, the poetic spirit and the preciosity in the execution. Oh, and with a simple and fantastic ending that allows viewers to feel that they can fly (...). And all this is a real gift."
-Santi Fondevila, Diari Ara}

_BIO

Founded by Àlex Serrano in Barcelona in 2006, Agrupación Señor Serrano is a theatre company that creates original productions based on stories drawn from contemporary times. The company uses the richness of innovative and vintage tools to extend the boundaries of its theatre. Based on creative collaborations, Señor Serrano’s productions blend stage performance, text, video, sound, and scale models to stage stories about discordant aspects of today’s human experience. The company productions premiere and tour mostly internationally.
Agrupación Señor Serrano gestates and premieres original intermedia productions using the company’s three-stage creative model: Devising of Contents, Dispositive Conception, and Editing and Rehearsal. Creators involved in each work share their primary creative skill sets with one another over the course of the process. This exchanging of abilities empowers each member of the group and consequently the company’s project.
At present, Agrupación Señor Serrano’s core is composed by Àlex Serrano (artistic director), Pau Palacios (content manager) and Barbara Bloin (production manager).
The company has received support and recognition from several institutions like GREC Festival de Barcelona, Instituto Nacional de las Artes Escénicas y de la Música, Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo, Consell Nacional de la Cultura i de les Arts, Departament de Cultura de la Generalitat, Centre d’Arts Escèniques de Terrassa, Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication or Hexagone Scène Nationale Arts et Sciences – Meylan among others. Its creative processes include international residency centers like La Chartreuse – Centre National des Écritures du Spectacle, La Fabrique de Théâtre or Monty Kultuurfaktorij.
On August 3, 2015, Agrupación Señor Serrano was awarded the Silver Lion at the Venice Biennale. In addition to this recognition, the company has regularly won awards both nationally and internationally, such as Ciutat de Barcelona Award for Theatre 2017, FAD Sebastià Gasch Award 2015, Barcelona Critics Prize, New Trends 2014 and 2016 (Birdie).