Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Arts and Humanities Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Dramatic Literature, Criticism and Theory

University of Richmond

Series

La Fura dels Baus

Publication Year

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

Faust In Barcelona: Catalonia's La Fura Dels Baus, Sharon G. Feldman Jul 1999

Faust In Barcelona: Catalonia's La Fura Dels Baus, Sharon G. Feldman

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

Total darkness. Garbled electronic sounds gradually build into a thundering roar, reminiscent of a plane veering down the runway. An orgasmic explosion fills the theatre with a big bang and a sudden flash of light. Following the chaos, what emerges in the darkness is the phantasmal image of two rotating human heads fixed at opposite ends of a single body. It is Faust, fastened to a revolving metallic "bed" evocative of Leonardo da Vinci's armillary sphere. The heads spin like two satellites in a never-ending cosmic orbit, creating a subtle allusion to the Faust/Mephistopheles duality that later in the performance …


Scenes From The Contemporary Barcelona Stage: La Fura Dels Baus's Aspiration To The Authentic, Sharon G. Feldman Dec 1998

Scenes From The Contemporary Barcelona Stage: La Fura Dels Baus's Aspiration To The Authentic, Sharon G. Feldman

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

In October 1983, just south of Barcelona at the annual Sitges Theatre Festival, beneath the railroad tracks in the claustrophobic space of a subterranean pedestrian passageway, La Fura dels Baus erupted into public view with an embryonic version of their first major spectacle, entitled Accions ("Actions"). The performance was conceived along the same aesthetic lines that continue to shape even the most recent work of this Catalan company. Accions consisted of a series of transgressive and, at times, startling exercicis pràctics ("practical exercises") intended to elicit an impulsive, visceral response from audience members. In their program notes, La Fura defined …