Part 1 | Live from Venice Biennale: Andrea Peña and Bárbara Sánchez-Kane

0:02A designer choreographs my body every time I sit on this chair, but if I was sitting on a couch, the designer would be decorating, choreographing a very different language on my body. Yeah, and I always think about the garments I do as an architect of failure. Bogotá, Sao Paulo, there are these places of sacred chaos, and to be able to be working in that sacred chaos and bring that chaos into the room is super beautiful. You both have a lot in common, as we figured out today. Can you give us a little bit of background on what are the shared topics that have had you messaging each other, but never having the conversation we're about to have live?

0:41Yes, so I was making a new work to present here at the Biennale, for the Dance Biennale. And I had been following Barbara's work for quite a few years, also a Latin American artist. And so I reached out to Barbara and I said, Barbara, can you make the costumes for the show? It would be amazing to have your work with us in Venice. So this was 2022 because we had the show in 2023. And I remember Barbara, even she was, they were like, my guide told me that I was going to go to Venice. Anyways, we had a really beautiful connection. The astrologer. Yeah, your astrologer. And anyways, since then we sort of stayed in touch and mostly through WhatsApp and video call.

1:20And yesterday, this morning was the first time we met in person. I love that. How different is the Dance Biennale from the 61st Biennale we're in now in terms of in minor keys? You are both veterans of both. Can you share anything about the difference in experience? I think for me, you know, my experience is very different than being here. At the time, you know, I was with my team. We were about 18 people here for 10 days making a show. This is when Wade McGregor created the Dance Biennale. Exactly. So, you know, my team of artists that have been my family for the last 10 years and we were here for 10 days.

1:52Shout out anyone here? No. Spiritually. Spiritually. And yeah, and it was really beautiful when we came here last time. You know, I felt like we were at art camp at the Venice Biennale. So it was this wild experience. Yeah. And for me, I was two years ago with Adriano Pedrosa Biennale. It was a whole week. I did enjoy it at the beginning when the crowd didn't arrive yet at the city. But it was like a whole week for installation. and then preparing for the performance that was at Arsenale. So it was a difficult challenge because we didn't have time, you know, the performance to do a rehearsal in Mexico.

2:36I did ask for my gallery's patio to do a rehearsal there, but we needed a bigger space. And that was challenging enough, but I did enjoy, like, every performance was very different, all the crowd. sometimes the performance was happening and people were not even observing it. We're like hearing the steps, hearing the trumpets and that. Can you give us a sense of Preta Patria just for the people who didn't have the privilege of seeing it, what that military uniform as artwork meant? Preta Patria is an installation I presented in 2021 first in Mexico City of three soldiers being empelated. But for me, I've seen that penetration not as an object penetration.

3:19For me, it's more how can you uncover a uniform without taking and showing the body again, showing the person again? Because what the uniform does is you raise yourself. And now, like, we're feeling all this, like, very sadistic immigration that is happening and different wars that are, you know, happening. And we're seeing it live. And so for me, it's like, how do you question like the body and the desire and the power? And for me, it was, you know, how do people react to parity too? Using that word to question a war and what's happening. And for me, I always think like if there is, you know, reading this book, like there's other word, the word for forest is world.

4:09So like thinking, how can we do, you know, like change that? It's interesting because both of your work is so rooted in your communities and where you come from, but also has such universal resonance. Can you talk to that? Yeah, I think similar really to Barbara. I think that's where we also have a lot of kinship in what we do. This piece that we did here, Bogota, is also, you know, it speaks about my hometown. I'm from Bogota. and it was a work that is sort of trying to situate a post-colonial imaginary. We're definitely not in a post-colonial time right now, as Barbara was saying either. And trying to kind of create these other worlds or these other imaginaries on stage that are sort of playgrounds to test, to challenge, to think about these post-colonial ideas and trying to use Bogota, I would say, as a trampoline for that kind of thinking and that kind of thought.

5:01and choreographically, you know, we're working through the body and I think this is where my work as a designer really comes into play but trying to build what I like to call these other universes or alternative universes that allow us to get to some of those questions and in particular Bogota, we were looking at this question of the Andean Baroque and so the Andean Baroque is something most people are not aware of this sort of Baroque aesthetic that comes from Europe but when Latin America was colonized, for example in Colombia when these buildings and these churches were being sort of imposed on the land.

5:36A lot of the people building these infrastructures were indigenous, natives, Latin American people to the land. And they started to infuse those architectures or paintings with symbols or hybrid aesthetics that came from their own traditions. So, for example, in Bogota, you have a small church that is very Baroque. It's like a small, tiny, super maximalist gold church. but all of the saints that are painted in this church are actually painted inside of the Amazon forest. So you sort of find this subversion and this contrast. And so I was trying to take this Andean Baroque, Latin American Baroque and explore it on stage.

6:14So trying to bring some of these questions of future imaginaries, different ways of thinking about who we are as people onto the stage. I'd love to touch on architecture, but you mentioned your connection to industrial design And it made me think because we have so many students and fellows in this room, how did what you are studying in your earlier years define what you're practicing now? Well, I studied engineering at first. Engineering. Yeah. Industrial design. Yeah. And I always think about the garments I do as an architect of failure. Like I met one of my very good friends buying these coats.

6:53They went to my studio and then they texted me. And it's like, hey, Barbara, I really had a very nice time in Paris for the first time. And it's because I lost my phone. You have so many damn pockets in your coat that I couldn't figure out if I lost it or not. And I kind of like these imaginations that this carrier coat can put you in conversations or mediations of turning around. because we actually that, no, like we forget the minor sounds, the minor, you know, people that connect us together, you know, and that's quite important. It's so nice. I love what you said about architectural failure because my work is very much in the same conversation.

7:34And I talk a lot about negotiation. I would say, you know, I have a more traditional background as a dancer. I did ballet. I trained, you know, in American ballet theater. We were talking about that last night. I come from that world. And then I stopped my career as a dancer to study industrial design. So I really thought I was going to leave the dance world behind. I had no interest in becoming a choreographer. And so I did my bachelor's and my master's in design at the same time as I started making work. And it was in that sort of situating myself in a world of design thinking and thinking about society, culture, environment, economics, and the relationship that the human being has to so many different layers in the world.

8:16It was really sort of, I think design for me folded my practice as a dancer inside out. And it sort of made me re-question or rethink what dance meant for me as a way of thinking and what kind of practice I wanted to develop as an artist. And so this idea of architecture of failure, I think in the way I work as a choreographer, I try to situate myself almost more as a designer where I'm creating situations. Like when we talk about sonography with my team. We talk less about sonography that decorates the space, rather sonography that activates ideas or activates a negotiation in the same way that, for example, a designer choreographs my body every time I sit on this chair.

8:55But if I was sitting on a couch, the designer would be decorating, choreographing a very different language on my body. So I became really fascinated with how designers sort of operate as choreographers and in the work trying to invert that in order to see failure, in order to see agency, in order to see decision-making from the performers. But a lot of that agency and that decision-making comes from being in dialogue with the built environment that we're creating on stage. So, yeah, I feel a lot of kinship there too. What did you have to unlearn from your classical training? Yeah, I think, you know, dance has changed a lot, but I think there's this expectation of perfection and I see it a lot.

9:36I'm fortunate I have my own company, my own team, but I do commissioned work, which means I arrive to a company who has its own structure or its own journey. And in some cases, a lot of times what we have to unlearn is making decisions. How do you make decisions in a room when you're used to a choreographer telling you how to do things or you're used to a choreographer, you know, asking you for your hand to be here and not here. and a lot of the time this unlearning for me is about trying to see the point of view of the interpreter and not just seeing a dancer on stage but seeing bada bada the human being on stage negotiating with performative or movement based ideas so it's actually kind of cracking open the form to be able to see more vulnerability choice making the individual yeah Does that relate to you in terms of your...

10:23For me I think that we learn that everything needs to be fixed and there are certain things that all need to be fixed So it's about that. There's centered things that need to be fixed. That's what I learned, because I come from an engineering background. And it's like, let's find the best way to fix it in the least time and more money, you know. So it's that. Well, and I think, too, what you're saying, this unfixing, you know, I'm fascinated with, like, everything that is hybrid and everything that is in between. And it's finding answers in the spaces of fluidity or in spaces where things are undefined.

10:56And I'm going to ask the most controversial question because yesterday at the match, there was a bold statement, fashion is art. And I feel like Barbara needs to speak to that statement, fashion is art. Discuss. That's a big question. I always think that you can have a pair of scissors, so it's the same element. And with the scissors, you can either harm somebody, you can either connect somebody, you can create a space for gathering, but you can separate. So not all the time art is, you know, fashion is art or vice versa. You know, like I think there's moments that there is, you know, it's the same tool, but it's depending on the situation.

11:36And you're showing another situation I'm meeting in a museum, in a white cube, it's depending. It just, you know, it does not always carry the same meaning, even if it's, you know, the same pair of scissors doing it. I loved seeing your work at the Jumex Collection recently in Mexico City alongside Álvaro Urbanos, who's another next prize winners. When does a garment become art? I'm very curious, you know, and my curiosity has led me to good and bad situations. The good one is, I think, when you kind of like are like holding something, draping something in your body and you kind of recognize it and you know the end part of it.

12:15not the end part, but how it's going to work in a way is when you need to leave it and, you know, give it to a friend, give it to another person, give it to a gallery, give it to a group show. It's not yours anymore because, you know, you have so much possession that possession becomes, you know, control. And I want not to control the material or what am I doing? Love to hear from you, Andrea, as well. What does it mean having a company? Yeah, I would say it's been, I started my company 10 years ago. And so most of the work that I do is large scale, so anywhere between 10 to 20 performers. Very early on in my life, I decided to embark on this journey of having a company, and I didn't really understand what that was going to mean, like structurally, administratively, the amount of infrastructure that you have to have behind a company to operate so many people working a year.

13:03And it's been a beautiful journey. I think, you know, on one hand, for me, my question was also, okay, if I'm going to start a dance company now, what does a dance company look like in 2026? And how can we rethink even the bylaws of the company, the administration of the company, the way we operate to try to bring, you know, queer, inclusive and decolonial values into the way a company itself operates as well as an infrastructure, which is kind of, it sometimes feels like a machine of its own that I am now sort of at its mercy. So that side was really beautiful is this sort of planting a seed and thinking, how can a company operate differently?

13:41And how can I be a leader and, you know, think about who do I want to be as a leader? What does leadership mean today? Thinking of myself sometimes more as a facilitator than I am a choreographer, even if I am choreographing. But like you were saying, facilitating these vehicles for people to come together and make works as in collaboration. And then on the other hand, you know, practically speaking, it is, it has gone to a point, I think, where it's a little bit overwhelming. It's a lot, I feel financially responsible for their livelihood sometimes. And so there's that reality of making the work, having your team that you want to support.

14:14We're loyal to each other and then keeping those little bits of creativity sort of precious. And they're there, obviously. We make work a lot. This year and last year, I decided to stop doing so many productions with the company and focus a little bit more on commissioned work. It's been beautiful just because it's less burden on the company to see all of these values, ways of working that we've been developing as a company and coming into a new landscape. Right now I'm working in Sao Paulo with the ballet there and sort of trying to, I wouldn't say copy-paste, but bring those ways of working into a new environment and sort of extend those conversations or that research, I think, that we've been doing as a team for many years into a different community.

14:55What is Brazil offering to artists that other cities and countries cannot? Is there something you can identify working in Sao Paulo right now so intimately? Yeah, I would say, you know, the thing that struck me the most, and I was telling some of the artists, I'm from Colombia, so it's beautiful to come back to Latin America, but there's this incredible warmth. You know, everybody each day, we greet each other with a kiss and a hug every single day before rehearsal. And I think it's so beautiful to come back to this sort of these things that make us human and making work from a place where we connect as people.

15:27There's also, I would say, Latin American maximalism that I think you too, I love Latin American maximalism. I feel at home, I feel inspired. I call it sacred chaos for me, Latin America, Bogotá, Sao Paulo, there are these places of sacred chaos. And to be able to be working in that sacred chaos and bring that chaos into the room is super beautiful. Yeah, it's, I would say this maximalist love, of maximalist flavor, maximalist color and culture. It's beautiful. It's definitely much warmer than our Canada, from which we spent a large part of our lives, particularly in the winter months. Yes. How is Montreal for you in terms of its responsiveness?

16:10Things like choreographic practice, the gender lens, how is that evolving and how is your work responding to that? I think Montreal has been a really interesting incubator. It's maybe not the first place art people would think about for the art, but Montreal is really a place of experimentation. And I think that's what's been really rich for me. The history of dance, like Marie Chouinard, she's a huge choreographer, came from there. She used to have people pee on stage. So we have a history of a lot of... Tomorrow that's the Austrian pavilion, 9 a.m. There is definitely an extension of that. Oh, cool.

16:42And so we are sort of a community that thrives off pushing a few limits and there's the comfort of that and the audiences are open and available to those things. And I think it's been so nice for me as a Latin American to find that as my second home. I've been there now for 13 years. And then taking some of those things that I've learned to Europe and in some cases seeing, wow, Europe is not having the same decolonial conversations that we're having in Canada. And confronting and coming to reality with some of those differences has been very, very interesting. But yeah, I would say it's a very avant-garde, very queer, this sort of queering of ideas, queering of space, queering of body, querying of materiality, of texture, is something that is really sort of cultivated in the community in Montreal.

17:27Quickfire questions for you, because I know that there is so much across the Giardini and the Arsenale that we are all keen to see, including the Peggy Guggenheim show. Jeune is a very appropriate title for that work, and it's wonderful to see such an energetic and youthful audience here today. One object you would take home from Venice and why? Oh, I went to Escuela Dalmata, and I just want to take that St. George and the Dragon. Oh, yeah. It can feel good in my bed in the back of it. It's amazing. I would say in the hotel, actually, that we're staying at, there's a sort of pieta, but it's missing the body.

18:08So it's just, it's like a half pieta. And I'm working on a show in Germany, which is inspired by pieta. and sort of looking at this deconstructed idea of what the pieta means from a queer lens and the body and the sense of fragility. And I think it's such a beautiful, half-uncompleted, fractured, fragile object. I would love to take that home.

18:34Is technology keeping you up at night or giving you hope in terms of how it comes into your practice? We've talked about the wonderful work I think Sadler's Wells does, for example, in London, artists like Crystal Pite and Tyler Peck, and speaking with artists who are also asking, how do we document? How do we archive? How do we choreograph in the age of so many TikTok dancers? Just love to hear in terms of your relationship at the moment with technology and AI on our doorstep. You know, there's a piece that I choreographed in 2021 where we used an algorithm that would dictate the choreography to the performers.

19:07So it would dictate different parameters, like it would ask the performers, there was a grid with numbers and it would say a number or two numbers and then letters and the letters dictated sort of what phrase they were each doing. So every night this performance was sort of the dancers in conversation with the machine. And it was, you know, every night was different. We would press play. This thing would, you know, shoot its propositions, its commands. And it was really about not this sort of hegemonic top-down humans and technology, but also how does the human being work with technology? How does the human being rebel against technology?

19:40I think which is something very interesting. How do we rebel or how do we collaborate or what is the sort of in between of that? And then in my work, I think what you just mentioned too, like the notion of annotation, we were talking about how does dance get annotated? It's a form that is so ephemeral. And I think there's room for technology to be used in my particular practice to support our practices of annotation and how do we document things? Of course, we film a work, you film a performance, which documents, you know, where bodies go in space, what do they do with their own bodies, but it doesn't necessarily document the sort of lived experience or the energy or the poetries that the body is going through.

20:18And I think it would be really interesting to see, you know, not just how does technology replace what we do, and I think the performing arts is very difficult to replace in that sense, but also how does technology support us being able to archive our practice, which I think is really hard. For me, I see it like I would love to pay my taxes with all these amazing technology and paying lagoons paying taxes but i just you know i don't feel like like for me we were talking about like even like coming in stage you know i was talking to andrea i was like i'm i hate stages like i'm frightened now talking to you but andrea has a background you know of like seeing the reaction of the public in that instance while you don't go to a you know go see a sculpture and you see people cheering at the same time i wish but never happened to me or my work then And again, like a bit, we're accustomed to seeing so many images that everything is pure retinal.

21:12And, you know, you miss the emotion or even how you think of going to a show and you hated the show. But just that instant that you do not comprehend the show. And hate, you know, it's a very hard word. You didn't comprehend the show. So about not comprehending, you're like, you know, your brain keeps like going back to that show and you want to go back. We want like very fast answers, you know. Yeah, well, just to bounce off what you were saying, we were talking, you know, this idea of like how we've noticed more and more our capacity for critical thought or our capacity to engage with discomfort has also shifted a lot because we're so visually driven.

21:53in, we have our phones, we have these aesthetics that come back to us often and often. I see it in performance, like performance is an hour and a half, but people's attention span is much narrower. What audiences are used to seeing, the type of dance that people are used to seeing on their phones is very different. So when you start to sort of try to stretch that notion of time, there's a lot of discomfort in that stretched notion of time. And it's so important to keep sitting in that discomfort and those notions of time that are more stretched, like Barbara's saying things that are less hamsterly.

22:25I love that because the notion of time and sitting in your seat is so urgent here as this hour comes to a close. And I wanted to ask you a final question on this note of post-retinal Latin American maximalism. Would love to ask you if there's any misconceptions you want to clear up about your work and also advice to the young artists. for me like i can only do one thing that is fashion is a miscomprehension and advice is like things not not need to be fixed but keep you know there are certain projects that you know a thrown project let's say i think those ideas are keeping going back and back at certain points it's very good to you know to like not not throw your drawings and you know go back but you're a different person obviously i'm a different person after talking to you even you know like it's just you know everything changes so quickly too that that do not discard ideas and you know allow the room for contradictions because you know contradictions should be there too beautiful andrea yeah i would add a little bit similar i think that a misconception is that because I'm a choreographer, I choreograph dance, dancerly dance.

23:46And I think my work extends, or I try to kind of think about it more as a movement designer than a choreographer itself. And I say to some dancers that I meet for the first time in Commission's work, I'm like, guys, I don't actually care about the dance. It's about everything else. It's about the spaces in between. It's about how bodies relate. It's about the sense of time. It's about how you make decisions. The dance is just a vehicle for those other things that we're working on that are sort of go beyond and then I would say uncertainty. Uncertainty is a really beautiful place. I think, you know, when I was younger, I, you know, facing dancers, you're in a room, there's 20 people looking at you, waiting for you to give them ideas of what we're going to do or what we're going to build and getting to a place where I can go comfortably in front of these people and say, guys, I have no idea what I'm doing today.

24:33I have no idea, like I am actually lost. I'm kind of confused. These things that I thought made sense, they don't actually make sense. let's talk about it. And so having that space for vulnerability and uncertainty and sharing that, I think as an artist for me, has been really beautiful in the way I'm able to sit with a place of not knowing and not have, you know, there's a lot of discomfort, even in us. I still sometimes go to a theater to a commission and I feel imposter syndrome. And I think that's really normal. And being able to unlock that vulnerability is really beautiful. Well, it's a beautiful place to end on contradiction and uncertainty and hope.

25:11As Gerard Richter said, art is the greatest form of hope. I want to thank Andrea and Barbara and Paul and Emek and Ayung and you for being the most fantastic audience. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That was fun. Thank you.