“If theatre doesn't transport you anywhere, doesn't excite your imagination, then I think it's a waste of time. And it's not just about following a story. I think that theatre should be based on images, scenic metaphors, which work on the basis of visual understanding and not necessarily verbal understanding”.

David Zinder

Poema de sangre is a laboratory for research and actor creation within the programme of the Lorca 2019 Year of the 37th Autumn Festival organised by the Community of Madrid. Promoted by Vértico in collaboration with exlímite, it deals with the interpretation of Federico García Lorca's iconic play.

How can 14 professional actors of the Community of Madrid transcend the text of Blood Weddings with their acting and open up to the audience a chain of pertinent and perhaps even urgent meanings, within our society? This is the challenge proposed by Poema de sangre, the laboratory for research and actor creation promoted by Vértico, a Madrid platform with eight years of experience in artistic research processes where the linchpin is the actor's creative process. The laboratory, directed by Sol Garre, actress and holder of a doctorate degree from the Real Escuela Superior de Arte Dramático of Madrid, is guided by the Israeli director, playwright and acting coach David Zinder, master of the Michael Chekhov technique, who is responsible for the staging.

For this laboratory, Vértico collaborated with exlímite, a new project and theatre space in the south of Madrid which seeks to promote a theatre of creation, within an independent and collaborative framework, and be a reference for innovative companies and creators in Madrid, bringing together creation, training, collaboration and theatre research. Their primary goal is to promote theatrical creativity, with a experimental, interdisciplinary approach and a spirit of knowledge exchange.

The laboratory Poema de sangre delves into the core of Lorca's text, his characters and poetry, with an original stage proposal by Zinder, an expert in actors' work on imagination and their relation to movement and voice through the ImageWork technique. This stage director, besides being a theatre director and acting coach, is also Professor Emeritus of the Department of Theatre Arts at the University of Tel Aviv, where has taught for 28 years. He is also the author of the book Body Voice Imagination: ImageWork Training and Chekhov Technique. Since 2002 he has directed several professional repertories in Romania, India, Singapore, etc.

In Poema de sangre, the actors can deepen and challenge their acting resources, their creative autonomy and their capacity for interpretation by means of gestures. Key aspects of presence, perception, creativity, the art of acting and imagining, and the actor's creation will be found in an original stage (pro)posal. The laboratory doesn't just seek to innovate when it comes to interpreting characters, it also aims to interrogate and reinterpret Blood Weddings under new paradigms of creation and performing. This research is framed within the search and current need to bring the viewer closer to different forms of comprehending and doing theatre, opening up new possibilities and meaning in the work of Lorca.

In the words of Sol Garre: "David Zinder seeks a considerably open poetic approach. The structure of his staging allows the actor to freely move between their imagination and the humanity of the characters, the hidden values of the plot and Spanish society of the 30's. His approach also opens a window for questioning whether we are truly isolated from the tragedy that we live now and how abstraction may help us to confront our reality".

Practical information

• Sala exlímite
• 16 & 17 November, 20.00