Next Thursday, January 26, the documentary “Bailar la Locura”, co-directed by Marta Espar and Maiol Virgili, will be presented in Girona. It tells the story of three contemporary dancers who spend a few days with three young women diagnosed with a mental disorder to reflect together on how treatment and recovery are experienced.
The audiovisual work was produced with the support of various entities and institutions, including Granés Fundació. To present the film, this organization has arranged a film forum on Thursday the 26th at 8:30 PM at Cinema Truffaut. After the screening, the event will feature Marta Espar and Maiol Virgili, co-directors of the documentary; Alba Coll and Montse Àlvarez, protagonists of the documentary; Laura Masferrer, director of Granés Fundació; and Guillem Terribas, from the Girona Film Critics Collective, who will moderate the event.
A dance forum has also been organized, featuring the performance “J-AhO! II”, which inspired the documentary. It will take place on Sunday, January 29, at 4:30 PM at the La Mercè Cultural Center.
“J-AhO! II” is a dance piece that stems from a reflection on the boundary between sanity and madness. It was created collaboratively with individuals who have experienced or are experiencing some type of mental disorder, seeking real experiences to provide authenticity. After the performance, the dance forum will be held, featuring dancers Amaiur Luluaga, Clàudia Gomez, and Montse Àlvarez; Marta Espar and Maiol Virgili, co-directors of the documentary; and Laura Masferrer, director of Granés Fundació.
For those who wish to see the documentary, an additional screening of “Bailar la Locura” has also been organized at Cinema Truffaut on Tuesday, January 31, at 8:30 PM.
Documentary “Bailar la Locura”
The film tells the story of three contemporary dancers who begin to create a contemporary dance piece about the limits of madness and contact three young women with psychiatric diagnoses to participate in their creative process. The result is an emotional journey of six women where loneliness, stigma, and recovery through dance are discussed. The documentary won the Audience Award last October at the Chorescope dance and film festival, and participated in DOC.España, a competitive section of the Valladolid International Film Week.
Dance Performance “J-AhO! II”
“J-AhO! II” stems from a reflection on the boundary between sanity and madness. Madness is often associated with what deviates from the norm, but what is normality? From this question, the concept of normality is challenged, and the creators explore the possibility that it is a construct established by society to create order within the community. This leads them to hypothesize whether madness could be a tool for social control to label what is different and thus feel that the situation is correct and/or normal.
From this question arises the need to share the creative process with individuals who have experienced or are experiencing some type of mental disorder, seeking real experiences to bring authenticity to the creation. All of this is reflected in the documentary “Bailar la Locura”.
The name of the piece, J-AhO!, refers to the expression “jota ha(g)o!” (‘you’re like a watering can!’, meaning ‘you’re crazy!’), used in the Basque Country to tell someone, playfully or disparagingly, that their attitude or way of being is not very common, and therefore ‘not normal’. On the other hand, ‘aho’ means mouth, so the name of the piece also makes sense in this context: in gossip, stigma, in the words used to talk about others. Furthermore, the typography of J-AhO! references the DSM-V, the quintessential psychiatric diagnostic manual.
J-AhO! is a dance piece and three women embarking on a journey into individual and collective madness. Magnesium appears as a physical and poetic element, acting as a guiding thread and transformer of the piece. Magnesium is the path, it is the fine line, it is the blurred line, it is what is correct, it is confusion, it is support, it is pain, it is security, it is normal, it is not normal, it is empowerment, it is… madness itself.
