Mapamundi
A collective performance involving students and artists from a range of disciplines, as a visual theatre course final project. Smile-worldmap is an open format work
that can be adapted to the location and the participants. It is a workshop that begins with common questions and ends with personal answers.
The Joan Baixas Company Smile-Worldmap
What is our vision of the world? What is your vision of the world? We explore the big ideas with humour.
Directed by Joan Baixas in collaboration with Nico Baixas
A Mapamundi (worldmap) is an image of the world with a specific vision of one particular aspect: the territory, the climate, the vegetation, the politics, the economy, or even happiness, health, poverty or death. It is an image of the world that is a snapshot of a global entity. Mapamundis can also be images of globality, such as the Buddhist Mandala, the Maya Calendar, the Gerona Tapestry of Creation, the Australian Songs of the Dreamtime, The Renaissance Theatre of Memory or the more contemporary Google Earth, the Inmarsat satellite network, the Wall Street Stock Exchange screens or just the letters www.
With the Smile-Worldmap, Joan Baixas aims to create a myriad of worldmaps; personal worldmaps with one vision – humour. The wonderful, healthy and refreshing vision of His Majesty King Humour, along with his courtiers: Mockery, Grotesque and Laughter.
A day without laughter is like a general without a horse, a day full of laughter is like a horse without a general.
(Chinese proverb from the Chp-Zuhey dynasty)
What is Smile-Worldmap?
Smile-Worldmap is an introductory workshop on Visual Theatre, aimed at students and artists interested in the fusion of the rhetoric and grammar of artistic languages.
It is a course on the practice and analysis of the resources and tools necessary for the creation of scenes with bodies, images and objects and how to present them to the public.
A fundamental part of the workshop is the experience of an open-air public performance.
Project development
Part 1 (virtual): The participants receive information via e-mail, including documentation on previous performances and are invited to begin to generate their own ideas on the subject.
Part 2 (presential): A 25-hour course of collective work, centring on some of the tools of Visual Theatre: the theatrical possibilities of technology, adapting to space, speed of conception and execution, analysis of personal initiatives.
The exercises are not oriented to the acquisition of techniques but are directly focused on the content that one wishes to portray; emotions, messages or experiences that the participants wish to share (always based on a humour, of course).
Through the exercises with the materials and images the participants will create numerous personal visions on the theme of the Worldmap.
Part 3 (presential): Open air public performance, in three acts:
First Act: choreography of objects with the collaboration of all the participants.
Second Act: a variety of short performances with puppets, animated objects, projection of images, kinetic communication, dance, painting and other techniques created and selected by the participants during the course.
Third Act: An enormous canvas painting with the collaboration of all the participants. The canvas will be hung in the street as the final image of the performance.
Part 4 (virtual): Videos, photos, texts and other materials generated by the course-performance will be put on the web as suggestions for future participants.
Technical aspects
Participants:
Around fifteen people from a range of artistic disciplines (puppetry, dance, plastic arts, acting, music, image technology etc.). A mix of students, professionals and amateurs would also be interesting.
Participants should bring their instruments, cameras, computers, paints etc. Work clothes should be white and able to be painted.
Course admission closes ten days before commencement.
Technical requirements:
A workroom of approximately 50m2 – this could be a classroom, rehearsal room, a workshop, an empty factory unit or a sports hall.
A smaller room for storage of materials and musical instruments.
An outdoor area for the public performance. There should be a point for hanging a canvas of approximately 10m in height.
A sound system in the workroom and in the performance area able to work with different media sources (mp3, CD, labtop etc.).
A number of work tables of indeterminate size.
A simple tool kit and materials for cutting, pasting, sticking and painting paper and wood.
The public performance will be in the hours of daylight so a lighting rig is not required.
