Artist statement
My name is Arantza Labuena. I was born and I live in Barcelona. I am a multidisciplinary artist, stage director, creator, dancer, playwright, writer and mother of a teenager.
Founder and director of Labuena Compañía, with whom I have created the pieces Osos en el agua, La dona del sac, A placer and the community scenic Project.
La Bugada, in which gender roles are reviewed from a Feminist; In 2020 nominated for Premis de la Dansa in Catalonia.
I am studying the degree of Fine Arts, I have a Diploma in Teaching, specialized in Special Education, Postgraduate in Migration and minorities and Master in Dance Movement Therapy. I trained in dance and theater with choreographers and teachers of national and international scope tracing my own itinerary. I have danced and made up stories since I was 5 years old. As a performer I have worked, above all, on my own projects and with artists like Jordi Cortés, Constanza Brncic or Meagan O’Shea.
As a scenic consultant and playwright, I have accompanied artists and companies such as Colectivo Lamajara, Les Impuxibles, Poetic Brothel, Las Dueñas del Balón or Reinaldo Ribeiro.
Since 1996 I have worked on numerous projects where dance and pedagogy have been a basic tool for social inclusion; Labranza Kids, Sudansa, Tots Dansen, Nats nus and Apropa Cultura are some examples. I have led large groups (of more than 100 social educators, Teenagers and women in a situation of social exclusion,…), I have made them dance and even for some, thinking.
In 2019, together with the choreographer Vero Cendoya, I was commissioned to co-directart and dramaturgy of the production Órdago a la Grande, an accessible piece and inclusive premiered at the National Theater of Catalonia, within the III Edition of the Symbiotic Festival. The same year I was also entrusted with the direction of the Inaugural Act of the Women’s Prison Memorial of Las Corts , together with the Department of Historical Memory of the City Council of Barcelona, La Caldera Les Corts and La Taula de Dones de Les Corts.
In 2021 I curated and directed the audiovisual exhibition Un Castell Propi, installed in the old chapel of the Castell de Montjuic, the result of the investigation of the piece Kiri Island, site specific piece in the Castell de Montjuic that I created and directed insidewithin the framework of the Grec Festival in Barcelona.
I am currently doing the dramaturgy of the Brazilian artist Reinaldo Ribeiro for the piece I’m not an influencer (Swarzenegger exterminated my future), and for 83, the dance duo for all audiences from the company Las Dueñas del balón. I maintain an artistic correspondence with the photographer and dancer Nora Baylach based on texts and photographs.
In December of this year, I will present the book El beso, a textual piece commissioned and written especially for the commemoration of the Tenth Anniversary of the Danseu Festival, festival of dance and arts movement in rural context.
When facing creative work, I do so by focusing on those issues that concern me and question me. They are usually related to coexistence, with the difference of classes, with human rights and I always do from a feminist perspective. In my pieces I don’t talk about feminism, but whatever I talk about, I do it from the perspective of a white woman from southern Europe and the feminist that I am. So inevitably they are pieces made from a politically feminist bias.
The message is at the center of my creation. It is my creative engine. What I want to say, what I want to talk about is what in some way traces the creative process: Tells me which books to read, which exhibitions or countries to visit, what human groups to interview and above all, what artistic language to use.
Despite coming from a dance background, my expressive language is eclectic: I can use live music, audiovisuals, text and even an exhibition installation.
I highlight the critical and political possibility that the scene offers me by examining how we live and imagining and exposing other ways of living.