Artist statement
Eléctrico 28 is a collective which nurtures the ecosystem of the daily human (and animal) life displayed in open-air heart-and-humor-made immersive street performances. They see the street life as a natural multi-directional choreography of living beings under the sky and above mostly cemented ground, perhaps also grassy or sandy. While life is happening outside, Eléctrico 28 imbues it with little actions ranging from daily to fantastic, that question preconceptions and conventions of theatre and public space.
With their projects, they provoke an imaginative, playful, warm, witty and affectionate incitement, empowering spectators and passers-by to perceive the regulated order they are part of and opening windows for alternative tales and ways of relating to our surroundings. Eléctrico 28 pretends to show the brutal beauty of stepping out of your house, walking the streets, crossing with the rest of fellow beings and seeing them in the light of the extraordinary.
With their first Project Expresso Encounters (Escena Poblenou, 2014), the collective discovered their passion to rethink the public space as a stage and find diverse ways of relating to it, from the imagination, storytelling, playfulness and reflection. Thus, they began to work in order to achieve a way of theatre making open to all kind of audiences, using a very personal language and dramaturgy, which they keep exploring throughout their career. This search reaches its apogee in 2016 with the premiere of Stellar Moments of Humanity (Fira Tàrrega), an itinerant and site-specific street show, in which they create a new playful look of the city by organizing an epic trip full of humour, while rethinking the relationship between performer and spectator. This show places the collective in the circuit of many renowned European street theatre festivals, which allows them to travel to countries such as Norway, Italy, Germany or Austria. Stellar Moments of Humanity is still on tour, and it also works as a base that the group uses to create new performative projects made for specific territories.
In 2016 the collective creates Full House, a project with a clear social spirit. It started from a commission in the city of Graz with the intention of improving the coexistence between a community. Bringing the theatre to this domestic spaces provoked a mirror effect which opened up questions and enabled a new sensitivity in the neighbourhood.
In 2019 Full House premieres at Fira Tàrrega as a show adaptable to all kind of outdoor spaces.
The show is currently performed in a street or square location, suitable for all audiences, but without losing the collective identity. The play talks about cohabitation in a community of neighbours with many discrepancies, using masks’ theatre, humour, live music and closeness to the public. Full house has been performed in festivals such as Barcelona Districte Cultural, Mil maneres Festival, La Strada Graz, Fit Carrer Vila Real, and Teatre Nacional de Catalunya, among others. Full House is currently distributed by Ikebanah Performing Arts.
In 2020 Eléctrico 28 wins the Extraordinary support award for creation Carlota Soldevila (modality: streetarts), from Teatre Lliure, with the proposal Electrictionary. This project has evolved and currently is anartistic practice titled The Filters Factory.
This research space serves the collective to train in writing in situ, dealing with concepts such as everyday life, public space and filter. The first project associated with The Filters Factory is writing and editing a book that collects a bunch of apparently banal scenes of urban life. In 2020 Eléctrico 28 was part of the Ciutat de Nadal project in Barcelona. At a request of the applicant, the collective developed and produced Nadalectric, a travelling and site-specific piece with an original soundtrack, which was performed in Plaça Catalunya.
In 2020 [The Frame] was performed for the first time in Barcelona, in Cicle Coincidències, Grec Festival. The piece was created with Fira Tàrrega’s support program for creation. With this work Eléctrico 28 took a step further, both at an artistic level ―taking the conceptualization of public space to the limit― and at a production level, associating with some important assets of the Catalan and Spanish scene (Institut Ramon Llull, ICEC, Fira Tàrrega, Festival Grec, Escena Poblenou, Can Felipa, INAEM) and also European partners(Theater land Steiermark, Austria). [The Frame] was nominated for the best street show at the Critics’Awards (Barcelona, 2020).
The collective will keep on touring with this show during 2022 around Europe. In 2021 Eléctrico 28 became part of IN SITU, the European network for artistic creation in public space, through the cooperation project (UN) common Spaces (2020-2024), thanks also to Fira Tàrrega and LaStrada Graz support.