Photo: Blenda, 2017 
Photo: Blenda, 2017 
Photo: Blenda, 2017 
Photo: Blenda, 2017 
Photo: Blenda, 2017 
 

Pendiente de voto

by Roger Bernat/FFF (Barcelona)

Guest performance during FIND 2017
Suitable for audiences aged 16 and over


With »Pendiente de voto« Catalan director and performance artist Roger Bernat is embarking upon an experiment: the Globe Theatre space at the Schaubühne will become a parliament for the duration and the audience will create the model of a community which takes its fate in its own hands. Equipped with an electronic voting system, a computer – ›the system‹ – will take spectators through a three-phase decision- making process. They must express their points of view, devise solutions together and vote on them in a very direct and transparent way. They are expected to take a position on questions of social interaction and personal preferences as well as on national security, health, gender politics, justice, freedom of religion and immigration. The everyday is juxtaposed with the emotionally charged, absurdities with the highly political and socially relevant. Initially, the spectators will vote entirely individually, then in pairs and finally in the form of party factions. The exercise will constantly demand group discussions as people have to convince others of their own views and bring about decisions by votes that will determine the future. More and more, however, the system will begin to manipulate the initially transparent and direct path of democracy and influence things in its own favour …
»In ›Pendiente de voto‹ I am testing parliament as a form of theatre « explains Roger Bernat. »To me, it’s not about reconstructing a fictional parliamentary debate; instead, my goal is a politics of fiction. Just as politicians today play at theatre, I want to make politics in the theatre together with the audience.«

>>> Essay about the production in Pearson's Preview: Forgetting How to Fail. A Conversation with Roger Bernat

A coproduction by Centro Dramático Nacional (Madrid), FundacióTeatre Lliure/Festival NEO and Elèctrica Produccions (Barcelona) with Manège de Reims-Scène Nationale/Reims Scènes d’Europe, Manège de Mons/ CECN, TechnocITé in the Transdigital project supported by the European program Interreg IV.

Duration: ca. 140 minutes

With kind support of
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