Uku'Pacha is a dance-theatre company that works with audiovisuals and new technologies. Their creations explore new approaches to contemporary dramaturgies in performing arts, especially those that come from the digital sphere.
Their artistic research focuses on the collective imagination, and especially themes that arise from the contemporary digital era. They delve into concepts often displaced or forgotten by the "mainstream" imagination. Their work aims to expand the limits of a theatre stage through the incorporation of technological and audiovisual elements.
Projectes the company is working on during their residency at a La Visiva:
"FIELD RECORDINGS FROM OBLIVION" (last premiered work)
Field Recordings from Oblivion is a dance and audiovisual work that explores themes such as oblivion, dreams and depopulated landscapes. It presents an immersive 360º scenography with five televisions that project images in a game of false live, fusing dance-theater with audiovisual technology. The work reflects on memory in the digital era, where the abundance of records accelerates forgetting instead of eradicating it. It follows a couple who share dreams in lost landscapes, creating a poetic narrative about love, transience and nostalgia. This emotional journey delves into the relationship between humans, territory and memories, questioning how virtuality transforms collective memory.
"MARY'S ROOM (BLACK BOX)" (work in progess)
Mary’s Room (Black Box) is a multidimensional work that explores the fragmentation of identity in the digital era. The piece combines theater, audiovisual and virtual reality, structured in five acts that reflect on the dissolution between physical and virtual reality. Based on Frank Jackson’s thought experiment, Mary’s Room raises philosophical questions about knowledge and perception. The scenography includes moving panels with immersive projections and the incorporation of motion capture, which allows insertion into the virtual space in real time. This creates a dynamic and interactive environment, blurring the boundaries between the real and digital worlds. The work generates a multi-perspective and immersive experience, inviting the viewer to question what is real and what role virtuality plays in our existence.
"INTER:FASE"
INTER:FASE is a research project exploring the human body interconnected with new virtual spaces. The goal of this piece is to create a choreographic language that emerges from the virtual space. The research aims to configure a cyborg version of the Vitruvian Man, redefining human movement through digital logics, featuring a female body and an artificial intelligence. Dance, confronted with the entirety of itself, is exposed to new ways of conceiving movement. On stage, a dancer equipped with a motion capture suit and a photorealistic avatar. The dancer's movement data is transmitted in real-time to the avatar. The result is projected onto the performance space. The development of immersive technologies seeks to bring the body into the virtual space. But this is a space that redefines the body's dimensions, subjecting it to the logic of programming. The anatomical configuration of the body is altered by digital notions. What does it mean to have a virtual body?
Biography
Uku'Pacha
"Uku’Pacha", is the name of the underworld in the Inca mythology, a timeless universe associated with the unborn, ideas not yet conceived, dreams, death and all that remains unknown. True to this essence, Uku'Pacha's conceptual work aims to investigate the darkest corners of the collective imagination, including territories that challenge the limits of what is imaginable from our epistemological perspective.
They have, until now, premiered pieces such as "Despedidas de un no-encuentro" (Farewells from a non-encounter), that won the VIII Certamen CronoTeatro Madrid prize (2022) and was supported by the Viver program of the Besòs-Maresme Civic Center, and was presented at the Perpetracions Festival 2023. Their performance "Nunc Stans" was presented in various venues in Catalonia and later at the La Badabadoc theatre, Barcelona, and the Z Festival in 2023, and the performance "Imaginary Sound" was presented in collaboration with centers such as El Canal, the Nau Ivanow, Teatre Jardí de Figueres and Zuidpool (Belgium), among others.
In 2024 they premiered their creation "Field Recordings from Oblivion" at the Píndoles Festival, a short outdoor piece for unconventional spaces that combines dance and audiovisuals. Subsequently, they premiered a short video dance with the same name, which complements the piece. During that time, they started research for an new project,“Mary's Room (Black Box)” at the Dance and New Media Laboratory, collaborating with institutions such as DanzaTrayectos, the Etopia Art and New Media Center, the LAVA of Valladolid, and the Toneelacademie from Maastricht. They are currently residents of the Fabra i Coats and La Visiva, and continue with the creative process for this project with the support of the Escena Poblenou Festival, the Auditori de Sant Martí, the Nave del Duende, the Department of Culture of Catalonia and the Institute of Culture of the Barcelona City Council.
The founding members of the company are Ariadna Grau and Ferran Gordillo.
ARIADNA GRAU
Ariadna Grau, actor and dancer, graduated in performing arts from ERAM and the University of the Arts of Buenos Aires. Trained in contemporary dance at Àrea Dansa in Barcelona. She has participated in works such as "Sweet Fever" by Pere Faura (2016), "Plàncton" (2023) and "Plata" (2023) by the Big Bouncers collective, among others. With Uku’Pacha, she has created and performed in works such as "Nunc Stans" (2022), “Field Recordings from Oblivion” (2024) and "Mary's Room (Black Box)" among others.
FERRAN GORDILLO
Ferran Gordillo, maker in the field of performing arts, writer and performer, graduated at the ERAM in Girona, the UNA in Buenos Aires and the Master of Theatre at the Toneelacademie in Maastricht. As a writer, he has published "Enso" (First prize of the XI Experimental Literature Competition) and "Las postrimerías del habla" (Finalist of the JCPS Foundation Literary Competition). He has also written other poetry collections and plays. With the Uku’Pacha company he has created and directed works such as "Nunc Stans" (2022), “Field Recordings from Oblivion” (2024) and "Mary's Room (Black Box)" among others.
