The sixth production of La Fura dels Baus reflects their need to go back to their origins, to the vitality of games and rites, by means of a sea of actions and fascinating images in which the shipwrecked audience, surrounded by the performance, sharpen their perception to the maximum.

After five stage productions, La Fura dels Baus has proved that theatre is still alive, connecting with a wide, heterogeneous audience. La Fura dels Baus believes in a high voltage physical show, in which the time and space perceptions of the audience can be altered by means of a multimedia narrative. A living stage on which both actors and audience share new perceptions, intuitive images, in a new category of dramatic performance.

That is why, in a hybrid time, when an ever-increasing number of art forms come together and blend, La Fura dels Baus work on their own dramatic genre, a genre based on the moment and on the presence of physical actions (acting, music…) staged and experienced on a technolandscape of interchangeable and reproducible images belonging to our media culture. The truth is that modern society, with feelings and perceptions completely sifted by the media, is asking for new theatrical forms away from old drama conventions.

"Manes", La Fura dels Baus' sixth theatrical show, the third part of their second trilogy, could be considered a compendium of their performances, a self-citation of the group's own trajectory in theatre.

In this show, the idea of Relativity appears in its formal and thematic aspect: A relativity present inside and outside human beings. The theme is that eternal one of the duality of the god Jano and his dual conscience, the romantic myth of the androgen and the double.

With this starting point in the fin-de-siècle, our aim is to recreate the schizoid perception of our times, the nineties. A period of hypocrisy, violence and fascination for the fragmented and disfigured, which exposes our subjectivity (schizoid subjectivity) to the limit. That is why in "Manes", ritual and irony, two contrasting perspectives, work well together and mutually reinforce one another.

As a result of its compendium-like character, a citation of their very scenic language consolidated over their seventeen-year trajectory, as well as an interest in the aesthetics of contamination, La Fura dels Baus' new show brings together two theatrical conventions which co-exist, alternately or simultaneously, throughout the performance.

- Furan Language. Actions —that are immediate and intenses— happen in the same spot where the audience is placed, in the same scenic space where impact is paramount. The actor carries out his or her discourse through materials, searching plastic impact. It conveys a proposal of friction, one which has characterised La Fura dels Baus and their theatrical aesthetics.

- Conventional Language. Used as a contrast, this type of language, based on the idea of character and on emotional conflict, contributes an intimate atmosphere to the show, as well as introducing conventionalised codes from performing art (a pseudo-dialogue between men, women and chicken, or the choral part of all'italiana composition).

For this new show La Fura dels Baus suggests the "neuter space"; a stage setting that does not exist beforehand, devoid of any elements or structures. Its construction and deconstruction, begun by the actions of the actors-architects, as during the performance true ephemeral constructions appear, topological and permeable barriers which create a continually changeable, polysemous space in a perpetual present, activated by the power of the images and the fascination they create. The scenery is one of simulations-landscapes in which the aesthetics of disappearance reigns.

This type of space represents a great challenge for La Fura dels Baus, as in previous creations the apparatus of scenography was dominant. By contrast, in Manes, an idea in which the immaterial and absence acquire a special importance, it is the actor who, via his actions, will categorise and give meaning to the scenic space. In keeping with Artaudian premises, this is a show written with, by and for the body.

Lighting is very important in "Manes", in fact it becomes its connecting thread. So, from two lighting towers, both polyvalent and autonomous, we move the action, and therefore the audience, to the space we wish to enhance, recovering in this way the idea of audience migration as a quasi-choreographic element. Light is the guide which enable us to discover the various "scenes" or actions that make up the show, catching them in the intimacy of a close-up (thus turning the audience into voyeurs, thereby turning the spectator into a voyeur, as for example in the relation between men, women and chickens), or otherwise by immersing them in apparent chaos.

It is basically mobile lighting, sometimes operated at spectator-level (lamp-actors), a perspective which enables Manes to play with shadows and backlighting, revealing presences and absences in a scenic narration in which discontinuity reigns. A narrative of extensive, unstable ubiquitousness which gives momentary, casual, chance pieces of information to the spectators. Thereby, the two towers of light, which as a result of their mobility are pseudo-characters, operated by their respective technicians-actors, are fully integrated into the works of the performance.

In this new show, La Fura dels Baus make extensive use of the concept of miscegenation in acting. Aware of the fact that there has never been a natural, virgin body, the group take on different physical and emotional conventions from theatrical tradition, thus reinforcing the contamination of the two languages (Fura-like, conventional). In Manes, La Fura dels Baus bring together actors representative of different models in acting. By working in a scenic space which is immaterial and continually changing, the actors become the backbone of the show, showing, through their respective bodily-interpretative techniques, a broken narrative, like zapping, in accord with our media environment.

A large stethoscope has taken over space and enables us to feel the pulse of the work. Music is not an illustration, but rather a cadence in which corporal rhythms bring us closer to the physiology of the show. An acidic voyage to the right hemisphere of the brain.

The already mentioned contamination between the various scenic registers provides Manes with a new dimension with respect to spoken text in the parts corresponding to more conventional language. However, this greater presence of text does not mean an incursion on Aristotelian drama. On the contrary, Manes shows only a series of discontinuities in which the text, as a further element, fits perfectly.

Similarly, the text, far from providing a univocal presentation of the show, contributes to creating an unstable, kaleidoscopic atmosphere, in the same way in which communicational circuits generate around us thousands of words, bombarding us with multiple echoes and redundancies.

Properties, meaning all those items that can be manipulated (as well as prosthesis, or even parts of the outfit) become especially relevant on this production, as actions take place in a setting without any great stage structures.

These objects or elements have a functional as well as a symbolic value, as they give the scenic environment certain meanings. Some, sculpture-like in nature (large articulated wooden eggs, a ritual table), be used by the actor as attributes of his o her actions and, in some cases, of the characters (whimpering stumps, prosthesis-lamps). We should point out that object manipulation gains importance in this new show. Manipulation is understood in its broadest sense, as it incorporates body appearance (and transformation) and costumes.

On the other hand, the show also uses primary, perishable materials (water, sand...), widely utilised by La Fura dels Baus along their group biography.

Manes takes the concept of the rhythmical dramaturgy which La Fura dels Baus have practised since their origins to its extreme; that is why the cadences of actions carried out upon their consequences are predominant. Manes explores staging and impact anew, a dramaturgy of a rhythmic-musical syntaxis, with patterns based on the intensity, rather than on causality, which dismantles the conclusive system (beginning-evolution-end) still prevailing. A Fura-like dramaturgy, in short, which distorts the perceptional habits of the spectator before unrecognisable stimuli in its imaginary and sensation of risk. They are spectators-participants who revive past experiences, lived in other shows by La Fura dels Baus, or who rather start on it.

The pen (the actor and his environment)

When La Fura dels Baus produces a new show, one of the first creation axes is the building of the environment. In Manes, it is a neuter space where beauty shows itself as a thin veil on the sinister. Thus the actors constitute a physical part of the space in which they move, and, in turn, make the space turn into a dream part, an appendage to these actors. A pen where eggs stand out and hens fly.

The shadows (the lighting)

A connecting thread that shows and hides. Distant echo of the ushers of a second-rate cinema, leading the audience in a useless journey towards a seat that does not exist. All the lighting is mobile, wandering, shifting. Two autonomous lighting towers, actors at the same time, manipulated in view of the audience.

The implements (properties)

In the sober scenic space, the properties remind of a post-war landscape. A return to human traction, or even farther, to animal traction, in which the machine has stopped working. A sensual relationship borns from the tragic clash between the skin of the actor and the skin of the artefact.

The din (the music)

A huge stethoscope has taken over the space, allowing us to feel the beat of the play. Music is not an illustration, but rather a cadence in which body rhythms bring us closer to the physiology of the show. An acid journey to the right hemisphere of the brain.

The cackling (the text)

Credits