SUZ/O/SUZ is the second show by LA FURA DELS BAUS.

SUZ/O/SUZ is remarkable in its development, ranging from an evidently superficial structure to another deeper one, in toto, a dramatic unit that opens up, develops and engulfs the spectacle.

The superficial structure can be taken as a dramatization of situations which by means of the impact of interpretative techniques, progressively invades the spectators perceptive faculties.

An increasing sensorial and emotive impact that subjects both the audience and actors to an enigmatic but intelligible trip.

During the course of this trip we experience apparitions, births, fights, reiterations, festivities, transformation, violence, death and rites. We are constantly exposed to phenomena where beauty is revealed in a point of light.

But it is the solid nature and the definition of the deeper structure that brings about this initially incessant, arbitrary interplay that sets our nerves on end and strikes us forcibly.

It is in this deeper structure where we find the mechanism that situates and characterizes each performance.

The surprise of discovering order beneath the chaos is one of the aims of SUZ/O/SUZ.

SUZ/O/SUZ is filled with every kind of intention.

Finally it transpires that order calls the shots, but it is the foregoing chaos that provides the impulse for the spectacle.

In August 1985, SUZ/O/SUZ premiered in Madrid at the old Calle Galileo funeral parlour.

In January 1986, it arrived in Barcelona preceded by a spectacular show in which an actor let himself be lowered by a crane from one of the 45-meter-high Venetian towers of Plaza España.

La Fura dels Baus was awarded the 1986 City of Barcelona Theatre Prize by the city's drama critics.

In 1988, it was one of the Spanish companies invited to take part in the VII Caracas International Festival. In September of that year, it receives the Bitef Prize in Belgrade, Bulgaria, for the best play of the festival.

In 1989, the company went on an international tour of Sidney, Australia; Montreal, Canada; and Yokohama, Japan.

In June 1991, it staged its first production in the United States, taking part in the New York International Festival. In October of that year, the show was staged in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Suz/O/Suz has also been staged in Seville, Valencia, London, Berlin, Hamburg, Milan, Genoa, Brussels, Amsterdam, Vienna, Paris, Lyons and Marseilles.

It was co-produced by La Fura dels Baus, the National Centre of New Directions in Theatre (CNNTE) and the Madrid City Council.

1.985 Madrid

1.986 Barcelona, London, Bordeaux, .....

1.987 Geneva, Berlin, Amsterdam, Zagreb, Hamburg, Milan, Zürich,.....

1.988 Caracas (Venezuela), Stuttgart, Belgrade, Brussels, Lisbon,....

1.989 Sydney (Australia), Montreal (Canada), Yokohama (Japan),...

1.990 Vienna, Rouen, Munich, Paris,.....

1.991 New York, Sao Paulo (Brazil).

1.993 Copenhagen, Jerusalem

1.994 Córdoba (Argentina)

Performances Audience Avarage

Total 273 190.145 697

Spain 109 73.610 675

Europe 104 73.796 710

North America. 7 4.650 664

South America 19 15.333 807

Asia 11 7.956 723

Australia 23 14.800 643

La Fura dels Baus is an eclectic team of professionals from different disciplines in the field of the arts - stage, plastic, mechanical, musical arts - which converge in a theatre project which has been in existence for a decade.

From the convergence of such a diversity, what has been called «total show» has arisen, in which the spectator's personal experience is complete: he sees it, feels it, smells it, touches it … and is a part of it. The public mingle with the scenery, they are placed inside, around and under it as they move and turn according to the different impacts made upon them by the music, the images, the drama, the mechanical devices. Because of all this, La Fura dels Baus are considered creators of a new theatrical language which has been widely accepted throughout the whole world. They do not consider themseleves to be in the vanguard, although they were while they were consolidating their work.

Nevertheless, the tension which arises between disciplines and artists in the moment of creation leads to evolution and changes in their peculiar theatrical language, which has already been assimilated by the public. Such changes start with Noun, their fourth spectacle. In order to achieve this evolution in their language they are attempting a total break, both in the materials they use and in their themes, even in their language, without giving up the basic elements which have shaped their identity, such as starting from the ludic in order to arrive at the transcendental.

In their language what is important is both the performance and the liturgy, the ritual. They do not act in the theatre as in a social structured —unmoving— act; they understand theatre as a personal experience, a catharsis. They aim at the spectacular and at provoking feelings, by investigating with new forms of expression and of relationship with the public.

The spectator is obliged to act because the performance invades the audience's vital space. La Fura dels Baus was mistakenly seen by some in its first performances as having a violent image. It was not violence but violation of the space which classical performances zealously keep to the artist-king-actor.

The degree of participation and involvement is not the same for all spectators, who may regulate them by either joining the scenic movement or just observing it.

La Fura dels Baus has become a symbol of the new tendencies in theatre, although the company has had for years a consolidated language, a language imitated by many followers throughout the world.

The members of the company are: Miki Espuma (Miquel Badosa), Pep Gatell, Hansel (Javier Cereza), Jürgen Müller, Àlex Ollé, Carlos Padrisa, Pera Tantiñá.

La Fura dels Baus is supported by the Instituto Nacional de las Artes Escénicas y de la Música -INAEM- of the Ministry of Culture, by the Department of Culture of the Generalitat of Catalonia and by the Centre Cultural Metropolità Tecla Sala of L'Hospitalet de Llobregat.