Fat Ballerinas

actually “nits de MACBA” means nights of art at Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona. it is a pretty cool museum. we started out the night with some drinks on their rooftop terrace, with Magrite-esque umbrellas and candles in glass everywhere. i like a museum that lets you get drunk before the exhibit.

the exhibit we had come to see was “A Theater without Theater”….sounds intriguing. this was another “Meet Up” event, and our cast for the evening included: juliet & rich, anna, henrik, kim & suzy, and of course yours truly (well and that husband of mine.) The point of this theater without theater was to ……”examine the relationship and interchanges between the theater and the visual arts during the 20th century” as quoted from the pamphlet. the problem was that our tour was in Catalan and the only person who remotely understood was anna. so the rest of us slowly wandered from room to room coming up with our own interpretations.

first was the polish theater in the round with very religious overtones (we were seeing a video, not live.) basically a guy gets beaten by men in robes until he is screaming in agony and then he dies, and some woman puts him in her lap. next…..

we moved on to performance art pieces….in which we saw a women who stood on a corner in paris for 110 minutes and let people suggest what she should do. all i have to say is there are some naughty people in paris because that women was putting some vegetables into some strange places. next……

a brief overview: futurism, dadaism, constructivism, and minimalism were all avant-garde movements (thank you college course in the history of theater) which the museum was trying to show their consequences and contributions to art in the 21st century, but it really just came off as a bit $%^&*! Cerebral and full of its self, but i found it was interesting.

there were a lot of theater posters which were fun to look at…..

after the exhibit we stood outside and asked each other what was our favorite piece. i think henrik’s answer was the best - “the rooftop terrace bar”.