Imaginary animals 1985. Performances at EINA

As part of the events to mark the EINA end of year party in 1985, Xavier Olivé, Josep Bagà and the students on the EINA Stage Design Workshop have organised a pop-up action-show where the irony of confusion is the star of an unforeseeably planned montage.

Actors Tuninho Ribeiro, José Antonio Herrero, Lyn Jackson and Jessica from the Teatre Arnau in Barcelona play a tiger-panther, a spider-woman, a reptile and a phoenix. Hybrid imaginary beings, half-animal, half-human, the result of the recreation of the collective imaginary developed throughout the history of humanity. Four wild "animals" that also retain traits of civilisation in the way they act and behave, while sharing in feelings such as love or hate, attraction and rejection (Olivé; Bagà, 1985).

The action takes place in the EINA Gardens, which the audience enters while the animals are sleeping. The beasts are kept in this state until, amid great pomp and ceremony, they are each served a supper made personally for them, cooked live by the chef from the Giardinetto Notte restaurant, Reyes Modolell (Peiro, 1985. Inside their cages, each one reacts differently and unexpectedly to the audience and their food (Olivé; Bagà, 1985). At times disagreeably, at others sophisticated. However, there is always a common denominator in the contradiction that arises between the silver trays and linen serviettes and the bestiality of the actors’ gestures. The gardens are filled with straw and hay for the occasion: the characteristic aroma of a stable, zoo or circus complements the sensorial immersion through smell.

One curiosity is that none of the participants has complete knowledge of the action (Olivé; Bagà, 1985). There is no dress rehearsal; instead, each actor only receives the instructions they need to play their own role during the first hour. Then, in the second hour, this gives way to complete improvisation. The actors are entirely conditioned by the physical space (the cages), the make-up – the result of over 6 hours’ preparation – and the costumes (Gabancho, 1985), which imbue their bodies with a meaning unknown to them right up until the moment they start (Olivé; Bagà, 1985).

The spectator also becomes an actor, in a space that is known to them yet altered by the intervention, and where there is no traditional stage but where, as the action goes on, everything around them turns into unusual situations that enhance ambiguity as a language and where truth and fiction merge after a few initial moments of apparent normality.

Appearance in the media

• Gabancho, Patricia. "El sentido de la fiesta". El noticiero universal (8 jul. 1985), p. 38-39.
• Olivé, Xavier; Bagà, Josep. “Animales imaginarios”. Àrtics: trimestral multilingüe de les arts i de les ics (1985), p. 60-63.
• Peiro, Julian. "Un fin de curso excepcional en EINA". El periódico. Espectáculos (25 jun. 1985), p. 41.

Text: Rubén Alcaraz and Xavier Olivé.

Images of the action