Molecular Love

Lorsque vous lui aurez fait un corps sans organes, alors vous l´aurez délivré de tous ses automatismes et rendu à sa véritable liberté.

Antonin Artaud´s radio play Pour en finir avec le jugement de dieu (1947)

Molecular Love is a work that unfolds from a previous research that was focused on a Spinozean account of the mind and the body. The work stems from this vintage point whilst at the same time considers it from a feminist perspective by addressing the political dimension of female-desire. The affective quality of language and voice, and the intimacy and estrangement of two bodies in constant motion are central themes in this work.
Molecular Love brings together dance, performance, visual art and sound in the form of an ongoing live work. The script is composed out of bits of poetry, rhythmic sequences, and cadenced and playful deconstructed words. A sound piece containing part of the script breaks in and out into the space inviting the dancers to interact with it either physically or vocally.
The space is a bare but delimited space, where two dancers interact with each other while using their voices. A second space is marked by a string curtain, creating a more protective environment that allows dancers and audience to come in and out. The natural light offers to the viewer different perceptions according to the moment of the day they visit the work.
The choreography, fed from the sound the body makes together with the sound piece, evolves very slowly as if seen in slow motion, like a molecule expanding and contracting. A loose methodology brings contingency and makes room for improvisation, association and more playfulness. Starting point is sensing  and understanding the other through non-rational relations.
Molecular Love is enacted by an all female team of artists that helps to define what a female body means nowadays beyond its reproductive function, how female desire and politics are connected and what are the affective qualities that bind together voice,  body and writing. A series of drawings in the form of photo-etchings display different ways the script is notated.

The script

The Scene:

A small living cell hosts a molecule in constant motion. Happily lost sometime in the future, this molecule composed of two atoms, does not form a tissue nor an organ, but rather a body without organs. The molecule takes a path of random steps through the female body ́s sexuality and reproduction system, its relationship with other bodies, bacterial sex and other forms of sex where the body is no longer a singular natural thing but rather something made out of multiple elements. Through a sensitive and playful relationship, voice and body come together seen, at times, through a free diffusing membrane. The two atoms of this molecule, change their shape, get closer, expand, copy each other, listen to each other, have a dialogue, come apart, fall in love.

Scene 1: she doesn’t feel anything in particular
Scene 2: warm-up
Scene 3: a-b-s-t-r-a-c-t-s-e-x
Scene 4: dinner is served
Scene 5: beso besito
Scene 6: desire is a type of appetite
Scene 7: fffffffffff -the bulls
Scene 8: pum-pum-boy-boy + chihuahua
Scene 9: a-f-f-e-a-f-f-e-dead fish
Scene 10: I combine, you combine
Scene 11: monkey
Scene 12: almost never
Scene 13: mamamamama
Scene 14: I´ll be a little late
Scene 15: micro feminine particles
Scene 16: come closer
Scene 17: woman, where are you?
Scene 18: on the shore by the stage, shall i pick you up?
Scene 19: Renata
Scene 20: bubabubabubabum
Scene 21: kicking, crawling, pushing, reaching
Scene 22: brrrrrrrr -body builders
Scene 23: I´m back -the peacocks
Scene 24: the giants -drinking tonic
Scene 25: walking through the fields of potential
Scene 26: a body is never one
Scene 27: nasal
Scene 28: your eyes
Scene 29: cla-cla-cla 
Scene 30: new and old mutations
Scene 31: the punk moment
Scene 32: lullaby
Scene 33: mala 

Escena:
Una pequeña célula viva alberga a una molécula en constante movimiento. Felizmente perdida en algún momento del futuro, la molécula, compuesta por dos átomos, no forma un tejido ni un órgano, sino más bien un cuerpo sin órganos. La molécula toma un camino de pasos aleatorios a través de la sexualidad femenina y su sistema reproductivo, en relación con otros cuerpos.

Untitled

2017
5’46” Loop 1/3 + PA

Concept: Mercedes Azpilicueta
Interpreters: Madelyn Bullard, Eva Susova, Marion Bosetti, Netti Negunen, Alondra Castellanos Arreola, Setareh Fatehi Irani. 
Voice: Anat Spiegel, Mercedes Azpilicueta
Sound editing: Vasco Guedes
Camera: Aimée Zito Lema, Jay Tan, Mercedes Azpilicueta
Post-production: Alice Daneluzzo

Untitled is a video that extracts a few moments of intimacy between two bodies. It is not a documentation of a live work but rather a new proposition, where elements from cinema, sound and movement come together. The micro-encounters the dancers find, whether they touch each other, look for each other, inspect the space or move together are thought to present new ways –extra sensorial, non-rational- to understand the other.

Untitled  has also been shown at: 

– CAC Brétagny, Brétigny-sur-Orge, France. “Le Final, performances et projections” curated by Céline Poulin. 1 July 17

– Djúpivogur, Iceland. Initiated by Chinese European Art Center (CEAC) in Xiamen, China and the municipality of Djupivogur; curated by Ineke Gudmundsson, Annelie Musters and Sigurdur Gudmundsson. July-Sep 17

– DIXIT, ArteBA, Buenos Aires curated by Javier Villa and Sarah Demeuse. May 17

– Opening ARCO, Madrid curated by Juan Canela and Stefani Hessler. Feb 17

Credits

Molecular Love
2016
live work
ongoing*

*the script takes about 2 hours and can be interpreted several times by different couples of dancers.

Concept, text
Mercedes Azpilicueta

Sound piece
Mercedes Azpilicueta, Anat Spiegel

Vocal arrangements
Anat Spiegel

Sound editing and mixing
Vasco Guedes

Online web development
Patrícia Pinheiro de Sousa

Production assistance
Lola G., Alexander Übelhör

Research assistance
Silvia Ulloa