About us
Group LaBolsa is an artists collective, which was constituted in 2012 in the city of Barcelona by the performers and choreographers Cecilia Colacrai, Iris Heitzinger, Natalia Jiménez, Xavi Moreno, Federica Porello, Mireia de Querol and Anna Rubirola.
The collective focuses on a long-term research, concerning performative practices of real time creation and has been regularly meeting over the years, exchanging their individual practices and enriching their experiences through collaborations with other artists, who have fundamentally influenced their way of working and creating.
Each member of the group looks back on a long trajectory within dance creation and performance. Yet at the heart of this collective’s raison d’être lies a need to keep investigating how creation happens and how the human condition is reflected within the art of improvisation and real time creation. Group LaBolsa has thus created a platform of reflective processes on dance as an art form, which generates, at the same time, the creation of art works and, just as importantly, knowledge that helps us better understand complex structures that we might find for example in society and within contexts of human encounters in general.
In addition to their shared interest, the seven members of Group LaBolsa come from and work regularly in different territories and cultures, a fact which they have transformed into a main strength of the group. All the knowledge generated by this exchange transits through different sectors and territories in Europe, offering a major impact to the artistic proposal, which unfolds inter-culturally.
In their first collaboration, Group LaBolsa invited the choreographer Thomas Hauert to share his method with them. In this encounter the group occupied the role of performer – creator, exploring Hauert’s language to the core. The piece The Measure of Disorder premiered in 2015 in co-production with Grec Festival in Barcelona, Charleroi danse – Choreographic Center of the Federation Wallonia-Brussels, Les Brigittines in Brussels. It was restaged for the Biennale de Lyon in 2018 and the festival Les Amplitudes in Switzerland.
After this experience, Group LaBolsa found their natural next step already in 2016, when they refocused their exchange towards the development of a score based improvisation method, which serves real time creation on stage. Their inspiration for this decision lies in their own trajectories as dance makers, who focus on live composition as their main drive and also in the wish to further explore the methods of some of the artists, who have influenced them, such as Mal Pelo, Thomas Hauert, Lisa Nelson, Julyen Hamilton, Deborah Hay, Joao Fiadeiro, etc.
The cycle RETRATS ERRANTS | UMHERIRRENDE PORTÄTS | RETRATOS ERRANTES (errant portraits) is the vessel, which holds this process and approaches the audience within different frames of exhibition of the work.
Since 2016, Group LaBolsa is associated to the creation centre L’animal a l’esquena, counting on the accompaniment and artistic advisement of the founders of the space, María Muñoz y Pep Ramis /Mal Pelo. RETRATOS ERRANTES is also supported by Mercat de les flors in Barcelona, where the work will be shared with the audience in February 2021. Furthermore tanz_house festival at ARGEkultur Salzburg in Austria and the Andalusian Centre of Dance in Seville have joined the project and are currently negotiating opportunities for presenting the work within their program in 2021.
Other spaces linked to Group LaBolsa are: LA VISIVA and La Caldera in Barcelona.
Cecilia Colacrai
Dancer, independent maker and teacher. Currently, she is part of the collective Big Bouncers, together with Anna Rubirola and Mireia de Querol, and of Group LaBolsa, with whom she creates the performance The measure of disorder directed by Thomas Hauert, and is now in the creation process of Retratos Errantes, counting on the accompaniment of the company Mal Pelo. She works with Joao Lima in different projects and with Joan Català for the performance 5.100 m/s. Cecilia has been collaborating with: Alexis Eupierre, Montse Colomé, Emmanuel Grivet, Toni Mira, a.o. Since 1997 she has taught dance in Argentina and since 2002 in different European and Latino Americans cities. She is currently part of the team of teachers of the Institut del Teatre de Barcelona (CSD) and, in the past, has been part of the board of directors of the APDC (Association of the Dance Professionals in Catalunya) and an associate of the Creation Centers La Visiva and La Caldera (Barcelona).
Iris Heitzinger
Independent choreographer, dancer and dance teacher. She is associated artist of tanz_house Salzburg und RedSapata Linz Austria. She has collaborated with artists like Group LaBolsa & Thomas Hauert, Guillermo Weickert, Natalia Jiménez, Jeremy Wade, Ted Stoffer, Vincent Dance Theatre, Editta Braun, among others. Iris teaches workshops of contemporary dance, improvisation and composition all over Europe, Canada and Japan. She creates her own work since 2007 with an interest in interdisciplinary and intercultural collaborations that research the spontaneous creative capacities of the body within systems of live composition and creation in real time.
Natalia Jiménez
Dancer, choreographer, teacher, shiatsu therapist and president of the Andalusian Association of Dance, PAD. Director of the Days of the arts of movement and the body, SEMANA SANA, in Alanís de la Sierra, Sevilla.
Some of her creations are: AULA accompanied by the theater writer and dramaturge José Luis De Blas, Propiamol (a shared practice of self-love) an artistic and pedagogic project for the prevention of violence through dance. She’s part of the Group LaBolsa (frame of performance research and real-time composition) with the accompaniment of the company Mal Pelo, Barcelona.
She receives the Award Escenarios Sevilla 2013 for her interpretation in Lirio entre Espinas by Guillermo Weickert and the Award PAD 2015 for her interpretation in her own creation JÚBILO. She has been working with companies and creators such as: Iris Heitzinger, Thomas Hauert, Guillermo Weickert, Abraham Hurtado, Aitana Cordero, Jeremy Wade, Ex Nihilo, Satoshi Kudo, Vértebro, Angels Margarit/Company Mudances, Senzatempo, Bebeto Cidra, Guido Tuveri, Quim Bigas, Company MOPA of Juan Luis Matilla, Hojarasca- danza, Victor Zambrana, Compañía metros and Balleto di Cerdeña.
Xavi Moreno
Dancer, light technician and actor for theater and cinema, with an eclectic formation. He has been part of different dance and theater collectives. In 2011, he joins the company AdonK! where he works on the development of a common language between dance and puppetry. He is part of Group LaBolsa, which creates, in collaboration with the choreographer Thomas Hauert, the performance The measure of disorder, premiered at the Grec Festival 2015. He collaborates with Federica Porello for the creation of WeWood, dance/object theater performance premiered in 2018. Since 2016 he works with the French shadow theater company Le Théâtre de Nuit.
Federica Porello
Dancer, teacher and choreographer. She studied at the dance school P.A.R.T.S. in Brussels.
Federica is currently working with the company Mal Pelo, ZOO/Thomas Hauert and collaborates with the shadow theater company Le Théâtre de Nuit, and the puppetry company Odradek/Pupella-Nogués. She is part of the collective Group LaBolsa, whose work focuses on the research of tools for real time choreographic composition. In 2018 she creates the performance WeWood, together with Xavi Moreno and Marine Broise, which marks the beginning of an investigation on the bridges among dance, object theater and puppetry.
Mireia de Querol
Choreographer, dancer and contemporary dance teacher, resident in Barcelona.
As a choreographer, she has been collaborating with Anna Rubirola and Cecilia Colacrai within the Big Bouncers Collective since 2012, with whom she has made several pieces.
She also collaborates with Group La Bolsa, a research group on live composition and creation, which has collaborated with Thomas Hauert and Cia. Mal Pelo.
As a dancer she worked in several productions with the choreographer and dancer Albert Quesada, and with the Cia. Mudances, directed by Angels Margarit, among others.
She has been managing the space for creation La Visiva since 2014. She co-directed the Contemporary Dance Festival IN SITU in Arts Santa Mònica (2012-2016), and has designed the 2nd edition of Jornada Motors de creació (APDC/CCCB).
She has been teaching contemporary dance, improvisation and composition since 2007 in several centers of Barcelona and Catalonia and is part of the pedagogical team of Institut del Teatre of Barcelona (CSD)
http://www.bigbouncers.info
Anna Rubirola
Choreographer, interpreter and teacher living in Barcelona. She is currently part of the Collective Big Bouncers, G.R.U.A., and Group LaBolsa and directs the Creation Center La Visiva (Barcelona). Anna has directed the piece Poruszony Las for the company Prymat de Olstyn, Poland. She has collaborated with artists such as: Pere Faura, Joao Lima, Maria Montseny, Mira Calix and Alexander’s Annex, Oriol Roca and Vrak’ Trio, Julyen Hamilton and John Jasperse.
As a performer she has worked for different companies: Àlex Rigola, Erre que Erre, Sol Picó, Iliacan, Búbulus, Array, F.& C. Ben Aïm.
Anna has imparted physical preparation for actors and created choreographies for theater pieces by Pau Carrió and Àlex Rigola. Since the year 2000, she teaches contemporary dance, improvisation and composition internationally. Since 2016 she is a regular professor of the CSD (Conservatori Superior de Dansa) at the Institut del Teatre (Barcelona).
www.annarubirola.wordpress.com
Copyright headshots (in order of appearance)
Cecilia © Tristán Pérez-Martín | Iris © Elisa Unger | Natalia © Juan Diego Calzada | Xavi © Benjamin Sommabere | Federica © Tristán Pérez-Martín | Mireia ©Tristán Pérez-Martín | Anna © Anna Rubirola