Shichimi Togarashi

Madrid/Berlín (2006)

To go in close means forgetting convention, reputation, reasoning, hierarchies, and self. It also means risking incoherence, even madness.

-John Berger-

 

In 2004, Juan Dominguez began thinking about creating his next work, called Shichimi Togarashi. Before developing the project, in order to find funding for it, Domínguez created the work The Application,  which dramatised the application for funding for Shichimi Togarashi. In late 2005, Amalia and Juan decided that their next piece would be a collaborative duet, and that together, they would bring to life the material that in The Application was no more than an idea.

The singular creative universes of Juan Domínguez and Amalia Fernández come together for the first time to construct this duet and materialise a piece that already existed as project in the fiction and reality of Juan's previous work The Application.  In Shichimi Togarashi, two wills interact over the duration of the representation, offering the audience a visible construction methodology that allows us to see how they behave inside their own fantasies.  A funny, high-voltage creative contact that feeds simultaneously from the artists' idealist positioning, and from a more realistic source that deals with the processes of creating and producing a work, always tinged with humour. 

Concept, direction and performance: Juan Domínguez and Amalia Fernández
Music: The Jazz Renegades, The Cure and Chaka Khan
Production: Juan Domínguez
Co-production: Espace Pier Paolo Pasolini, Théâtre de L'Usine, La Porta/espacio cómodo and the Dirección General de Promoción Cultural de la Consejería de Cultura y Deportes de la Comunidad de Madrid
With the support of: La Casa Encendida, La Fundición Aretoa and the Asociación de Vecinos de Zarzalejo
Thanks to: Maral Kekejian, Laura Etxebarria, Cathi Sardella and Alfredo Cáliz