During the European winter semester 2009/2010, Maricel Alvarez and Emilio García Wehbi were guest lecturers at Freie Universität Berlin’s Institute for Theater Studies. They offered a seminar entitled “Ich bin die Wunde und das Messer” (‘I’m the wound and the knife’). The program proposed a crossroad concept between contemporary dance, theater, music and visual arts aiming to develop a performatic project triggered by a literary source. Gertrude Stein’s "Dr. Faustus lights the lights" was the text chosen to structure a dialogue among the mentioned disciplines. After four months of intense discussion and research, the final phase of the experiment consisted in staging the results of the intellectual production. On January 28, 2010, the performance "Red light for Dr. Faustus" was premiered in the historic Akademie der Künste, under Maricel Alvarez and Emilio García Wehbi’s general direction in front of a large audience. Both the artistic outcome and the response from audience and critics were highly positive. Back in Buenos Aires, both artists decided to call a group of dancers and an Argentinian composer to join one of the performers in the German experience to recreate the show, introducing some changes in the reading angle, new literary and visual material in order to transfer the experience presented at the Academy of Arts in Berlin now at Centro Cultural Ricardo Rojas, in Buenos Aires. Now Stein’s poetic universe was to meet the essence of "Antichrist"’s disturbing story, by filmmaker Lars Von Trier, added to the concept of decorous obscenity proposed by Marcel Duchamp’s Étant Donnés, plus a new text by García Wehbi, all serving the purpose of generating a formal experience that emphasizes the feminine. Faust, old and defeated, accepts the challenge of a last game of chess with the devil. Mephisto sets up a trap, attempting to hold on to his power over the dejected Faust. And Marguerite is the bait. Marguerite (and her replicates: Ida, Helena and Annabel) falls into the abyss of this plot unaware that she will result strengthened and victorious. Faust loses the game against Mephisto. Mephisto is defeated by a woman who no longer needs others to fend for herself. From victim to deity, to finally restore her own womanhood. This is our female lead character’s path. The stimulating dialogue between different disciplines flows healthy in its stage becoming.

Performers
CAROLINA BORCA
LEÓN DOGODNY
ALEJANDRA FERREYRA ORTIZ
KATHARINA HAVERICH
PAULA JURAFSKY
MARGARITA MOLFINO
FLORENCIA VECINO

Texts
GERTRUDE STEIN
(Dr. Faustus Lights the Lights)
EMILIO GARCÍA WEHBI
(Carta política para Carla Bruni / Political letter to Carla Bruni)

Technical Set Assistant
JULIETA POTENZE
Assistant director and producer
PAULA BARÓ
Music
MARCELO MARTÍNEZ
Concept, staging and direction
MARICEL ALVAREZ
EMILIO GARCÍA WEHBI


Centro Cultural Ricardo Rojas, Buenos Aires, 2010.

Fotos Mariano Rapetti