News

PRESS RELEASE / STEREOPRESENCE

04.04. 2017

At 8pm on Tuesday 25 April 2017 Alfred ve dvoře will present the premiere of Stereopresence, a new performance by performer Cristina Maldonado, in which the Mexican artist explores in how many realities one can exist at the same time. Maldonado and Sodja Zupanc Lotker, the former artistic director of the Prague Quadrennial, have created a remarkable visual essay that takes us on a journey into parallel worlds and the multilayered nature of our consciousness.

Inspired by early video art, Stereopresence combines performance with an original video intervention. Using simple projections screens, compact video cameras, and data projectors, the piece explores the various layers of possible worlds: the indefinite boundaries between the physical and ethereal, the real and the imaginary, between what is and what isn’t. In so doing, Stereopresence tries to capture a present in which the real world blends with the virtual.

“Once at night, my grandmother woke me by walking up and down the hallway, talking to herself. She was pointing at the wall, describing pots and pans that were hanging there. But there weren’t any there. I decided not to pull her into my world, the real one, but to let her stay in hers, the world she had pulled out of her past. Somehow I felt so close to her, to what she had once been,” says Cristina Maldonado in describing her inspiration for the project. “Stereopresence is about existing between worlds: here, in this reality, and at the same time in another, private reality. It is life on the intersection of those realities,” she adds.


Cristina Maldonado is a Mexican director and performer living in Prague. She has been creating her own stage productions since 2000 (among others, for Alfred ve dvoře, DOX, Roxy/NoD, and MeetFactory), using live interaction with film and video, audiovisual installations, and old and new media. During a residency at Alfred ve dvoře/Motus in 2012, she developed the project The Stranger Gets a Gift, which subsequently resulted in works such as Reminiscence and Interruptor. Other works presented at Alfred ve dvoře include Sayat Nova and What She Does (a sample can be viewed at: https://vimeo.com/67552162).

Sodja Zupanc Lotker is a Prague-based dramaturg for independent theatre, dance, and site-specific projects (Farm in the Cave, Lotte van den Berg, TAAT, etc.). She also teaches foreign theater courses at DAMU. In 2008–2015 she was the artistic director for the Prague Quadrennial. She has also worked as a curator since 1999.



Concept, video installation: Cristina Maldonado
Performance: Cristina Maldonado, Sodja Zupanc Lotker/Petra Hauerová, Lamija Čehajić
Dramaturgy: Sodja Zupanc Lotker
Dramaturgy consultant: Petra Hauerová
Lighting design and media: Vladimír Burian
Technical support: Israel López
Production: JEDEFRAU.ORG (& Erika Frančáková)
Supported by: Czech Ministry of Culture; Motus, producers of the Alfred ve dvoře theatre
Thanks to: Dragan Stojcevski, Lamija Čehajić, Selma Lindren, Bria de la Mare, Israel Lopez, Sara Milner

Web: www.cristinamaldonado.com
Premiere: 25 April 2017, Alfred ve dvoře (Františka Křížka 36, Prague 7)