PABLO ROTEMBERG:
LECTURE ON
NOTHING(2021)
Pablo Rotemberg proposes a performative conference. Based on the reflection on some of his plays, his career as a choreographer and the experience of a year of unproductive stillness, he plans an encounter that seems spontaneous but is not; it seems fresh and relaxed, but it is nothing more than just another play.
This performative conference is a choreography. Since its title, it is inspired by what the history of great art has designated as one of the first conferences of its kind: “Lecture on Nothing”, created by the American musician John Cage, in 1949. It was a score in which everything that happened was contemplated: not only the words, but also the sounds and the absence of them. Recovering that thoroughness and taking it to the extreme, in “Pablo Rotemberg: Lecture on Nothing (2021)”, a serious speaker plans every silence, chooses every gesture, rehearses every phrase and its tones. Through a five-part structure, a conference, a choreography, and a performance about an artist in the pandemic and his confined steps are unfolded.
Pablo Rotemberg surrounds the question of what success is and risks a hypothesis about what can happen after the monologue of isolation. He answered himself, provisionally: success is a brilliant way of existing. The answer does not satisfy him and he asks himself again... what is success? The questions that organize this experience are as autobiographical as they are fictional. What is Pablo Rotemberg's artistic production about? Is gay old age the ultimate atrocity in the range of old age? How will it feel to die on stage? What does the public think of my work? What is success when life is unbearable?
The multiple layers of the scene (dance, soundtrack, audiovisual projections, performers, live piano) recover and refer to the artistic work of the choreographer and musician, as a disturbing flashback. Pablo Rotemberg is there, and there is nothing to say.
Pablo Rotemberg is a director, choreographer, musician, and educator from Argentina. He holds a Superior Degree in Music from the Conservatorio Nacional de Música Carlos López Buchardo and a Degree in Cinematography from the Fundación Universidad del Cine/FUC. He has undertaken advanced studies in dance, theater, and music in Argentina, Belgium, Germany, France, and the United States. His works have been presented in Europe and Latin America. He has received grants and subsidies from the National Fund for the Arts, the Antorchas Foundation, the American Dance Festival/ADF, the Prodanza Institute, the National Theater Institute/INT, and the Proteatro Institute. He is a tenured professor in the Department of Movement Arts at the National University of the Arts/UNA and regularly teaches seminars and workshops both in Argentina and abroad. He has served as a juror for the Guillermo Arriaga National Dance Award, the XXXVI Contemporary Choreographic Creation Competition of the National Institute of Fine Arts/INBA, and the Universidad Autónoma/UAM in Mexico.
Recent works include: The Leather Age (winner of the ACE Award 2022/2023 for Choreography, nominated for Alternative Theater Production; winner of the María Guerrero Award 2022 for Audiovisual/Multimedia Production; presented at the Complejo Teatral de Buenos Aires, 2022); Pablo Rotemberg: Lecture on Nothing (2021) (Buenos Aires International Festival/FIBA 2022, co-production with Cine Teatro York); The Darkness Covered the Earth (co-production between the XII Buenos Aires International Festival/FIBA and the X Buenos Aires Contemporary Dance Festival, 2019); Savage (National University of the Arts/UNA Dance Company, 2018); The Wild Swan (Complejo Teatral de Buenos Aires, 2018); True Art is That Which Leaves You Not Unscathed (CCK, 2017); German Tango (Complejo Teatral de Buenos Aires, 2016); Women in Love (2016); The Obsessive Night (artistic residency at the Gabriela Mistral Cultural Center/GAM, Santiago de Chile, 2015); La Wagner (First Prize in Choreographic Direction and Choreography at the Teatro del Mundo Awards, 2013); All or None (National Fund for the Arts, 2014); The Virgins (Graduation Project of the Dramatic Arts Department at the National University of the Arts/UNA, 2013); The Fixed Idea (winner of two Trinidad Guevara Awards for Choreography and Lighting; four Honorable Mentions at the Theaters of the World Awards in the categories of Choreography, Direction, Lighting, and Original Music, 2010); The Devil's House and The Blackest Night (Contemporary Ballet of the Teatro General San Martín de Buenos Aires, 2008 and 2012); Joan Crawford (Julio Bocca's Ballet Argentino, 2010); Nothing Disturbs You, Nothing Frightens You (Opera Prima Series, C.C. Ricardo Rojas, 2009); Under the Egyptian Moon (C.C. Ricardo Rojas, 2008); Southeast (Experimentation Center of the Teatro Colón/CETC, 2008); The Wolf (2004). For his work as an actor in Souvenir by Stephen Temperley (directed by Ricky Pashkus), he received the María Guerrero Award in the 'Encouragement' category and was nominated for the ACE and Clarín Awards as Best New Actor."
Artist / Director
Pablo Rotemberg
Producers / Distributors
Lucio Bazzalo & Mariana Cinat
