Listening In and To Vivi Tellas's Biodrama

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In this virtual chat, we will converse with Argentinian director Vivi Tellas about listening in the context of her theatrical practice, "Biodramas". In Vivi Tellas' Biodramas, the audience is engaged as listeners to real-life events as narrated by their actual protagonists. How to characterize listening in the context of such work where the borders between fiction and reality are blurred? What are the ethical implications of performing real-life stories? What are the risks and benefits at stake?

BIO

Argentine theater director and curator Vivi Tellas has had a great influence on the international performing arts scene. As the creator of Biodrama, a revolutionary project on stage biographies, she has made the search for theatrics outside theater the lifeblood of her work. In a unique approach to documentary theater, she has created a series of living archives that feature nonprofessional players, including Mi mamá y mi tía [My Mom and My Aunt], Tres filósofos con bigotes [Three Philosophers with Moustaches], Cozarinsky y su médico [Cozarinsky and His Doctor], Escuela de conducción [Driving School], Mujeres guía [Women Guides], Disc Jockey, Rabbi Rabino (staged in New York), O Rabino e seu Filho [The Rabbi and His Son] (staged in São Paulo), La bruja y su hija [The Witch and Her Daughter], Maruja enamorada [Maruja in Love], El niño Rieznik [The Rieznik Kid], Los amigos, un biodrama afro [Friends, An Afro Biodrama], and Las personas [The People], featuring the workers behind the scenes at San Martín Theater.

As a theater director, some of the most well-known productions she has brought to the stage include Europera V and the John Cage work Conferencia sobre nada [Lecture on Nothing], both at the Colon Theater, and the Federico García Lorca play La casa de Bernarda Alba [The House of Bernarda Alba] in a collaboration with visual artist Guillermo Kuitca at the Martin Coronado Hall of San Martin Theater. Early projects in her career include Teatro Malo [Bad Theater], and Proyecto Museos [Museums Project], which gave birth to the concept of theatrical curating. She has taught as a visiting professor at the Creative Writing Program at New York University (2009) and at the DAS Masters in Theater program in Amsterdam (2013). In 2014, the Humanities Council at Princeton University awarded her the prestigious Belknap Fellowship; three years later, at the same university, she served as artistic director and curator of the Princeton Live Art Sessions on art in transition. Since 2016, she has taught in the Master’s in Playwriting program at the National University of the Arts in Buenos Aires. Her works and seminars have taken her to New York, London, Havana, Amsterdam, São Paulo, Dublin, Guadalajara, Vancouver, Bogota and Barcelona. In 2013, as an outstanding figure in Buenos Aires theater, she was invited to give a TED talk (TedxRioDeLaPlata). In 2015, the Buenos Aires City Legislature named her a Notable Figure in Culture. At the end of 2017, the book Biodrama: Proyecto Archivos gathered the first six of her works in documentary theater.

Since 2016, Vivi Tellas has been the Artistic Director of Sarmiento Theater, the experimental wing of the Buenos Aires Public Theater Complex. Muy Bodas de Sangre [Very Blood Wedding], a pandemic-friendly collaboration with filmmaker Agustina Comedi based on the Federico García Lorca play, is currently showing online.