1 The main musical, literary and pictorial sources of your work are from the Medieval era. Why did you choose this era? What peculiar tension or charm does this epoch have for you?

The end of Medieval era is a decadent period characterized by wars, famine, diseases, poverty that I can relate to ours. Meanwhile, literature, paintings and music were prolific and joyful fields of experimentation. When I discovered medieval/renaissance polyphony (Clement Janequin, Claudin de Sermisy, Clemens non Papa, Juan del Encina, among others), and these absurd and grotesque lyrics, mostly focusing on bodily details, excrement, sex, food and marriage, I was totally charmed and attracted towards its freedom.

In this contradiction, I found the basis for the piece: talking about bodily conditions, and more specifically female bodily conditions, with a suspicious excess of joy. 

2 How would you describe your way of working during a residency?

For this piece, as we faced a big musical challenge, we split the day between musical sessions which were very methodical and technical: score and piano, working on small parts, and adding more parts day to day. 

Then we worked on improvisations around images that inspired us, putting together voice and movement, always trying to escape from literal meaning.

Because I am also part of the piece as a performer, we used the mirror in the studio to give us direct feedback on what we were doing. I watched a lot videos from the rehearsals in order to be able to re-direct the work day by day.  

3 Is there a contemporary piece of music or music video you would like to recommend to us?

Meredith Monk, Book of day

Meredith Monk, Walking Song

Cathy Berberian, Stripsody

Kurt Schwitters, Ursonate