UBU by Robert Wilson

• Days: October 15, 20, 21, 22 at 8 pm
• Days: October 16, 23 at 7 pm
• Aljub (entrance from Passeig Sagrera)
• Duration: 50 minutes. IMPORTANT: Once the performance has started, admittance into the room will not be allowed
• Language: Catalan, English
• Tickets: 25 €
• In case there are remaining tickets, they will be on sale at the museum’s ticket office (Passeig Sagrera) one hour before the start of each performance

Saturday October 15 8 pm
Sunday  October 16 7 pm
Thursday October 20 8 pm
Friday October 21 8 pm
Saturday October 22 8 pm
Sunday October 23 7 pm

*50% discount professional associations of performing arts, visual artists and dance (Illescena, ADIB, APCIB, AAAPIB, ACDIB, AAVIB). Please present your ID/professional card at the entrance, otherwise you will have to pay the difference. The discounted ticket is personal and non-transferable.
*Raffle of 10 invitations to Members of Es Baluard Museu

UBU is an unprecedented theatrical performance, directed by playwright and set designer Robert Wilson, which will have its international premiere at Es Baluard Museu in Palma.

The work is inspired by the text Ubu Roi, written by Alfred Jarry in 1896, a critique of war and totalitarianism with a grotesque, dictatorial main character that is as relevant today as when it was created, and also by Joan Miró’s research/creations around the universe of Ubu Roi.

This new UBU arises, in a way, from the curatorial proposal linked to the exhibition “Personae. Masks Against Barbarism“, which reviews the museum’s collection and can be visited until the end of the year. Part of the exhibition is focused on Joan Miró’s fascination with Jarry’s work, which he reflected in original drawings and lithographs for the books Ubu Roi (1966), Ubu aux Baléares (1971) and L’enfance d’Úbu (1975). Finally, Joan Miró designed human-sized puppets, which he was able to materialise in collaboration with Joan Baixas.

The curator of the exhibition, Imma Prieto, has therefore considered not only the relevance of the character, but also the possibility of creating a new work based on Jarry and Miró, with a new interpretation that is nourished by current socio-political conflicts.

This is how Prieto invites Wilson, firstly, to create a new sound piece to accompany the puppets in the exhibition, and secondly, to carry out a new and groundbreaking scenic proposal with Jarry and Miró as references, but with a new scenario arising from our contemporaneity.

UBU‘s starting point is the 125th anniversary of the first staging of Jarry’s seminal play Ubu Roi and the adaptation under the title Mori el Merma by Joan Miró in collaboration with the experimental theatre company La Claca, headed by Joan Baixas, which premiered first at the Teatro Principal in Palma in 1978 and later at the Liceu in Barcelona. With a marked anti-Francoist focus, it counted on the collaboration of Miró in the figures of the four main characters, which can be seen today in “Personae. Masks Against Barbarism“, which will be replicated for the UBU performances.

Jarry’s original production so offended the audience that it was shut down on the night of its premiere in Paris. The absurd and cruel in his work were an earlier echo of Surrealism, Dadaism and the Theatre of the Absurd. In 1978 the analogy with and reflection on Franco’s autocratic regime was inevitable. Ubu was identified with Merma, in a plot in which the despot is finally overthrown by the public. In UBU, the tyrant returns once again in the hands of Wilson under the umbrella of the current paradoxes and inequalities, without forgetting the vindictive and symbolic action of putting an end to nepotism.

Direction, set and lighting design: Robert Wilson
Original idea: Imma Prieto
Co-director: Charles Chemin
Co-set designer: Stephanie Engeln
Co-lighting designer: Marcello Lumaca
Costumes: Aina Moroms
Sound: Joan Vila
Assistant director & stage manager: Maite Román
Puppets: Joan Baixas, La Claca / based on Joan Miró’s original design
Text materials: Eli Troen / based on Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi

Performers: Mona Belizán, Rafael Mir, Marina Nicolau, Alejandro Navarro, Joan Maria Pascual, Sandrine Penda, Joana Peralta, Apolònia Serra, Alba Vinton

Technical manager: Juanro Campos
Costume assistants: Pau Nieto, Esperança Crespí
Assistant stage manager: Mauricio Sierra
Additional support: Jonathan Holloway, Pau Bachero
Head of Stage: Pablo Sacristán
Construction team: Eli Sintes, Fernando Navarrete, Gerard Galmes, Didac Roig, Jaume Portes
Runner: Mateu Canyelles
Sound engineer: Guillem Ximelis
Photographer: Luca Rocchi
Personal assistant to Mr Wilson: Alek Asparuhov Karastoyanov

Production intern: Sienna Vila
Production assistants: Sofia Pérez, Romina Colotto
Associate producer: Rie Okada
Producer: Jenny Vila

Production
Es Baluard Museu d’Art Contemporani de Palma
Successió Miró

Funded by
Govern de les Illes Balears
Acción Cultural Española (AC/E)
Ajuntament de Palma

Co-producers
Festival Grec de Barcelona (ES)
Kunstfest Weimar (DE)

In collaboration with
Groupe Karol Karol (FR)

With the support of
Institut Ramon Llull

Distribution
Bitó Produccions

Executive Production
La Mecànica