ABECEDA, Ballet Triádico [ALPHABET, Triadisches Ballett] (2009)
Digital print
113 x 71 cm framed
BA Collection
Inventory No.: 1999.2.3
The project has been given the generic title ABECEDA [ALPHABET], in reference to the joint work signed in 1926 by three artists from the Czech avant-garde group Devetsil: the poet Vitezslav Nezval and the designer Karel Teige published an illustrated book with twenty-five black and white images made using the photomontage technique, with poems dedicated to each of the letters of the Latin alphabet. This relentlessness also led to her project with the dancer and choreographer Milca Mayerova, who worked on a choreography for each of the letters; the result was a ballet unprecedented in its approach to a field as restricted and codified as typography.
Drawing on that past work, Mabi Revuelta has produced her latest project, based on language and embodied in a multidisciplinary stage piece where calligraphy, poetry and contemporary dance merge. The work incorporates various references, such as Oskar Schlemmer’s ‘Triadisches Ballett’ [Triadic Ballet], the Bauhaus and the Surrealist and Dadaist tradition.
In this photograph, three dancers perform a word search on the stage of the Arriaga Theatre playing with the sculptures made specifically for the piece. The bodies are part of a refined black space, a resource referring directly to the Black Theatre in Prague. Their body contours and lines form the letter S, where the body becomes a graphic and choreographic instrument.
Mabi Revuelta (Bilbao, 1967) graduated in Fine Arts from the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) in 1990. She furthered her theoretical studies on the PhD Programme in Artistic Languages and Processes between 1990 and 1992; she completed the graduate teacher training course (CAP) at the same university. Her art is structured around processes to relationships between the body, language, play and educational systems; it is noted for being its clear multidisciplinary character in which she combines sculpture, installation, drawing, performance, dance and pedagogical projects.