Book presentation and staged reading, 22nd of November 2022, 19:00, Instituto Cervantes (Palais Wiener von Welten), Vienna
Translated from the Spanish by Franziska Muche and Carola Heinrich
© Jean Pierre Ledos
The book Schattenschwimmer. Neue Theatertexte aus Spanien will be presented alongside a staged reading of the play Die Einsamkeit der Hundesitter by María Velasco translated by Franziska Muche and Carola Heinrich.
A young woman travels to Buenos Aires. She loses herself in the nightlife there to try to get over a break-up, yet experiences pain and loneliness. Intoxication and ecstasy. With her autofictional text, María Velasco questions the concept of symbiotic romantic relationships. She uses fragments of texts and thoughts to create a poetic kaleidoscope that portrays the internal process of grief in constantly new images. The protagonist’s subjective perspective is juxtaposed with commenting points of view from prototypical characters like WOMAN and MAN. These contrasts produce a poetically productive tension that captivates the reader and the audience, as does this writer’s musical and rhythmical language.
The reading will be followed by a book presentation with the editors and translators Franziska Muche and Carola Heinrich, the playwright María Velasco and the director Stefan Schweigert. The event is free, just come along!
Directed by: Stefan Schweigert
Performers: Lukas Haas, Catherine Dumont, Barča Baxant and Georg Schmiechen
Discussion: Franziska Muche, Carola Heinrich, Stefan Schweigert, María Velasco, Aitana Vivó (chair)
About the Author
María Velasco, born in 1984 in Burgos, playwright, director and lecturer, is one of the most well-known voices of the younger generation of Spanish theatre-makers. Die Einsamkeit der Hundesitter premiered in 2016 in the Theater Cuarta Pared in Madrid (directed by Guillermo Heras and María Velasco) and has also been performed as a staged reading in Mexiko and Montpellier. For Talaré a los hombres de sobre la faz de la tierra (German: Ich will die Menschen ausroden von der Erde, translated from the Spanish by Franziska Muche), she was awarded the Premios Max and the International Writing Prize at the Heidelberger Stückemarkt in 2022.
An event by Drama Panorama: Forum für Übersetzung und Theater e. V. as part of the project panorama #2: übertheaterübersetzen, funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media and the Deutscher Übersetzerfonds as part of the Neustart Kultur programme and the Spanish Embassy in Austria. In cooperation with die taz.
