ESCENA ÚNICA

Can we hear shapes? This is the challenge of Escena única, a game of formal, conceptual and sonic rhythms that will fill the arches of the courtyard of the Tortosa Museum for a few days.

More than a hundred years ago, abstract painters racked their brains associating visual forms with sounds, instruments and musical notes. Escena única also associates forms with sounds, but it does so in a different way, through ephemeral and collaborative architecture.

Escena única is an installation conceived and designed for joint creation with the city’s schools and colleges. Its raw material is cans, recycled by students from all the collaborating centres. The cans are not arranged randomly, but following the rhythmic notes of the piano melody from the Escena única of the opera Els Pirineus by the musician Felip Pedrell. This work also responds to the central theme that has been chosen by the Festival’s organisers: rhythm, on the occasion of the centenary of the death of the Tortosa-born musician, Felip Pedrell.

Bearing in mind that this is an artistic work in which so many people have participated, we wanted to make it so that every visitor can also take part and do their bit by producing a kind of curtain of sound from visual rhythms, based on similar shapes, but of different sizes according to the musical note they represent, while sonic rhythms are also produced when the cans rub against each other.

Art major students from Dertosa College were in charge of assembling the work and mounting it in the arches of the Tortosa Museum courtyard. The cans have been painted by students from all the collaborating centres. These cans have two colours: white and a bluish grey, which merges into the background, symbolising the silences of the musical work.

We invite you to cross the stage, to move through it, to let the work move with your passing. In the background we can hear the same Felip Pedrell opera mentioned above.

THE AUTHORS

Installation designed by Rosa Curto and Gemma Unió, teachers of Art and Drawing at Dertosa College.

Assembly: Art-major students from Dertosa College.

Technical assistance: Faculty of the technology department of Dertosa College.

Musical adaptation: Felip Dòria, music teacher at Les Planes College.

Coordination: Cristina Bestratén del Pino and CRP (Teaching Resources Centre) of Baix Ebre.

Collaboration: students from the CEE Sant Jordi, the Diocesan College Sagrada Família, Teresià School, Cinta Curto School, El Temple School, Ferreries School, la Mercè School, Remolins School, Sant Llàtzer School, Cristòfol Despuig College, Dertosa College, the Daniel Mangrané College-School and the Les Planes College.