Wrap, History and Syncope
18 July 1936, Bayonne. Upon hearing the news of the fascist military uprising, Antonia Mercé y Luque, the Spanish dancer and bailaora known as La Argentina, suffers a syncope and dies, in fatal synchrony with the Second Republic.
In close dialogue with images, Isabel de Naverán pursues the echo of that blow – an individual convulsion that contains, both representatively and symbolically, the collective pain that was approaching and has resonated (at different times and in different forms) through other artists. These include seemingly distant figures such as the Japanese choreographers Kazuo Ohno (who felt compelled to revisit his dance fifty years after seeing her perform) and Takao Kawaguchi, the bailaora Rocío Molina, and the writer Gertrude Stein.
The performance is part of Figures of Fascism and Antifascist Solidarity. Click here for the full programme.
• Isabel de Naverán is an independent research and writer. Her work lies at the intersection between art, contemporary choreography, and performance, and is focused on bodily transmission and the examination of the concept of historical time by way of ephemeral and fugitive practices. She was a curator of dance and performance at the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid (2017–2024) and has published the books Envoltura, historia y síncope (2021), Wrap, History and Syncope (2024), Ritual de duelo (2022), and La ola en la mente (2024).
