{"id":5407,"date":"2023-06-06T09:32:37","date_gmt":"2023-06-06T09:32:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theatre.local\/interview-with-janis-balodis-and-nahuel-cano-by-the-shake-down-curator-samuels-ozolins\/"},"modified":"2023-06-06T09:32:37","modified_gmt":"2023-06-06T09:32:37","slug":"interview-with-janis-balodis-and-nahuel-cano-by-the-shake-down-curator-samuels-ozolins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theatre.kondrats.dev\/lv\/interview-with-janis-balodis-and-nahuel-cano-by-the-shake-down-curator-samuels-ozolins\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with J\u0101nis Balodis and Nahuel Cano by “The Shake Down” curator Samuels Ozoli\u0146\u0161"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Nahuel Cano<\/a> lives and works between Buenos Aires and Amsterdam, he is an actor, theatre-maker, and an autodidact sound experimenter. J\u0101nis Balodis is from Riga, and has been working in theatre professionally as playwright, dramaturg and occasionally as a performer. In December 2021, Nahuel was traveling from Amsterdam to Riga. J\u0101nis Balodis picked him up from a ferry in Klaipeda. They were driving. It was late in the evening, already dark, and a severe snow storm started right after they left Klaipeda. They decided to take a smaller road, and there they hit a deer. \u201cThe Last Night of the Deer\u201d is a story about that one December evening, which will be part of the \u201cBastard\u201d programme<\/a> on April 27th and 29th. \u201cThe Shake Down\u201d curator Samuels Ozoli\u0146\u0161 sat with them, when J\u0101nis and Nahuel came to the festival.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Samuels<\/strong>: The first question that we all are curious about is \u2013 how was your trip? And if travelling by car to the festival is like a part of your show? Is it like preparation for the performance?<\/p>\n

J\u0101nis<\/strong>: I would say yes. Because\u2026 Usually, there is this thing that I drive. And I like that a lot. Yesterday we went through the dramaturgy of music history, delivered by Nahuel, being an amazing copilot. But also, we were in a snowstorm, maybe not super big, but it was snowy.<\/p>\n

Nahuel<\/strong>: Yes, it\u2019s like a preparation, but it\u2019s not something that we planned beforehand for the show. For us, it\u2019s a choice to try to do slow travelling. Because flying by plane is kind of fucked up. It also comes from a decision to be more concerned regarding climate change, and I think it\u2019s also fun to do. But, yeah, it really works as preparation for the show. Because it takes a long time. It\u2019s also creating a small community. And this time we were three, who were riding, it was super nice to have someone else.<\/p>\n

J\u0101nis<\/strong>: I guess you can just get more details. Because it takes a longer time. You go into conversations, you might not have a chance to get in. Also, you get bored. You learn how to play silly games. How to entertain each other, and maybe come up with some ideas for the next things, what is ahead.<\/p>\n

Nahuel<\/strong>: And also for a small production like us, on one hand, it\u2019s an investment. Because I think it would be cheaper to fly by plane. But on the other hand, it also allows us to travel with scenography. If not, we should have asked Rosendal Theatre to build our car seat. Also we are travelling with instruments and so on. It gives us more autonomy. Although at first look it could look more expensive, but I think in the long run, it gives us more autonomy and more independence.<\/p>\n

J\u0101nis<\/strong>: Also \u2013 what would happen with the set that would be built here for two shows?<\/p>\n

Samuels<\/strong>: And the next question from me is, what does your show mean or represent to you personally?<\/p>\n

Nahuel<\/strong>: Well, I think that the piece for me is about our friendship. It\u2019s meaningful, because our friendship, as any friendship, happens in a context. It happens with our ghosts. You become friends with someone, and this person comes with their ghosts, and you\u2019re also accounting with your ghosts. So I think this is pretty much about that. And ghosts that come from the future, ghosts that come from the past.<\/p>\n

J\u0101nis<\/strong>: Also the thing is that this performance is not frozen or unchangeable. For example, in Riga for two rehearsals, my daughter joined us. The idea is that maybe she could help us with the lines. But at that moment, we still need to see it ourselves. So Nahuel saw how she could work there with the sound. The show is not fixed. It\u2019s ongoing, we change it. We have changed the sound in some parts, and now we can read more layers there. I suddenly hear that it\u2019s different now than it was. Maybe I have different eyes now on some things. And that for me feels like a good sign of the work \u2013 that it keeps offering. I was especially happy for my daughter Teod\u0113zija, that she could be there, because she also is part of this work.<\/p>\n

Nahuel<\/strong>: Yeah, and I think what\u2019s very special with this work, is this openness. Like in our rehearsals now. Teod\u0113zija was in charge of sound, she was doing everything with certain explanations. I explained to her how to play the keys a bit. She was great. And she, of course, was improvising, because that was the idea, and some ideas that she came up with work very well in the show. So yeah, now she\u2019s present not only in the text and in our bodies, but also in the sound. I think that is great.<\/p>\n

Samuels<\/strong>: And how is it like being curated by teens who are not really professionals in this field?<\/p>\n

J\u0101nis<\/strong>: Well\u2026 I needed a moment to sit down and process when it was proposed and even when you were still deciding whether to work with us. And then it was announced \u2013 \u2018yeah, we would like to invite you\u2019. I think it\u2019s a huge thing being nominated\u2026 Because when I think of the work and the response, how it\u2019s received by the public\u2026 Well, it meant a lot that it has had an impact or was resonating with the young curators. And I felt great about it.<\/p>\n

Nahuel<\/strong>: Yeah, I was a bit surprised that younger people got interested in the work. Not because I don\u2019t think the work is good. I think it works. But it was more like \u2013 \u2018Oh, what are they seeing here?\u2019 I think that again is changing my way. I don\u2019t know what you\u2019re seeing there, but I don\u2019t need to know. Because it opens the question in me and I can start looking at the work in a different way. It brings a different presence to the work. Also for me, it\u2019s another way of looking at teenagers. It\u2019s very surprising because I was thinking \u2013 this is so 20th century vintage. The piece is on purpose a little vintage. Now, we changed it for the tour, but all the instruments were analogues in the show that you saw (in Homo Novus 2022). All these technologies from the 70s that were super cool for me.<\/p>\n

J\u0101nis<\/strong>: Yeah, and cars. It\u2019s all there, we\u2019re made of that. And the ghosts. How to be with them, how to open up the space for them. So it was a surprise that it clicked.<\/p>\n

Nahuel<\/strong>: And more in terms of the process and the few conversations about the organisation that we had, what I think was good was the feeling of openness in the process. I don\u2019t know about other artists, but for us, it was good. What would have been a tense relationship in another context was good for us. If we were working with professionals in a standard festival, and they would say \u2013 \u2018yeah, we don\u2019t know yet\u2019. It would be like \u2013 \u2018what the fuck?\u2019 But here we felt like \u2013 \u2018great, they\u2019re just still figuring it out\u2019. And it was never a problem, it was inspiring to see what will happen.<\/p>\n

Samuels<\/strong>: It is good to hear that you didn\u2019t feel that as a burden for you, because that\u2019s what I was kind of worrying about.<\/p>\n

Nahuel<\/strong>: No, I don\u2019t think I felt that. It was clear that you are open and we are also open. And we felt allowed to say \u2013 \u2018well, sorry, guys, it\u2019s too late\u2019. That didn\u2019t happen, but I felt allowed to say that.<\/p>\n

J\u0101nis<\/strong>: And then there was someone really wanting the work in this place in Trondheim, and we were okay with that, to see what\u2019s possible. And I felt that we were free to move with this. And there was this curiosity. How\u2019s it going to go? And in a different setup, there is less room for this movement.<\/p>\n

Nahuel<\/strong>: I think it\u2019s also very much related to how we work with this show. That we\u2019re flexible in a way. At least until now we were. Let\u2019s see what happens if we keep doing it. But now it\u2019s still alive.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Shake Down\u201d (Nr. EEZ\/2021\/1\/15) total eligible costs are \u20ac 249 635,00. The project benefits from a \u20ac 212 189,75 grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA Grants and \u20ac 37 445,25 from national co-financing. The aim of the project is to promote the involvement of young people in solving issues of public importance and participation in the cultural life of the city. Working together for a green, competitive and inclusive Europe. For more information, please visit\u00a0eeagrants.org<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While preparing \u201cThe Shake Down\u201d programme for International Art Festival \u201cBastard\u201d, where on April 27th and 29th \u201cThe Last Night of The Deer\u201d will be presented, one of the curators, Samuels Ozoli\u0146\u0161, met with J\u0101nis and Nahuel for a brief conversation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5408,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-shake-down"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theatre.kondrats.dev\/lv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theatre.kondrats.dev\/lv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theatre.kondrats.dev\/lv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theatre.kondrats.dev\/lv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theatre.kondrats.dev\/lv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theatre.kondrats.dev\/lv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theatre.kondrats.dev\/lv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theatre.kondrats.dev\/lv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theatre.kondrats.dev\/lv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theatre.kondrats.dev\/lv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}