Melodrom. The Making of

a rebellious Telenovela

Starting on the 5. of October!
 

"We concluded to keep on working as a collective, driving the story forwards to create another possible narrative. This time we like to deal with forms of  Melodrama, political activism and with rebellious leadership ... therefore we will stage a global activist network with  virtual names and creative common bodies – this is the development of an Open Source tool to create insurrection, the OST..."

Gin Müller 

  Pictures of the current Show

The Making of a Rebellious Telenovela

Watch out for the new production of MELODROM!

brut Künstlerhaus: 

5.10 20:00, 6.10 20:00, 8.10 20:00, 9.10 20:00, 10.10 20:00, 11.10 20:00, 

Melodrom/The Making of a Rebellious Telenovela continues an artistic research process that started in 2010 with the successful production Who Shot the Princess? Boxstop Telenovelas in brut. After a symposium in 2011 and workshops in the summer 2012 about the connection between politics and aesthetics in South America, the new stage work of the Austrian-Mexican artists’ collective around Gin Müller deals with a rebellious telenovela. The passionate test of their own political desires takes the group back into an unknown past read queerly. The protagonists and the romantic couple of the Pasión Rebelde – the Mexican telenovela star Flor Edwarda Gurrola and performance artist Katia Tirado – are on the lookout for their own rebellious history and resume contact with activists on a global scale. Escaping a media conspiracy, the team’s research turns into a melodrama about common political action, love, treachery and an unknown “She Guevara Myth”. The borders of production and telenovela are increasingly blurred and present the image of activist possibilities for action and (un)known queer utopias.

On 5 October after the performance there is a ‘fiesta pasional’ with Lisa Kortschak & Vida Bakondy.
On 11 October after the performance come chill to Latin sounds by DJ Colectivo.

Gin Müller, Flor Edwarda Gurrola, Katia Tirado, Tiosha Bojorquez, Chris Thaler, Nils Olger, Jan Machacek, Martin Zistler, Tom Waibel, Bini Adamczak, Sabine Marte, Micha González, Fran Ilich, Markus Hausleitner, Katarína Csányiová, Rupert Müller, Vladi Tschapanov, Oliver Stotz

workshop 06/12

The workshop/seminar Melodrom: Melodrama, Telenovela, Rebellion by Gin Müller and Tom Waibel will take place on 4 dates starting May 15 at the Institute for Theatre, Film, and Media Sciences, University of Vienna. Together with the participants Müller and Waibel try to explain the connection between melodrama, telenovela, and rebellion in the context of a staged global media world and examine the correlation to images of emotions, gender performances, passionate dialogues, but also the political struggle for recognition.

Dates 

15. May, 17:00–20:00 Jura Soyfer-Saal of the Institute for Drama -, Film- und Mediastudies of the University Vienna: Introduction, overview  and formalities of the workshop/seminar.

10. June, 13:00–18:00 Jura Soyfer-Saal: "Trouble of the World" – The melodramatic form in filmtheory und filmhistory; with Elisabeth Streit (Filmtheorist and librarian in the Austrian Filmmuseum).

14. June, 15:00–19:00 Jura Soyfer-Saal: "Queering Gender" – On the subversion of gender-stereotypes within melodramatic forms

15. June, 15:00–19:00 Soyfer-Saal: "Who shot the Princess" – Princessdrama and melodrama analysed in a theatrical play from Gin Müller

30. June, 13:00 Presentation of the outcomes of the workshop / seminar in  brut im Künstlerhaus.

Admission free. Start is possible at any time without registration.

An event in co-operation with the lecture of Dr. Gin Müller at the Institute for Drama, Film, and Mediastudies, University of Vienna

Who shot the Princess?

Boxstop Telenovelas
16. + 17. + 23. + 24. September, 20 Uhr
brut im Künstlerhaus 14,-/8,-/6,-* ermäßigtGin/i Müller, Flor Edwarda Gurrola, Nils Olger et. al. (Vienna/Mexico)

Melodrama, Death, Love, Rebellion... from Princess Dramas to rebellious Telenovelas: inspired by Mexican telenovelas and Elfriede Jelinek’s Princess Dramas, Who shot the Princess? Boxstop Telenovelas unveils a broad array of princess-projections of classic fairytale and historian figures, film divas, artists and rebels. In this Austro-Mexican co-production the actress Flor Edwarda Gurrola is wandering trough different worlds of Telenovela while changing into various un/dead Princesses: As Infanta she experiences a Jelinek- Snow White-Déjà-vu in the woods, as Carlota from Mexico she celebrates a fatal comeback with Emperor Maximiliano, and as Frida Kahlo she actually doesn’t want to be part of it anymore. On the run from TV-business she finally falls in love in a melodramatic Pasión Rebelde, in which Melodrama and Rebellion are in fusion.

Melodrama and Rebellion

Symposium on Politics and Aesthetics in Europe and Latin America
 

From 23 to 25 of September 2011
All day event in brut im Künstlerhaus with Theatre, Film, Discussion, Lecture, Performance and Party.

Within the framework of the Austro-Mex-Tour of the production Who shot the Princess? – Boxstop Telenovelas the symposium is dedicated to reflect on Melodrama and Rebellion, Politics and Aesthetics in Europe and Latin America. From 23 to 25 of September the current political potential of melodramatic forms of narration and action is investigated throughout theoretical and performative interventions (discussion, film, performance and party). From the very beginning Melodrama is a dominant strategy to narrate the popular Latin American Telenovelas. The symposium sets up a temporary laboratory to explore today’s strategies of action and forms of emotional acting-out in the struggle for consensus, dissent and social rights. It sets up the question how political desire can be articulated and/or embodied in language and gesture. What characterizes the actions of rebellious subjects nowadays?

The event takes place in English and German. Books, magazines, information, tortillas, nachos and Zapatista coffee for head and heart.
Designed and presented by Gin/i Müller and Tom Waibel.

Fr. 23. Sept. 11

Programm Fr. 23.9.11 Symposia Melodrama + Rebellion

17:30 Film Die Theatermacher / Los hacedores del teatro (Video)
Gin/i Müller/Edwarda Gurrola/Nils Olger (Vienna/Mexico)
Austrian Première, free entrance.

Die Theatermacher is a documentary essay film on Thomas Bernhard in Mexico and the Mexican director Juan José Gurrola. Interviews and archive footage are assembled to a simply complicated portrait of the two theatre-makers.
With an introduction of the filmmakers. Admission free.

20:00 Theatre/Performance
Who shot the Princess? Boxstop Telenovelas
Gin/i Müller, Flor Edwarda Gurrola, Nils Olger u. a. (Vienna/Mexico)
brutproduction. Entrance: 14,-/8,-/6,-*

 Melodrama, Death, Love, Rebellion... from Princess Dramas to rebellious Telenovelas: inspired by Mexican telenovelas and Elfriede Jelinek’s Princess Dramas, Who shot the Princess? Boxstop Telenovelas unveils a broad array of princess-projections of classic fairytale and historian figures, film divas, artists and rebels. In this Austro-Mexican co-production the actress Flor Edwarda Gurrola is wandering trough different worlds of Telenovela while changing into various un/dead Princesses: As Infanta she experiences a Jelinek- Snow White-Déjà-vu in the woods, as Carlota from Mexico she celebrates a fatal comeback with Emperor Maximiliano, and as Frida Kahlo she actually doesn’t want to be part of it anymore. On the run from TV-business she finally falls in love in a melodramatic Pasión Rebelde, in which Melodrama and Rebellion are in fusion.

22:00 Latino-Rebel-Sounds Party
Latino-Rebel-DJing in the bar brut deluxe after Who shot the Princess? Boxstop Telenovelas; admission free.

Sa. 24. Sept. 11

Programm Sa. 24.9.11 Symposia Melodrama + Rebellion 

14:00 Panel
Melodrama und Gender Politics
 
The performance Who shot the Princess? is just a box-stop within a broader process of the performative exploration of Melodrama as a specific articulation of resistant gender politics. The next step is the transformation of Melodrama into Melodrom as a societal battlefield of emotional acceleration and medial diversion. It is nothing but a theoretical and performative change of tires in the on-going reflection of Boxstop-Telenovelas.
With Gin/i Müller, Flor Edwarda Gurrola, Katia Tirado, Chris Thaler, Hansel Sato, Tom Waibel and Martin Plattner; admission free.

16:00 Lecture
Melodrama und Political Agency

The examination of Melodrama is intensified by the comparison of the research of current forms of political performance and melodramatic politics in Latin America and Europe. Considerations on the European genesis of melodramatic political rhetoric are contrasted with reflections on political activism and melodramatic militancy in Latin America.
Lectures of Tina Leisch and Oliver Marchart; admission free.

17:30 Discussion
Melodrama und Social Resistance

Following the lectures on political agency in the melodrama a panel discussion raises questions regarding the potential of resistance in melodrama.
With Tina Leisch, Oliver Marchart, Jens Kastner and the Latin Lobby; admission free.

20:00 Theatre/Performance
Who shot the Princess? Boxstop Telenovelas
Gin/i Müller, Flor Edwarda Gurrola, Nils Olger u. a. (Vienna/Mexico)
brutproduction. Entrance: 14,-/8,-/6,-*

Melodrama, Death, Love, Rebellion... from Princess Dramas to rebellious Telenovelas: inspired by Mexican telenovelas and Elfriede Jelinek’s Princess Dramas, Who shot the Princess? Boxstop Telenovelas unveils a broad array of princess-projections of classic fairytale and historian figures, film divas, artists and rebels. In this Austro-Mexican co-production the actress Flor Edwarda Gurrola is wandering trough different worlds of Telenovela while changing into various un/dead Princesses: As Infanta she experiences a Jelinek- Snow White-Déjà-vu in the woods, as Carlota from Mexico she celebrates a fatal comeback with Emperor Maximiliano, and as Frida Kahlo she actually doesn’t want to be part of it anymore. On the run from TV-business she finally falls in love in a melodramatic Pasión Rebelde, in which Melodrama and Rebellion are in fusion.

22:00 Party
Melodrama und Excess

Transdisciplinary party with excessive Latino rhythms and melodramatic surprises. Slam-Poetry-Performance of Tiosha Bojorquez; admission free.

So. 25. Sept. 11

Programm So. 25.9.11 Symposia Melodrama and Rebellion

15:00 Panel
Melodrama and Violence

At present the daily routine in Mexico is marked by politics of escalation and violence invading the public space in outrageous form and undreamed intensity. Faced with the interminable femicides in Ciudad Juárez, one of the worlds most dangerous cities, confronted with the escalation of violence in the war on drugs and in view of the increasingly detected mass-graves of migrants the panel raises the question which possible political means could response to all that.
With Katia Tirado, Flor Edwarda Gurrola und Tjosha Bojorquez et. al., admission free.

16:30 Film
La Ley de Herodes / Herod's Law
R: Luís Estrada (Mexico 2000)

"Herod's Law" is a political satire narrating the antecedents of the current situation in Mexico akin to civil war. The mayor of a small town is killed by the citizens and the faithful party member Juan Vargas is deployed to the job. He tries to  administrate the town honestly, but he makes no progress without the integrating into the corrupt political system. Finally he uses the law for profiting, intimidates the citizen and becomes a murderer… The black comedy describes the climate of generalized corruption that backed the "party of institutionalized revolution" to keep up power during various decades.
Admission free.

19:15 Discussion
Melodrama and Zapatismo

The transnational impact of the resistance, insurrection und constituent power of the Zapatista – who influenced social movements as hardly any other contemporary political practice – is not least due to a successful mixture of militant action and melodramatic articulation. The panel discusses the reasons why this mixture became so attractive and how it is realized in political daily routine.
Gin/i Müller, Katia Tirado, Tjosha Bojorquez, Jens Kastner and Tom Waibel. Admission free.

20:15 Impulse
Melodrama and Her/History of Film

A compact view on meanings and uses of Melodrama in Her/History of Film. Melodrama is both, a deprecated and beloved genre that ranges from tear-jerking to a laundering of sentiments.
Impulse from Elisabeth Streit; admission free.

20:30 Film
Corazón del tiempo / Heart of Time
R: Alberto Cortés (Mexico 2008)

In the midst of the Zapatista rebellion a young women is going to be married. While the Mexican army is increasingly occupying resistant territories, her marriage is decided. But the bride is in love with another one – an insurgent – and conflict with traditional and revolutionary law is inevitable. The film reflects these difficulties in a narration comprehending generations and evolving against the backdrop of the political and military empowerment and autonomy of the EZLN (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional).
Admission free.

22:00 Chill-out
Romantic and rebellious music with tequila; admission free.