Following the performance with Holland Festival at Carré last June, Wu Tsang brings her film adaptation of the Carmen myth, La gran mentira de la muerte, to De Balie during the winter holidays.
The film installation will be presented alongside a rich programme of films, talks and performances, that will explore the myth of Carmen and cast her in a new light.
Public Programme
Opening Carmen and Carmen
Friday 20 Dec.
5 p.m. Opening and Performance by María Marín
Carmen Troubles
& Talk Pastora Filigrana: The myth of Carmen and Romani feminism
There are over 50 film adaptations of the Carmen story, from which Wu Tsang, in collaboration with Enrique Fuenteblanca, has selected three key films for the creative process behind her Carmen. Carmen Troubles (2023), directed by Vasco Araújo, challenges the stereotypical image of women from the Roma community perpetuated in Bizet’s opera. The documentary follows a group of Spanish Roma women reclaiming their narrative.
The screening is followed by a talk with lawyer, activist, and feminist Pastora Filigrana, one of the film’s protagonists, moderated by Wu Tsang.
Saturday 21 Dec.
3:30 p.m. Film screening: Carmen Troubles
5 p.m. Talk Pastora Filigrana: The myth of Carmen and Romani feminism
7:30 p.m. Film screening: Carmen Troubles
Latcho Drom
& Talk Wu Tsang and Sophia Al-Maria: Excavating Carmen
The programme continues with a screening of the 1993 French film Latcho Drom ("safe journey"), a documentary that uses music, rather than dialogue, to convey the emotions of the Roma people’s journey from India to Spain.
In Excavating Carmen, Wu Tsang, alongside artist and writer Sophia Al Maria (one of the writers behind Wu Tsang/Moved by the Motion’s Carmen), explores the many layers of Carmen's legacy that inspired their recent hybrid opera. How do you create a new version of a story that is so canonical?
Saturday 21 Dec.
5:30 p.m. Film screening: Latcho Drom + 22 Dec. 7:30 p.m.
8 p.m Talk: Excavating Carmen, with Wu Tsang and Sophia Al-Maria
Carmen y la libertad
& Talk by Pedro G. Romero: Carmen, the degenerate genres
The public programme closes with Carmen y la libertad (1996), the story of a controversial theatre director forced to stage Carmen via videoconference from his sickbed.
Pedro G. Romero will then give an in-depth lecture on the Carmen myth—both rejected as a stereotyped cliché and celebrated as a symbol of emancipation and self-determination. Romero will explore this paradox, using Pushkin’s poem The Gypsies, a key source of the Carmen myth, as a starting point.
Sunday 22 Dec.
1 p.m. Film screening: Carmen y la libertad
3 p.m. Talk: Pedro G. Romero: Carmen, the degenerate genres
5:30 p.m. Film screening: Carmen y la libertad
* The film and talk can be attended individually or with a combined ticket.
Throughout the winter holidays you can visit Wu Tsang’s film installation, La gran mentira de la muerte. The exhibition runs through January 12, and admission is free.
Following the exhibition of Arthur Jafa (2020), Tony Cokes (2022), and Monira Al Qadiri (2023), Wu Tsang’s presentation at De Balie is a partner project of Hartwig Art Foundation.
La gran mentira de la muerte (2024) is co-produced by TBA21, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Hartwig Art Foundation and the National Gallery of Victoria/ In collaboration with MACBA (Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona)/ Research and development commissioned by TBA21, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Generously supported by CAAC, Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo and Excelentísimo Ayuntamiento de Guillena (Sevilla).
Hartwig Art Foundation previously co-commissioned Wu Tsang / Moved by the Motion's MOBY DICK; or, The Whale. We co-presented Italian premiere of MOBY DICK with TBA-21 and the Dutch premiere with Holland Festival 2022. In 2024 we co-produced the opera Carmen by Wu Tsang / Moved by the Motion and presented it in Amsterdam together with Holland Festival.