Nina Laisné / Nestor ‘Pola’ Pastorive Como una baguala oscura

In this new piece mixing music, dance, scenography and videography, Nina Laisné pays tribute to pianist and composer Hilda Herrera and dancer Néstor ‘Pola’ Pastorive, two unique figures of Argentina’s folklore who have always combined faithfulness to the roots of their art and creative audacity. The former, who is now in her 90s, is one of the few women to have carved her way through this male-dominated world, pushing the piano to the forefront when the instrument wasn’t commonplace in this kind of repertoire. She embodies the ideal of a strong and inspiring woman, championing challenging compositions while maintaining the working-class origins of this music. Over several decades, the latter has been a virtuoso zapateo dancer, a string of rhythmic movements typical of Argentina and where heels, foot tips and soles hit the ground to imitate the sound of percussion. Nestor ‘Pola’ Pastorative delivers a personal and sentient performance, drawing motifs from flamenco and classical dance to explore the upper part of his body in a more free and aerial way.

It is this singularity that she highlights in Como una baguala oscura, for which she asked Néstor ‘Pola’ Pastorive to imagine with her a new approach to the music of Hilda Herrera. The director interweaves the present time of the stage – which is instrumental in the vibrant and compelling performance of the dancer – with the music as well as the memory and stories of the pianist, who appears on a screen. A refreshingly vital encounter orchestrated by an artist that in the last 15 years has been producing work in the most fertile margins of film, performing arts, visual arts, and folk and early music. This taste for cross-fertilizations and collaborations has led to a particularly fruitful relationship with François Chaignaud. The Romances Inciertos she conceived with him in 2017 has been widely acclaimed, from the Avignon Festival to worldwide stages. The two artists were then connecting Spanish folk dances and musics inspired by Spanish spoken traditions of the 16th and 17th centuries. 
 

Vincent Théval