Carlos

the circular ruins

THE CIRCULAR RUINS

[I. NEVER BORN]

A MISERO PROSPERO Project production

Carlos Rodero
Featuring Podmaniczky Dorottya

More information:

WORK in PROGRESS
Password: Circular_Ruins_2017

«And if he left off dreaming about you…»

Through the Looking Glass, VI

1. Statement

During the last ten years of my career in theatre, I have been developing a
progressive approach to dance and physical theatre. I started to work seriously with
dancers and choreographers in 2007 and I produced three important creations
which pushed me from the word into the movement in a new way. Matruska (2008-
2010), Anatomy of Pain (2009) and Orpheus Stomped in Dirt (2010). Previously, I
participate in many contemporary dance performances as a dramaturgical assessor.
Besides that, always in touch with the experience of physical theatre that involves
the research of how to solve the marriage between text and body. That kind of
shows gives me the chance to explore different landscapes, from many different
points of view in order to reach different results. And maybe they offer as well a way
to express my creativity and a resource to look into myself, as other theatre forms
do not. From some professional reasons, there has not been a new MISERO
PROSPERO Project dance production since 2011. This does not mean I broke the line.
I have continued learning and experimenting with some co-productions,
collaborations and workshops. 2017 is the year in which I will impulse again that

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work with the aim of summarizing the last knowledge I got and make a step
forward towards new limits. I have chosen The Circular Ruins as a sample of a new
period. With this play I would like to try how far I can go in playing with various
languages and create again a relationship with a choreographer and dancer.

2. The Project

With The Circular Ruins I want to research in the act of creation itself [bring to life in
a solo-duo dance theatre performance], to build a code for an understanding
between creator and his creation, to ask myself about the role of the ritual in our
days and to play with languages such painting and music as a part of an inspirational
dramaturgy. For that purpose I have chosen the short story Las ruinas circulares,
written by the Argentinian Jorge Luis Borges, the pictorial and visual world of the
Norwegian artist Odd Nerdrum and the music of the contemporary Hungarian
composer Kurtág György.
The body in its limits of expressivity, and ―why not― the word as a part of
mutilated body who had been rejected from an unknown paradise. And the work
with the object, as a dramatic resource.
A grey man who wants to create another through a dream. Consequences? The
misunderstanding of creation and the mysticism of error and the purity of failure.
The bankrupt of idealism. The never-ending transfiguration between the creator
and the created. The creation as a dream. The manifestation of thoughts in the «real
world», meaningful dreams, and [im]mortality of art: the manifestation of human
beings rather than simple objects.
We start The Circular Ruins with [NEVER BORN] a solo and [ECHO] a duo, two short
parts that may have their own autonomy.

TIMING

I. [April-May] Guide Lines. Work with Podmaniczky Dorottya.

II. [May 29, 30, 31] AUDITION in Budapest for finding a dancer partenaire.
III. [May-June] Composition of [NEVER BORN] & [ECHO]
IV. [June 29, 30] Presentation of [NEVER BORN] & [ECHO] in Budapest as a
work in progress and recording video.

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3. Carlos Rodero & MISERO PROSPERO Project

Carlos Rodero
Playwright and Stage Director
1153 Budapest, HUNGARY, Bethlen Gábor utca, 118
+36 70 536 07 54
miseroprospero@gmail.com
http://miseroprospero.com

Born in Barcelona in 1965. When he completed his schooling in 1984, he settled

down in Las Palmas de Gran Canarias. Here he took part in workshops for actors
with Magüi Mira and William Layton. He joined La Farándula Theatre. Interludes
won the National Theatre prize and was performed at the International Classical
Theatre Festival of Almagro. It was also in Las Palmas that he directed his first two
plays professionally: Farces by Alejandro Casona and Children’s Farce of the Dragon’s
Head by Ramón María del Valle-Inclán. In 1987 he returned to Barcelona where he
began his university studies. He studied theatre at La Casona, one of the most
prestigious private theatre schools in the city with Fernando Grifell (Stanislavski’s
Method of Physical Actions).
In 1988 he created the independent theatre company MOO TEATRE. From 1988 to
1993 he wrote and directed a series of brief pieces for the company, titled Women
Eating Soup, Some Explanations about the polemic and unknown Shylock’s Youth,
New Report About the Dr. Jekyll’s Health State, Some Advantages of Prostitution in
Between the War Periods and The Unbearable Childhood of Barbara and Rebecca
Nightingale; all of which were radical and experimental in character. In 1990, the
company opened the shows Moorbosis Bazaar and Midnight Stories, performed at
the International Festival of Theatre in Tárrega. Between 1993 and 1994 he
intensified his pedagogical activities and gave numerous courses, seminars and

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workshops in Acting, Body Expression, Voice, Dramaturgies and Writing Theatre

Techniques in Barcelona, Madrid, San Sebastian, Seville, Granada and Las Palmas de
Gran Canaria. As an actor he appeared in The Miser by Moliere and The Trial about
the Donkey’s Shadow by Friedrich Dürrenmatt. During these years he took part in
Dramaturgic Workshops in Sala Beckett given by José Sanchis Sinisterra, who is well
known for his experimental work on new theatrical languages in writing drama.
Rodero continued to develop as a director as well. He staged many plays on the
request of some Catalan companies. These included plays such as The True Friend by
Carlo Goldoni, Frank V by Friedrich Dürrenmatt and Witch Rebellion by Josep Maria
Benet and Jornet. In 1995, after making it through the selection process with the
best qualifications, he was accepted into Institut del Teatre of Barcelona, where he
studied Dramaturgics and Stage Directing with professors like Sergi Belbel, Joan
Abellán and Carles Batlle (Dramaturgics); Jaume Melendres, Jordi Mesalles and
Joan Castells (Directing); Muntsa Alcañiz (Acting), Jordi Basora (Movement), Rosa
Victoria Gras and Maria Jesús Andany (Voice and Diction), Iago Pericot
(Scenography) and Manu Aguilar (Production).
During these years he worked as a dramaturgics consultant and stage director with
Modern Spanish Dance and Contemporary Dance Companies like Bubulus Danza led
by Carles Salas performing at SAT Sant Andreu Theatre, or Increpación Danza led by
Montse Sánchez and Ramón Baeza. He also acted as a consultant with the Roberto
G. Alonso Dance Company for the play And you are not here, which was a co-
production with the Culture Department of the Generalitat de Catalunya.
In 1999 left the country and travelled around Europe, living in many cities and
spending all his time updating and writing unpublished theatre plays like Homage to
Whipped Margot, A Quiet Man, Pornography and The Hold Up.
At the end of 2000 he moved to Budapest Hungary, where he collaborated in the
creation of the puppet company Baobab and directed his first professional work in
Hungarian called Three Wishes. In 2004 he adapted the novel The Mysteries of the
Opera by Javier Tomeo for the stage. It was dramatized in the Merlin Theatre as a
co-production between the theatre, the Culture Department of the Spanish
Embassy and the Cervantes Institute; and with the support of the International
Festival of Contemporary Theatre.
In 2006 Rodero created the Independent Theatre Company PROSPERO. He wrote
and directed the play The Marvelous Five. The play was then performed at the
International Days of Pécs, the Tivoli Theatre and at the National Theatre. At the
end of 2007, Rodero created the Association known as MISERO PROSPERO Project
which incorporated the Prospero Theatre Company. Excerpts from a Working Diary
and Matruska (Russian Dolls), were opened in Budapest at the Millenaris Theatre.
Other versions of Matruska were shown as a work in progress of a dance-theatre
line in Bakelit Multi Art Centrum and Gödör Klub in Budapest, National Dance Festival
in Pécs and International TEATERFEST in Sarajevo.
In the beginning of 2010 the Institute Cervantes of Budapest ask MISERO
PROSPERO Project to create a play from the poems of Miguel Hernández and

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Rádnoti Miklós. Szívhasadás was shown first in the Night of Theatres in Madrid and
after that in The National Dance Theatre of Budapest.
During the summer of 2010, Carlos Rodero created Orpheus Stomped in Dirt, a play
based in Claudio Monteverdi’s opera with a music adaptation by the Bálazs Elémer
Jazz Trio who performed it as well on the stage with the dancers. The play was
opened in Tivoli Theatre in Budapest and in Circulo de Bellas Artes in Madrid with
the last version of Matruska (Russian Dolls) last autumn.
From the beginning of 2011 a new period started for MISERO PROSPERO Project, led
from that moment in his solo career by Carlos Rodero. This period started with the
production of the play Muder considered as one of the Fine Arts, based on the novel
written by Thomas de Quincey. Also Rodero collaborated in the dramaturgy of Las
Salvajes, based on Las Salvajes en Puente San Gil by Jose Martin Recuerda, with the
Catalan dance company Increpacion Danza, directed by Ramon Baeza and Montse
Sanchez, shown in the International Fira de Tarrega, in Barcelona and in Bilbao. In
the beginning of 2012 the company worked in Meeting Kurt Weill, from the songs
composed by the German artist, with the collaboration of the Turkish
mezzosoprano Tulu İçözü shown in Nádor Terem in Budapest. During 2012 and 2013,
Rodero continued working in the dance world showing works like Down Under with
the dancer and choreographer Jobbágyi Bernadett in the International Dance
Festival Solo-Duo in Budapest and in Poznan, Poland. Also carried out some
workshops focused in Physical Theatre applied to Contemporary Dance and Acting
Techniques in Budapest and abroad.
In 2014 Rodero is hired by National Theatre of Pécs to put on stage the play Ay,
Carmela! written by the Spanish playwright José Sanchis Sinisterra, opened with a
great success of critic and audience and renewed during the season 2015-1016.
Nowadays MISERO PROSPERO Project is preparing a new production, Costanza,
from The Little Gypsy Girl, the short novel written by Miguel de Cervantes.

Featuring Podmaniczky Dorottya

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EDUCATION
Csik Ferenc Általános Iskola és Gimnázium 1996 – 2008
ELTE-BTK magyar-mûvelõdéstudomány szakirány 2009 – 2012
PRACTICE
balett: Molnár Márta, Metzger Márta – 2007-2012, Yuka Kodama – 2010
modern, kortárs jazz: Szigeti Oktávia, Földi Béla – 2006-2012
kortárstánc: Hámor József, Maday Tímea Kinga – 2012
cunningham: Vladka Mala – 2011-
improvizáció: Góbi Rita, Maday Tímea Kinga, Grecsó Zoltán (Willany Leó)
WORKSHOPS
2008 nyári kurzus: Raza Hammadi – két hét
2009 nyári kurzus: Raza Hammadi – két hét, Joseph Tmim – egy hét, Földi Béla – egy
hét, Uhrik Dóra – egy hét
2010 nyári kurzus: Földi Béla – egy hét, Uhrik Dóra – egy hét

CURSES

2011-2012: Budapest Táncszínház – Elit képzés

2012: KET-Terminál, Gangaray Trambulin

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