ˋThe very last northern white rhinoˊ, by the Argentinean choreographer Gaston Core with the dancer and model Oulouy, will take place this Friday

 

The festival FAM Otoño shows on Friday [the 30th Sept.] at 8 p.m. at the Espacio La Granja the solo The very last northern white rhino, by the Argentinean choreographer Gaston Core. The dance programme of Auditorio de Tenerife, a cultural venue linked to the Department of Culture of the Tenerife Island Council that is managed by its island's Minister of Culture, Enrique Arriaga, proposes this show starring the Ivorian model and dancer Oulouy.

This piece emerged out of the news of the death of the last northern white rhino, leaving a mother and its daughter as the last members of its species, with no chance of continuing. When New York Times reporter Sam Anderson learned of the death of the last male northern white rhino, he flew to Kenya to spend a week with the only survivors of the species. 

Two females, mother and daughter, entered what is known as "functional extinction: when they die, the lineage will have ended. Anderson describes the daily life of Fatu and Najin who, indifferent to their fate, graze under the sun of the reserve where they will be kept safe from poachers until their death. 

This image highlights life for life's sake since the only function of these individuals is to live and account for a species that is already a part of the past. Gaston Core imagines these hulking mammals as terribly fragile: their bodies as irreplaceable as pieces from a living museum. 

Knowing that the northern white rhino will disappear with them, we no longer see just a safari animal but a terrifyingly human creature that confronts us with ourselves. For Core, "the fact that they are and occupy space is a testimony that makes the individual a symbol of his species; man, a symbol of man”. 

Through formal research on different styles of urban dance, Core offers in this piece the image of the man who dances until exhaustion because there is, perhaps, nothing else that can be done. In other words, this piece presents dance as excess, as a celebration stemming from life.

“This image of the last two northern white rhinos brought me much peace at a time of great uncertainty for the world, like when at the end of "Melancholia" by Lars Von Trier, Kirsten Dunst's character builds the structure of a tipi without walls to take refuge with her nephew and sister and wait for the meteorite to collide with the Earth.

On 21 October at 7:30 p.m. the next appointment to enjoy the Arts and Movement Festival will take place at the Castillo Hall (Sala Castillo) of the Auditorio de Tenerife, staging the scenic work Parece nada (Not at all), by Guillermo Weickert. Based on an attempt to place the organ of perception (the eyes) as the perceived object (viewed), he proposes an exercise of taking another look at the stage, those who inhabit it and their movements as a testing ground.

FAM (Arts and Movement Festival), a proposal of Auditorio de Tenerife and a commitment to Spanish contemporary dance, comes alongside the artistic circuit supported by the National Institute of Performing Arts and Music (INAEM) and developed by the Spanish Network of Theatres: Danza a Escena 2022.

The tickets are available on the website www.famtenerife.com, at the auditorium's box office or by dialling the phone number 902 317 327 from Monday to Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 05:00 p.m., Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. to 02:00 p.m. Some shows have age recommendations, which can be consulted on the website. Check the special discounts for the audience under 30 years of age, students, unemployed and large families.