Las Maleantes
Las Maleantes is a multidisciplinary artistic collective that explores different modes of expression and creation through sound and performing arts. In this process, the incorporation of new technologies as creative tool plays a central role. The concern and the constant need to explore artistic trends motivate them to form a network of professionals from different disciplines, with the aim of creating their own language and developing cultural projects for the community.
The company arises from the union between the siblings Adriana and Arnau Montserrat Palou. Adriana creates through theatre and body expression, Arnau creates through sound and multimedia technologies. Their commitment to nature, sustainability and the community has led to a growing interest in using art as a means of awakening social awareness, being the leitmotif of their creative processes.
This is an individual group that creates artistic projects, developing a network of young artists who support and inspire each other by working collectively and respectfully.
Awards & Recognitions
2022 // Jugend Für Europa – Kunstwagen: Sessions
2021 // FEIN Berlin – Kunstwagen: Series
2020 // SOS Cultura, Fundació Carulla – New Reality
A New Language
We are living in an era in which our everyday activities and interactions are increasingly mediated by the digital world. Time and space have organized themselves under new principles and we are forced to adapt accordingly. With the analogue and digital world increasingly standing in opposition to each other through asynchronous progression, establishing a balance between both realms becomes nearly impossible. How can we reconnect with our own natural essence in this dichotomised reality?
Motivated by this question and the radical shifts in techno-culture, Las Maleantes intertwine and implement the use of audio-visual technologies with the performing arts for creating a dialogue between the analogue and digital and for offering new meanings, new outcomes and terms of expression. In establishing this dialogue, the artists always contrast the use of new technologies with the use of natural elements to dissolve the rigid boundaries between organic and un-organic fabrics. This process is guided by the question: Where is the barrier between analogue and digital, between organic and artificial, and between physical and non-physical? In transgressing and unravelling these dichotomised relationships, Las Maleantes aim at creating space for a radically new artistic language. The physical body in this process always acts as source of intuition, knowledge and means to connect with the individual essence.
Mission
A central mission of Las Maleantes’ is the integration of broader society to their artistic production. How can art be made accessible to everyone? How is it possible to overcome institutional and social barriers that keep people from creating and experiencing art? Language is oftentimes seen as a tool for inter-social connection and exchange, however it can also become exclusive and as such a barrier for participation. The combination of bodily movement and sound in this regard serve the creation of a more inclusive and holistic artistic language than the classic literal theatre. Reinventing the artistic norms of classical theatre, through focusing on body and sound as mediators and sources of meaning, Las Maleantes aim at overcoming barriers that oftentimes disconnect the creative scene from a broader public.
On Nature
Seeing nature as space of creation and inspiration, the artistic work of Las Maleantes happens in deep connection to the natural world surrounding the artists. Nature is an essential part of every individual and in turn every individual is in its essence nature. Connecting with nature and evolving in conversation with it means to reconnect with ourselves with new intimacy. Following this philosophy, sustainability is a central concern and topic of Las Maleantes’ work, and reflects their serious commitment to the preservation of nature and its inhabitants.