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PRESENTATION
 

As part of its residency program, PROA21 hosts interdisciplinary artist and creative director Melisa Zulberti. Throughout August and September, the upper-level gallery serves as a laboratory for the development of her upcoming stage production—a project supported by a grant from the Fundación Williams, which will premiere in October 2026 at the Festival Nueva Ópera Buenos Aires (FNOBA), celebrating its 10th anniversary this year.

The project stems from a central question: what happens when a stage setup stops relying on choreography and begins functioning as an infrastructure? Just as urban systems quietly regulate our daily movements, this work constructs a device in which body, sound, light and space respond to the same set of rules. No single language illustrates another; instead, all elements improvise within a shared framework, drawing on the open score of Terry Riley’s In C as an organizational model.

Grounded in a compositional strategy of repetitive patterns and a shared pulse, the residency focuses on translating these systems into the physical space. The creative process during residency centers on the analog design of a light object and the establishment of improvisation protocols, exploring how simple rules give rise to complex modes of collective organization. Within this framework, lighting moves beyond a supportive role to become an active force and the primary directing agent of the piece.

Over these two months, Zulberti coordinates a team of performers and lighting designers in the gallery—Valentín Pelisch, Hernán René Gonzalez, Bianca Di Pasquale, and Valentino Alonso—to rehearse the interconnection of these languages, which will later interface with live music performed by the Orquesta Retrofuturista in the final piece. The performers' physical behavior will incorporate real-time elements using performer-held cameras, with footage processed live within an abstract 360-degree environment. The residency transforms the gallery space into a living, unrepeatable organism where every individual decision impacts the collective whole ahead of its official premiere.

On Sunday, September 27, a public presentation of the process will take place at PROA21. The event will feature a work-in-progress showing of movement and light design, an artist talk with the creative team, and a screening of archival audiovisual material collected by the artist in public spaces as testament to her urban research.

The creative process can be visited Wednesday through Sunday, from 12 to 7 PM, in the upper-level gallery at PROA21.

Supported by Tenaris - Ternium

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Crédits
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Organized by
PROA21

Artistic direction
Lucie Haguenauer

General coordination
Renzo Longobucco
Pilar Victorio

Sponsored by
Tenaris – Ternium

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