Is the divide between the sexes a cultural construction? This is the question asked by a company dedicated to documentary theatre, and who here uses a trans- woman as the protagonist to talk to us about a changing world.
The Conquest of the South Pole offers us a journey that goes from an individual story to a collective one by combining real witnesses on stage with journalistic research. This time, they question a world which, day by day, seems to be veering towards a vindication of femininity. La Conquesta del Pol Sud is based on an individual experience of "transition", of gender change, a critical journey marked by the struggle for identity, self-assertion and breaking moulds. An experience forged in the heart of European culture, in France, which questions very closely the references and examples with which we grow up. The individual struggle of Raphaëlle Pérez tells of the collective change that our societies are going through. At the same time, the company investigates the treatment of gender in other cultures. Perhaps the divide between male and female is just a simple Western convention? Raphaëlle casts a glance over a globalized world in full transformation and talks about social struggles and conquests, minorities, the education we receive and the roles we assume. What does it mean to be a woman? What does it mean to be a man? And, what’s more, how can we live in a world in the process of change and in which all certainties seem to have disappeared?
A production of the Grec Festival of Barcelona 2018, La Conquesta del Pol Sud, the National Theatre of Catalonia (TNC) and the Center of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB).
With the support of the Catalan Institute of Cultural Companies (ICEC) of the Department of Culture of the Generalitat de Catalunya.
Creation and interpretation: Raphaëlle Pérez, Carles Fernández Giua, Eugenio Szwarcer. Director: Carles Fernández Giua Stage design and video: Eugenio Szwarcer Lighting design: Luis Martí Sound design: Damien Bazin
