Enrique Pardo
My ‘cutting-edge’ work happens, unquestionably, in laboratories, from where a whole series of performances, magnificent collaborations, have emerged. I call them Folies à Deux: intertwined transfers towards what is perhaps my main goal: psychological creativity. My role: laboratory director, the one that Alchemy called ARTIFEX: artificer, catalyst and, why not, shaman: « You are a shaman as long as your luck lasts » (Roberte Hamayon). With age I seem to be getting luckier. This is beautifully described by Florence Derail in an email that ends like this:
« This workshop-Laboratory:
– is not a therapeutic place – despite the benevolence that prevails in them,
– it is a place where each participant, whatever his or her possible initial blocks, is placed in a state of hyper-creativity and hyper-receptivity, where intuition grows at a very fast pace.
– It’s a laboratory in the strongest sense, a place of experimentation [for whom? For everyone, including Enrique Pardo.] »
And the voice in all this? I like an (indirect) definition by Giorgio Agamben: « Listening to the voice in speech, that’s what thinking is all about ». I also like Roy Hart’s favorite quote: « The voice is the muscle of the soul », from H. W. Longfellow. Nevertheless, the notion of « soul » is not part of my cultural reference, something that has made me write quite a lot about the links and differences between soul, psyche and anima. One of my bedside books is in fact Anima: Anatomy of a Personified Notion, by James Hillman.
Enrique Pardo
Pantheatre
Roy Hart
Roy Hart Centre
History and Relationships
CV written for the Roy Hart Centre Website
My work honors two main figures of inspiration: Roy Hart († 1975) and the idealism of his philosophy and practice of the voice, and the ideas of American writer and psychologist, James Hillman († 2011) – Carl Jung’s main heir. In the last ten years my richest inspirational dialogues have been with French philosopher Xavier Papaïs.
The year 2025 will mark the 50th anniversary of Roy Hart’s death. I plan to assemble and write a collection of in-depth articles on him, on the seven years I worked with him (1968 to 1975) and on the fifty years since, during which I’ve been lucky enough to travel widely, especially artistically, and to meet many masters, who became friends, including James Hillman. Some of them are younger than me, like Peruvian actor Luis Ramirez, director Romeo Castellucci, and, more recently, Xavier Papaïs.
I founded Pantheatre in 1981, and co-direct it with my partner Linda Wise. We are based in Paris and in Malérargues – as an autonomous company closely associated with the Roy Hart Centre.
Panthéâtre was formed during the « dark ages » of Malérargues, the years of isolated social and artistic autarky that followed Roy Hart’s death. I organized a research group with some of my colleagues to explore the relationship between voice and movement. But my main inspiration came from two books: one by James Hillman, the other by his collaborator, psychotherapist Rafael Lopez-Pedraza; both about Pan, the dancing-singing god.
From there, in 1981, the solo Calling for Pan, and Pantheatre. In 1987, at James Hillman’s suggestion, we organized the first Myth and Theatre Festival – which is still running. Its cultural and polytheistic leanings meant that the festival had to go into exile for almost twenty years; a ten-year golden exile at the Chartreuse de Villeneuve lez Avignon, then in New Orleans, Ireland and Granada… It returned to Malerargues in 2005 for a series dedicated – at last! – to the Myths of the Voice. The most recent festival, in June 2023, had FETISH as its theme, as part of an ongoing series dedicated to MAGIC.
Today, in short, the two main strands of my work are Choreographic Theatre and Voice Performance. I run laboratories, creations and transmission projects with Linda Wise and our collaborators in Paris and in Malerargues, where we have a house, a library, a studio and a beautiful garden.
I’ll let you discover all this through the links in this brief curriculum. As Pantheatre is the main autonomous (sometimes underground) movement in Malérargues, I invite you to visit our WEBSITE and subscribe to our Newsletter and Blog. I hope we meet soon.
EP – 05/ 03 / 2024
IMPORTANT PS
A strong disagreement has emerged : the Roy Hart Centre, under its legal form of a French non-profit Association, is about to change the name of the Roy Hart INTERNATIONAL ARTISTIC Centre, and call it a VOICE CENTRE. The removal of ARTISTIC and its replacement by VOICE is for me a serious reduction, which I oppose. Practically all of the administrators and voting members are now « Roy Hart Voice Teachers » certified by their own majority, within the framework of a pedagogical and commercial franchise that has take over Malerargues. A dystopic democracy, in which I seem to be the only open opposition member. EP.