MMIX|2009 is a multidisciplinary project based on Alvaro García de Zúñiga’s : Manuel on Stage. The aim is to bring to Manuel on Stage the biggest multicultural scope possible.

Manuel – half man, half handbook – is built on the matter of linguistic and media diversity. It is a handbook on how to be/come on stage and in life and on how to build bridges between now and before, here and somewhere else, from a language to another.

Meant to be at a turning point of our activities « Manuel on Stage | MMIX » can be seen as a process that puts itself forward. An interrogation that does not look for an answer, simple and aware of being on Stage. Autopsy of an (almost) living brain, it is a tragic and yet amusing parenthesis in a journey of which we are the starting and the ending point.

Realisation may resemble a game, an equation with multiple enigmas and variable variables, made of a/ll/nythig that we find around us.

At first Manuel – visual art piece – is a manual, an instructions book that "speaks" in many languages but, do they all "say" the same? Follows an acoustic play in which Manuel – half-man, half-handbook – tries to understand life through books and books through life. No way. Astronaut, he invents himself biographies. He sees in mathematics the true language of Nature. Moribund, he speaks in hieroglyphs. This is how Manuel jumps into literature ; and form there on stage (or vice-versa) where he becomes a place/character that puts things in relation, where virtually anything can be demonstrated and may have one or many instructions books.

With the collaboration of others that may feel like joining us we propose to open this Manuel to the public and with the public because this Manuel that holds anything is also a passing point.

There are constants, however: language is its raw material because "When Manuel arrived, language was already there." So this is a manual of language, polyphonic and "in love of (the) lessons (sounds)" that is "dedicated to describe and write only in foreign language”. In the end, in this multilingual manual, the alien is finally the star.

In mai 2009, under the direction of Arnaud Churin, Manuel opens a Sound Poetry Festival in the Maison de la Poésie in Paris. He becomes "Manuel de Peaux et Scies" with the participation of all our Parisien multilingual friends and some others that came from other places. It was also a manual of Alvaro's literary work to be presented latter, elsewhere...

Musical literature, sound poetry, radio on stage, polyphonic theatre are possible expressions to describe this work. But it can also be seen as filmthéâtre, "Words without acting", "Chants-sons sachant que presque sens sons", "mots, sons et moissons", "lit, ratures" or "non visual opera".

Open Workshops / Work in Progress

Manuel is in the heart of the problematic of "being" a foreigner. He thinks about perception and concentrates on the fixation and stocking of the written and spoken word. He tries to understand and to domesticate thought and language through the instruments meant for that purpose: : ballpoint pens, microphones, recording machines, as well as computers, audio and video recorders and any other device used to stock and reproduce... Then

Then he throws the ball at us to take it back again, he feeds of himself and of everything he finds, injecting and re-injecting his own self, contaminating everything. Because Manuel is a manual of all bridges between here and elsewhere, now and before, a language and another ... It is a manual of inclusion, where each one can participate because we are all machines made to capture, stock, reproduce and translate our own perception.

Workshops will be part of the work process. Manuel on Stage being a format of variable geometry, many elements – human or not – can be part of it. Besides, waves and web, radio and Internet, are natural extensions of Manuel.

Manuel is in fact somewhat cameleon : his nature is to adapt to what surronds him (and vice versa...).

Workshops can assume different forms. Depending on who participates, it can became reading-performance-show-concert, a place to share concepts and translate anything, languages, or even mouvements, in different languages and forms of expression. Manuel is, by definition, a migrant, and his mother tong is foreign. As he speaks directly in translation the possibilities of finding the/an original text are infinite and Manuel counts on the most improbable help to finnd a key to his quest. The all thing allways "fixed" in audio and video, both if possible, so that this material can be in "Manuel on Stage"'s performances.

Directors of these exercices/performances/shows may vary ...

And in the end of the MMIX process Manuel will finally become... a (hand?) book.

... MMIX is also:

A theoretical model of computer, which can be used for different purposes: learning of computer principles, explanation of software foundations, exploring the efficacy of algorithms etc. The author of MMIX is the famous scientist Donald Knuth.

Other pages in this site about Manuel :

Manuel on Stage

About Manuel on Stage by AGZ

Manuel is a building site by Manuel-Arnaud Churin

Manuel Lasuite & already manualized...