Rubio's poetics

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by Horacio M. R. Banega

Rubio's singular poetics is mostly based on a constant exploration of repetitiveness, the ordinary element, and daily life, as a social scientist researching on how habits forge who we are. This research provides some clues, which lead him to state the following: "let us just say that discovering the presence of someone else is the most important thing". To reach this conclusion, the actor has already shifted from his comfort zone to the alien aspect of living in his "other" house; by the river; in the Parque de la Memoria. This space, its geographical location, touches on another of the artistas nodal points: working with the footprints of social catastrophe. This is usually referred to as politics; however, all that takes place in a society is related to politics and administration. The administration of memorials come across the tribute we pay to those no longer with us, because the house che the actor lived for five days, with a smoking chimmey, was like a small Buddhist temple that provided peace to the dead.

The river is time that flows away, but it is also the river that washes up dead bodies, sediments, remains, and garbage. We can bathe or drown in it. It is John Cabots entry door; he himself is eaten by the other, the gateway for immigration boats, the exit door for all pending affairs. It is the hidden aspect of a society that refuses to look at it. This was the place chosen by Fernando Rubio for both the viewer and the actor to transform their perception of what seems real to us by altering the ordinary. Here, for the ?rst time, I read the full list of those murdered during the dictatorship, not only by the authorities but also by their civilian accomplices. Look-ing at the river, entering the house, listening to the text, watching the movie Despus del Ensayo, and profoundly re?ecting upon acting, stage ?ction, the real invading and contaminating the performance in a playful way; all of them experiences that affect our habits. The strange sensación of being so far yet so close, a strangeness triggered by this fictional-real space, configured by a creator and his team, wich dragged me like a gentle wave pushed by a light breeze. Like paragliding and plunging into the water, and from that point wave at the ghosts.

In "Wakefield", Nathaniel Hawthorne narrates the story of a man that abandons his house and moves nearby, to watch his family, who think him dead, lead their lives. One day he decides to go back to his house. But nothing is the same, or maybe never was. The ghosts that navigate the time we live in are right next to us. And yet we do everything we can so that habits will remove the percep-tive disruption of connecting with something different at each moment. The body is fully aware that if it were able to perceive every single thing at every moment it would shatter into a thousand pieces. A fracture of habits, a disruption of aesthetic laziness, adrenaline to shake up the conventional, and to peep into ourselves under a new light