A RESEARCH PROJECT THAT GENERATES FORMS (2026-2029)
ALGO SE CRUZA EN LAS PALABRAS AL ESCAVAR BAJO LOS PIES*
The project Algo se cruza en las palabras al escavar bajo los pies draws on the history of a place designed to save the lives of Republican women and their children from certain death – a place of refuge marking the arrival of life – whilst also searching for a Spanish funeral dance, banned in the mid-18th century, accompanying the death of a child.
Situated at the crossroads of historical, anthropological, choreographic and speculative research, the project takes its initial impetus from the Swiss Maternity Hospital in Elne, founded in 1939 by Elisabeth Eidenbenz, a Swiss teacher and nurse, and located in the Château d’En Bardou until 1944. This maternity home was created to shelter Spanish refugee women who had fled during the Retirada and had been interned, along with hundreds of thousands of Republican exiles, in the internment camps established by the French government in the Pyrénées-Orientales. The aim of the Elne Maternity Hospital was to protect the lives of pregnant women confined in these camps in order to save them and their babies from death.
Departing from this refuge in the midst of hell, the project follows in the wake of the forced migration caused by the Spanish Civil War, observing the impact that the actions of a single individual can have on society, while exploring the transmission of family history and mother tongue across generations within a context of forced migration.
In parallel, the project traces a lost funeral dance, a dance for a dead child, originating in the Valencian Community, which was banned in 1775 by the Bishop of Orihuela, and practiced clandestinely until the early 20th century.
Drawing on the conceptual and dramaturgical traces of the documentary performance An Introduction, which sought to “make a work of the process“, this polymorphous project does not reside in a fixed work, but in the movement the project initiates, the narratives it gathers, and the spaces of thought, imagination, and memory it opens — thus striving to “make a work of a projection“. It unfolds as a long-term research project generating forms, structured as a series of autonomous chapters, each reflecting a different line of the investigation. These chapters will take various forms and formats – lectures-performances, dance-lectures, stage or performative works – presented in diverse contexts according to the different stages of the research.
Olga de Soto, 2026
BROCHURE AND COMPLETE DOSSIER AVAILABLE ON REQUEST
* The title, Algo se cruza en las palabras al escavar bajo los pies, could be translated from Spanish as: something comes across the words when one tills lightly beneath the feet. The uncommon verb “escavar”, which means “to dig lightly into the earth to loosen it or remove weeds”, contrasts with the more common “excavar”, which means “to excavate by removing material to create a cavity”.
concept, documentation, direction and staging: Olga de Soto
production: Niels Production (Brussels, BE)
coproduction: Europalia España, AECID / Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo, Comisionado para la celebración de “50 años de España en Libertad”, Charleroi danse (production in progress)…
with the support of Ministère de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, Service Général de la Création Artistique — Service de la danse, accompanied by Grand Studio (Brussels)… (in progress)
CHAPTERS CREATION
CHAPTER #1
29.01.2026 : Kaaitheater, Brussels, as part of Europalia España, in the frame of Figures of Fascism and Antifascist Solidarity, curated by Bojana Cvejic (première)
22.04.2026 : Gallery Night of Art Brussels, LAB of the Embassy of Spain in Belgium, Brussels
ASSOCIATED EVENTS
We are currently looking for support and production partners.
Please feel free to contact us for more information.
Contact Production
Niels Production
nielsasbl@skynet.be
+32 486 51 24 08