Before (concept)
Maybe in a process the most important thing is how to work, to find a concept for working, in order to do something interesting, "new", you have to challenge the means of production..
The Cooperativa Performativa intention is to use the unpredictable interaction between more processes that are meeting in the same space and time, in order to create new dynamics - a synergic system (a system in which the processes are amplify by the interactions, evolving together and the result mysteriously is bigger than the sum of the components).
Cooperativa Performativa is a frame for a group of persons to collaborate so that each one to develop his own project. A very practical working protocol: less space, one studio for developing five pieces; less money, with the money for a project we did five; multitasking - we where involved in five projects simultaneously. One motivation was that each of us to develop in his direction instead of correcting/compromising our desires in order to find a common sense. It was a frame designed especially for the possibility of disagreement, to avoid the endless negotiations for arriving inevitable to the lowest common denominator.
Can be an alternative to the old models who encourage that products and information should be guarded, kept secret, and used as a means to separate for competitive advantage.. is based on openness - the possibility to transfer materials, knowledge, strategies, methods between processes and to start from not knowing place - to allow that this complex situation of connecting processes to find a way to work..
Seems to be in the air now this shift of focus from unit, product, towards connection, link, relation. in a relation the other is not so predictable like yourself and this force you to go out from your territory .. Cooperativa Performativa wants to provide the frame for the situation of being lost in the process to appear, to deliberately lose the control of the process in order to can go in unknown. to work indirectly towards the product, to go sometimes out from your knowledge and practise.
Cooperativa Performativa operates in order to question/challenge things like: art institutions attitudes of putting the artists in a competition situation for founding or visibility. Proprietary feelings and copyright attitudes related to own work. The necessity of governance or of an hierarchical structure in a group. The classical ways of collaboration oriented towards a product and based on agreement, negotiation and compromise. The importance of originality and creativity and of protective attitudes towards them. The question is what is the main motivation behind doing a work - success or a genuine interest, if is second you are interested to share and to copy, you don't care about protecting your "originality", your territory.
After - Sect Mentality exposure:
In every (closed) community there is a sort of unquestioned hierarchy, dominance, influence. Cooperativa Performativa frame based on decentralized, non-hierarchical collaboration entered in conflict with this "establishment". Personal conflicts, artistic rivalry, group status, dominance, hierarchy are some of the layers activated by our proposal.
Usually in a community there is a tendency to form a clan mentality based on unquestioned common believes, values, attitudes, prejudices and unconscious influences. It is commode to interiorize the values, attitudes, behaviours and to function "intuitively", "naturally", or based on "what you feel"... but running in the background the operating system of your group, having all the time a "moral" bio-cultural authority behind. Based on this authority easily judging, give verdicts, take decisions. It's a very simple way of thinking, it tells you what is good/bad, correct/incorrect, moral/immoral. One of the ways in which this protectiveness is manifested is by killing the open discussion, in order to solve the problems inside the frame, on safe territory where everything is a common moral, instance, unquestioned just applied. This mentality instantly tells you who are the friends and the enemies. The sect mentality and moral operates for protecting the property, for teritorrialization, not around real relations or feelings. Probably because of the long history of hierarchy and authority in the communities, the power relations are deeply biological and cultural inscribed.
People do everything to protect their way of life and their level of comfort. If you don't want to change and you don't want to become irrelevant the only solution is to conserve your status and position by other means, like putting down the others in order to be equally weak. If you cannot update yourself the solution is to block the others development too. We had this experience with some artists from an old generation - the critique was received as a personal attack, they closed all the time the dialogue. I call this "ianegic complex" (named after a Romanian dance teacher who reacted aggressively to new tendencies, in order to protect her importance in the dance community).
So beyond the artistic production the project created awareness about the social-political relations in our group-community. As a way of production was very interesting and succeeded to create different dynamics, etc. We had a quite unpredictable process, inventing the working methods on the way. As a result we developed five performances not very similar, in my opinion. I don't know if it is something in common in the end in our works. According to some feedbacks, at three of us was visible a common interest in finding a direct, open and relaxed way of approaching the audience and in the dissolution of convention - a specific ideology or mentality about theatre and performance. The problems in our process appeared just when we dropped our concept - that each of us to develop his own thing in our meetings - and we tried to do something together as a group, to find agreement and common decisions.