Nieves Correa and Abel Loureda

Work for Live Art Denmark
Nieves Correa and Abel Loureda performed “Babia” at Hitparaden 2

Babia
In Spain, the phrase “to be in Babia” is used to express being absent minded, a dreamer.  It refers to the Babia Valley, where centuries ago the kings of León went to escape their monarchical tasks. The title is a well chosen, the performance has indeed has a somnambulistic quality.

In a darkened space, the audience sit in a circle around a small, brightly lit area, a red suitcase in the middle of it. Nieves and Abel, both naked, move somewhere on the outskirts, interacting with the audience. Muffled laughter, scraping of chair legs on the concrete floor is all we hear for the first minutes. Then Nieves steps into the light carrying a chair. She opens the suitcase, removes a purse and throws handfulls of coins into the darkened space. We hear them jingling and rolling away. Then she takes a pink plastic bowl filled with water and a large wooden dildo from the suitcase. She positions herself with her back to the camera, refusing it to record how she carefully polishes the dildo with a rag while taking a footbath. Much later, Abel enters the circle. He sits on the floor and drinks the water from the bowl. Later, Nieves sticks pins into her naked arms and shoulder while Abel squats behind her, drawing heavy black lines on her back. He moves to face her, joins her, sticking pins into his own shoulder, until none are left. Slowly, they remove all pins from both their bodies. This moment in particular, like the performance as a whole, quietly says much about the pain and cohesion of being a couple.

About the Artists
After a long career separately going back to the early nineties, both in the field of creation and in the organization, Nieves and Abel decided to start a new phase of our live working together in 2012.  with the assurance that this adventure shared  the process of creation will be always interesting, fruitful and fun.

“We share the same concept of performance: simplicity, no technology, every day objects and ideas … our process of creation always involves our live, our hopes and our love as an unconscious reflection on our personal process of knowledge between us and yourselves.”

There is a section on Nieves’ website, dedicated to their collaboration.

Photo: Peter Lind