Nuria Legarda is a theatre maker based in London and Barcelona. She develops experimental theatre, interdisciplinary and multi-layered, which explores image as a form of narration.
“I’m interested in everything that is not seen or heard. I’m allured by disturbing and opaque universes that shed light to our fantasies and obsessions and our efforts to stifle or to unleash them as a means to rescue ourselves.”
Nuria Legarda
“She is considered one of the most unrelentingly driven artists, and, consequently, one of the most unclassifiable artists in the Catalan artist panorama.”
Toni Puntí, journalist and presenter of the programme Ánima, TV3.
After twenty-two years of experience as a performer, choreographer and director, she specializes in approaching performance through the lens of physical and visual composition. Her work emerges when probing at the borders of normative human behaviour.
Her practice and research of new theatrical forms are based on her methodological principles, which are designed to elaborate interdisciplinary relational dramaturgy, involving compositional strategies to create multiple and simultaneous artistic languages.
The work seeks to confront the audience with values of contemporary society and explores the notion of society as a manifestation of our internal processes. Committed to social change, the work holds a mirror up to ourselves.
The purpose of her personal approach is also, to promote individual and collaborative research, and an interdisciplinary devised scenic process. Consequently, guide and encourage the development of new skills and strategies that generate an authentic artistic work that contains original forms.
Nuria Legarda brings these fundamentals into practice through her own Productions & Research, Collaborations & Commissions and through the transmission Learn & Train programs.
TRAJECTORY
LONDON (UK)
In London since 2016 she has been an artistic collaborator in Orchard with Elinor Lewis in the devised process and as a performer. A piece selected for The Place’s Resolution, Livevibe dance and Choreodrome in 2018 and in Aerowaves 2019. Supported by Artsadmin and Arts Council 2018 and currently by Aerowaves, The Place and DanceXchange. Legarda collaborated as a Movement director at the Batterssea Art Center (BAC) and at Guildhall Drama & Music School; as a performer with Marie- Gabrielle Rotie. She was an invited director at London international drama school Rose Bruford College.
SPAIN
She has developed a prolific career, presenting her projects and being co-produced by some of the most renowned venues and festivals in Spain, such as:
- Teatre Nacional Catalunya, Barcelona (ES)
- Teatre Lliure Barcelona (ES)
- Grec Festival de Barcelona (ES)
- Festival Internacional de Teatre Visual i Titelles, Barcelona (ES)
- Festival Noves Escenes Obertes, (NEO) Barcelona (ES)
- Sala Beckett de Barcelona (ES)
- Girona Temporada Alta, Catalunya (ES)
- Nu2’s L’animal a l’esquena, Mal Pelo, Catalunya (ES)
- Terrassa Festival Nuevas Tendencias, (TNT), Catalunya (ES)
- Festival Cos, Reus, Catalunya (ES)
- BAD Festival, Bilbao, Pais Vasco (ES)
- Auditorium, Pamplona , Navarra (ES)
- Teatro Gayarre, Otras Miradas Pamplona, Navarra (ES)
- Matadero, Madrid (ES)
INTERNATIONAL
Lately, in France, she collaborated with Ruben Molina Flamenco’s company in Théâtre du Gymnase, Paris and with the Contemporary puppet company Mekanica directed by Paulo Duarte in Centre Dramatique National Strasbourg, Scène National Montbeliard.
Her works have been co-produced and presented in:
- Bora Bora – Dans and visual theatre, (DK)
- Festival Les Nuits Euphoriques, Tournefeuille, (FR)
- Scène Nacionale, La Comédie de Reims (FR)
- Espace Périphérique – La Villette (FR)
- CDN Reims (FR)
- La Comédie de Reims (France)
- Espace Périphérique – La Villette Paris, (FR)
- Festival MIRA! (ES / FR / PT)
- Topia Arts Center (USA)
- Centro Español New York, (USA)
- FIMFA Festival, Lisboa (PT)
- Espaço do Tempo Montemor-o-Novo (PT)
- Festival MIRA! (España / France / Portugal)
She combines her artistic career with her experience as a teacher of movement, acting and theatre devising. She leads international workshops, is a professor at the Institut del Teatre de Barcelona and is head of movement at Eolia Escola superior d’Art Dramatic. She has been invited by various European institutions and schools such as Prima del Teatro Fondazione Teatro di Pisa, (Italy), London international drama school Rose Bruford College (UK) and CISPA Copenhagen International School of Performing Arts (DK).
GRANTS AND AWARDS
Nuria Legarda has been awarded several scholarships for her artistic excellence to carry out studies, for the development of her artistic research works in new forms of scenic narration by the Generalitat de Catalunya, SGAE (General Society of Authors and Editors), Fira de Tàrrega and the Government of Navarra.
Her piece La Cena was awarded ‘Best Show’ by Projectes d’Escenificació de l’Institut del Teatre de Barcelona and nominad Best Show’ in Others disciplines by Premis Butaca de Teatre de Catalunya.
Also, awarded for carrying out two extended periods of artistic research and development from 2001 2002 with the Théâtre du Mouvement, directed by Yves Marc and Claire Haggen, (Paris, France), and 2018-2019 in Kind directed by Gabriela Carrizo and Frank Chartier, the new piece by Peeping Tom (Brussels, Belgium).
PRESS
Specialist in combining disciplines, the Navarrese creator Nuria Legarda. Diario de Noticias.
ÀNIMA, TV3 / El Retrat de Nuria Legarda
Escena i noves tecnologies from A Escena on Vimeo.
» SE ABRE EL TELÓN Y…
“The creative used the film In the City of Cesc Gay to inform the emotional fabric of La Cena“ by José Carlos Sorribes
» SOBRE NURIA LEGARDA
"Nuria Legarda’s pieces shift between two worlds: the blunt everyday life and effervescent inner world of her characters” by Carles Mallol“Nuria Legarda is a restless artist with an attitude of constant search has led to an ecclectic career, covering different theatrical languages, such as music, movement, video and acting. She has a personal method, as a maker theatre and as a teacher: consistent, and above all taking nothing for granted. She has the knowledge, talent, intelligence and courage as a director and performer to crystallize these qualities: emotion, truth and beauty in her theatre.”
Julio Manrique – Catalan actor and director
“Her creative eye impregnates everything she undertakes. Her works are innovative by nature and the result arises as provocative, hard, and hurtful as well as poetic and poignant.”
Montse Prat – Producer of scenic arts, cultural events and training