The universe of Los Pipis Teatro has a couple as its gravitational axis: Federico Lehman and Matías Milanese. If the queer thing is to escape the norms, as expected, the two of them made their bond a loving creative group that expands, mutates and forms so many productions. Los Pipis is a heroic multiverse in which several works on the bill coexist at the same time and add people/characters with cameos, interactions, weaving and above all a lot of creation and art that bleeds tenderness. The proposals usually mix dance, objects that give life as if it were the mansion from Beauty and the Beast, a lot of pop music and a proud fag manifesto.
The creative duo began as a project in 2017. They currently direct a troupe of talents in ‘The young promises’ at the San Martín Theater while preparing the second season of ”The Alaska Mechanism’ on Timbre 4. In this for the first time Once the two share the stage and it is not for less, here they take a tour through the DNA of their bond. The play begins with them dancing on stage and they turn like those propellers that carry the infinite information of the story that, in addition to theirs, sums up so many fagots and so many loves.
In the recently re-released ‘Porcelain Puppies’ the hourglass is full of glitter and as the threat of a hostile world falls, it worsens. A hate crime crosses a group of friends and far from being narrated with a blow under the choreography of feelings, it is an emotional roller coaster. Los Pipis, together with Camila Marino Alfonsín, Lucía Deca and Fede Prezet, turn the Espacio Callejón (CABA) theater into a city for rushing over their innocence.
Federico and Matías continue to make theater a love trench and a manifesto. They assemble teams, mutate their roles, and keep creating.
– What happens to you with labels like “LGBT+ theater” or “queer theater”?
- – Since we started doing theater in Los Pipis and also before (perhaps long, long before; when we were children playing theater in their rooms) all the forms created responded to a fag logic, almost without knowing it. The fictions were crossed by feeling different, the impossibility of fitting into certain social roles, gender as a place to discover, etc. Even in more formal aspects, such as the craftsmanship of the costumes, the constitution of the identity on stage, the format of the stories, the colors and more; they already contained something of the promising and strange and greedy and mysterious and of the queer. I mean, since before assuming a gender identity or being rejected by a partner or awareness of militancy for visibility, those concerns sought to manifest themselves in a very genuine and innocent way. However, thinking about the kitchen of the works and the company’s work in rehearsals, the writing processes, staging, etc. Limiting ourselves to thinking about work under the seal of the label is not something that encourages us. Precisely preserve that certain primary freedom to do, attending to the contradictions, the wrong thing and above all the body and its needs of the moment. If it helps someone to define the work as something, that’s perfect, but perhaps it will always be something else.
How do you avoid the cliché when addressing issues such as love, the couple, being gay, etc?
-Do you remember that board game that consisted of a palm tree pierced by sticks, hanging plastic monkeys and the objective of holding the little monkeys in the air? I take the process of creating our latest work ‘The Alaska Mechanism’ and this game to answer: the cliché is always present because it is the first image that assails us when we decide to tackle a subject.
In this case, the cliché is the suspended jumpsuit and the rods are all the artifices and optics that go through it. We like to position ourselves in the place of players, always, when creating. Take an object of study, make it float and alternate all the points that support it, so that it falls back and reveals what it is that supports it. Here with the advantage that theater is a game in which you don’t lose.
– Part of your production lies in writing and directing other people, what is the most important thing when it comes to making the other shine?
We believe that the key is, through the rehearsal process and all the work prior to presenting the work, to discover what each performer or worker wants to do the most in the work.
The feeling is like watching an athlete play his game, when you see him with his body, his conscience and his desire traversing the scene with a dexterity that leaves you faceless. This is far from referring to the talent or virtuosity of acting, dancing or whatever, but to the state of presence and enjoyment in doing it.
-How can you do activism from art?
– Perritos de Porcelana is a work that talks about hurting a friend who was killed in a hate crime, but taken to the scene from the perspective of pride and party that the LGBTIQ+ collective has made their own for years to celebrate and give value to their existence. We believe that it is still necessary for these issues to be staged and appear from the various perspectives that theater can offer, taking into account that there are many ways to approach a scene and manifest itself from this art.
We believe that it is still necessary for these types of stories and ways of expressing themselves to appear in fields that at first sight are not those of militancy, at a time when the rights that have been won seem to be in danger due to the arrogance with which many ultra-right sectors demonstrate.
What do you want people to take away after seeing a play by Los Pipis?
– Rescuing the surprise, the possibility of seeing how magic continues to happen despite being made with two handles (some ropes, a little glitter and ingenuity put in favor of resources). The certainty that things can be changed in real time, in front of your eyes and without large devices, to make others a little more pleasant. Make you want to create. Leaving a job wanting to do and offer work for all of the above to happen.
