The Match
When Biscayart was invited to apply for the mentorship, he already had five years’ experience as an actor. “Acting allows me to forget my life,” he says, explaining his choice of profession. “Being ‘changed for a while’, being someone else, being in another state of mind – this happens in theatre. It’s magic. It is a physical experience. I love it.” He was also profoundly aware of the collaborative nature of theatrical work, which made him particularly well suited to the programme.
But his year with The Wooster Group was still going to be different. “In the productions in which I appeared in Argentina before my mentorship, we didn’t have all the technology Kate and the Group have,” he says. “Here you have the resources to do whatever you want to do, and I was excited to think about using technology as one of the ways to ‘write’ theatrical pieces.”
The combination of disciplined movement, technology and intense collaboration over many months has been a hallmark of The Wooster Group’s work since the troupe’s formation in the late 1970s. The Wooster Group has created a style instantly recognizable as its own. The Group has become a significant influence on directors and performers around the globe.
Valk has been with the group since its early years, joining the collective as an assistant to LeCompte at the age of 21. “I came to the Garage after I met The Wooster Group through New York University,” she remembers. “I immediately took a mentor-protégé-like relationship to Liz. It was far from the formal relationship I have through the Rolex programme with Nahuel. I kept my mouth shut and listened, soaking up the ways in which Liz and this group were making work. I’d never encountered anybody like Liz before. It totally opened my eyes and ears about how to live your life as an artist. I just wanted to be at the Garage every day, to do whatever was necessary to make the thing happen,” she says.
So when Valk received an invitation to be a Rolex mentor, she was gratified and challenged at the same time: “It’s an esteemed programme. I was stunned to be selected.” But the selection process that led to her partnership with Biscayart was not easy. “I interviewed and spent time with three young nominees. It was emotionally draining, with these people coming from Mexico City, Kuala Lumpur and Buenos Aires – hosting them at our rehearsals and feeling responsible for them in the chaos of the rehearsal room.”
What then made Biscayart stand out from the three nominees? “He was the one person who didn’t want to leave!” she exclaims. “Watching us in the rehearsal room, he said: ‘No, I don’t want to go. I love it here!’ And I thought: ‘Fabulous!’ Because there was a connection, there was a spark.”