SimultanProjekte 2020
12.09. – 25.10.2020

Blancanieves

On a sunny day in Andalusia, the town of Sevilla is buzzing with anticipation. Everything seems to whisper. A renowned bullfighter stands in his dimly lit dressing-room, summons up concentration, casts one more glance at himself in the mirror; greased pitch-black backcombed hair, the ornate jacket, embroidered with peals and golden threads, the broad waist belt, the shiny boots. His wife, a flamenco dancer, pregnant, sits in the front row and eyes the ring anxiously. Everyone hold their breath; eyecontact between bull and bullfighter, not a muscle moves on their bodies. They burst forth at the same instant; barely a moment later the bull pierces the bullfighter. On the following day the wife gives birth to their child, while the bullfighter is being treated at the hospital. She dies in the childbed. The bullfighter survives, but is paralyzed from chest down. As he mourns the death of his wife, he refuses to see their daughter and, tricked by the false kindness of the nurse who has treated him – though only after his fame and fortune – he remarries. The child, Carmen, grows up with her grandmother, but following her death, the stepmother reluctantly takes her in. The invalid bullfighter is neglected by the vain and cruel stepmother, and confined to sit all day long by an open window in an otherwise dark room. She gives Carmen the stable to live in and condemns her to slave away in the household. Carmen, however, sneaks into her father’s room, and he teaches her the art of bullfighting. The stepmother grows increasingly displeased and jealous with the young and self-willed Carmen, so she commands a servant to take her for a drive and kill her. The servant, however, cannot bring himself to kill the girl and abandons her at the roadside. She is then picked up by a group of dwarfs, that run a travelling circus. When they discover her great skill in bullfighting, she becomes the star of the show. Travelling from town to town, the new name given to her by the dwarfs, Blancanieves, is on everybody’s lips. The orphaned Blancanieves rises to fame and becomes a professional Matador. When, one day, her face appears on a magazine cover, the stepmother recognizes her and is outraged to see Carmen’s face at the cover instead of her own. When Blancanieves comes to Sevilla to fight, the stepmother heads for the ring with a poisoned apple. The fight between Blancanieves and the bull appears like a dance – she has inherited her mother’s talent as well – and eventually she checkmates the bull and spares it. A rain of flowers falls on Blancanieves, dressed in the dazzling bullfighters costume, ornate jacket, pants, boots, backcombed pitch-black hair, and among them lands also the apple from her stepmother. She picks up the apple, bites it. The stepmother rushes off, but takes a turn to soon, a door falls shut and in front of her looms the bull that was spared by Blancanieves.

Anna R. Winder
After Blancanieves (2012) by Pablo Berger