A place that invites us to dance and be united, standing close together and preferably sweating; a space that allows us to free our bodies and shape a collective entity. Guillermo Santomà's Pista de Baile installation comes at a time of great crisis and is nothing if not paradoxical. The Catalan designer's installation is the spatial interpretation of a programme of events entitled Dance City · Exaggerate. Organised by Matadero Madrid, the project curated by Massimiliano Casu and Carlos López Carrasco includes workshops, performances, online meetings and will culminate in a festival in June 2021.

“Even in times of confinements, empty courts and postponed vernaculars, we dance within the domestic walls the choreographies of new routines and frictions. We dance by videoconference, social networks, in virtual and digital spaces of all kinds, we celebrate online parties and live new dimensions of musical encounter” state the curators in their manifesto. “Dance is therefore a frontier in which opposing forces meet: on one hand an aggregating power and an extraordinary strength in building communities, and on the other, a monumental capacity for triggering controversy.”

Santomà has transfigured the Intermediae nave of the Madrid cultural centre using concrete and iron, the same raw materials found in the space. But its layout is completely revolutionised: a self-supporting roof inserted into the open space generates a sort of urban cave, a place for gathering and sharing. The protagonist of this environment is a big luminous ball, representing a large fire around which to assemble and free our primitive instincts.