Blanca Tolsà and Albert Tarrats. microdesfase

With microdesfase [micro-gap], Blanca Tolsà and Albert Tarrats transform the access stairway to the terrace of the Museu Tàpies into a sonorous, choreographic organism. Through movement, voice and live modulation, they activate a dialogue with the reverberating acoustics of the space, creating a kaleidoscopic landscape where the body, sound and technology mutually alter each other.

The piece begins with a marginally unstable tone, insisting on it until it gives way to tiny shifts and harmonic tensions: tonalities that emerge like an organic relief, an auditory mirage that defies perceptions, encouraging a certain kind of hallucination.

The sound injected into the space returns transformed: the architecture breathes, responding in an unexpected way, enlivening its own memory. It is no longer an inert container, but converts itself into a shared, porous body. The activation of the surroundings—seeking to refer to the practice of Antoni Tàpies himself, reviving the everyday as a potentially magical dimension—emphasises subtle gestures, miniscule shifts and the echoes that persist when the main sound fades.

Just like Tàpies, who gazed intently at a wall to achieve some degree of illumination inspired in Zen practice, microdesfase proposes a contemplative experience where careful listening reveals the concealed bounty of what apparently seem insignificant.

Located in a transition space, on the way to the Tàpies’ Mitjó [Sock] sculpture, the performance calls on the public to inhabit a space of auditory illusion and sensorial alteration. In this case, vision is blurred and listening becomes the focal point of an experience that is at once collective and intimate, where sound seems to arise both out of the body and out of the air surrounding it, erasing the boundaries between emission, echo and reflex.

Blanca Tolsà (Ontinyent, 1991) is a dancer and choreographer based in Barcelona. Her artistic research explores the relationship between voice, movement and sound, emphasising their a-synchronicities. Through her pieces, she posits spaces that play with perception, leading to illusions, displacement and dissonance.

Tolsà has been a resident artist in creative production centres like La Caldera, Graner, Fabra i Coats, Roca Umbert and CC Barceloneta. Her works include Ecoica (2022) and Parafonías (2025). She is currently expanding her practice into non-theatrical areas, researching architectures with acoustic reverberations. Her works have been presented at festivals such as Dansa Metropolitana and Dansa València, as well as in spaces like La Capella, La Caldera and Danza en Breve.

As a performer, she has been awarded the Premi Butaca 2020 for Wu Wei, by Raquel Klein, and the Premi de la Crítica 2024 for La Quijá, by Siberia Paloma Muñoz. She has worked with numerous choreographers in the Catalan dance scene, including Lipi Hernández, Ariadna Montfort, Raquel Klein, Roberto Zappalà (IT), Albert Quesada, La Fura dels Baus, Magdalena Garzón, Jacob Gómez, Anna Macau, Constanza Brncic, Núria Guiu, Siberia Paloma Muñoz, Georgia Vardarou and João Lima. Tolsà graduated from the Professional Dance Conservatory of the Institut del Teatre de Barcelona, and began her dancing career in the company for younger dancers IT Dansa, doing various international tours.

Albert Tarrats (Barcelona, 1988) works with sound and electronics. Through live actions and the construction of sound objects and devices, he explores alternative auditive formats and their relation to space, listening and others. His practice is essentially collaborative, in terms of creation and production, and includes support for other artists in developing their works. He currently researches under the name Comprimir Muntanyes and is a member of the Ràdio Web MACBA Working Group.

Activity programmed as part of the third edition of the Museu Tàpies series Following the Sun, entitled Uncovering the Gaze, curated by Carolina Ciuti.

With the support and collaboration of Graner – Centre de creació de dansa i arts vives.

Image credit: Margaret Watts Hughes, Impression Figure, date unknown. Pigment on glass. Courtesy of the museum and Cyfarthfa Castle Museum and Art Gallery. Photo: Louis Porter.