The eclectic Catalan artist, poet and performer Kiku Mistu presents an innovative new project at Barcelona Festival Grec, with an exhibition from the 1st-18th July (17:00-21:00) and performance from the 8^th-12^th July (22:00).  Masks are whipped away and the audience is invited to participate in a transformative experience; an evocative, humorous and deeply compelling re-presentation of death – and on the flipside of the same coin – of life itself.

When Kiku Mistu decided to write about death, he wanted to take an ironic and humorous angle, to make it more approachable. The music and songs, burlesque and banter of cabaret provided a good structure. The symbol of cabaret is also presented as a paradigm of the human condition. Deep down we all have a cabaretero inside us, a character who needs to hide behind a mask and who yearns for public applause and the appreciation and approval of other people.

The Last Cabaret is centred around twelve coffins, each designed according to a different metaphor and with a different and familiar design. The public is invited to participate directly and step inside the coffins. “It’s very poetic,” Kiku Mistu explains. “By taking it away from the intellectual and making it more experiential you’re breaking boundaries.”

One of the coffins is like a child’s cradle. There is a coffin with a bath tub full of rose petals.  Another is vertical, like a clock. And another converts into a luxury table with two chairs that evokes our unconscious devouring of life. There’s also a double coffin, the marriage one, for 2 people. “When it was being built in the carpentry studio my husband and I climbed in. It was such a fantastic experience, I completely recommend it! It’s so profound; there are no words for it!  To get into this double coffin with the person that you love is one of the most poetic and romantic things that there is!”

(Photo: Piano DJ Coffin, by Daniel Escalé)