Spații originale / Gesturi legalizate
-performative installation-
Synopsis
Legacies are embodied in countless goods and objects, emotions, gestures small traits in which we find those who are no more, in tastes and odors that project us into the past or dictate the choices we make in the present. „Spații originale / Gesturi legalizate” (''Original Spaces / Legalized Gestures'') is a performative installation that puts in dialog physical and emotional objects inherited by
performers Ioana Marchidan and Simona Dabija with the artistic objects created by Dimitrie Gora, in a physical exhibition space designed by by Maria Ghement and Justin Baroncea and a sound space realized by Alexandru Suciu. Developed dramaturgically by Rucsandra Pop and curated by Alex Radu within the symbolic setting of the Malmaison building, the creative process of
inheritance and the reconstruction of personal and collective identity becomes a ritual of reflection and community regeneration. The chosen title invokes another cultural heritage, the novel by the 80’s writer Gheorghe Crăciun, „Acte originale / Copii legalizate” (''Original Documents / Legalized Copies'').
Fifth production of the curatorial program Open Context, started in 2021 at /SAC @ Malmaison, „Spații originale / Gesturi legalizate” proposes a collaborative foray between the performative and the visual, re/presenting the ways in which we relate to legacies: both personal and intergenerational, in relation with personal legacies, and as a society, based on the political, anthropological and socio-cultural dynamics involving collective heritages.
The story behind
A collection of old newspapers, binoculars, tin cans, two paintings, some mink furs, eggs perfectly boiled so that the yolk is neither hard-boiled neither hard nor soft, detective books, anatomy treatises, the smell of French fries or of freshly washed and pressed linen, a gold tooth, the colour of the eyes, a pair of pants hanging on a coat rack, money, houses now inhabited by other
families or rooms empty of life, some keys falling on the floor, fluffy hands, classical music, a "communist" stove on which is floating an imaginary duck. The legacies of the departed are embodied in countless objects, small gestures that we carry on, emotions,
of features in which we find them, in tastes and smells that project us into the past or dictate the choices that we make in the present.
Based on family stories that they feel like they carry within themselves, Ioana Marchidan and Simona Dabija propose a performative mapping of the idea of inheritance. The performative space, designed by Maria Ghement and Justin Baroncea, puts in dialogue physical and emotional objects belonging to the two performers with the artistic objects created by Dimitrie Gora.
The performance was constructed and presented to the public first in a exhibition in the space /SAC @ Malmaison, a building that is itself a symbol of how we do, or rather don't, as a society, take care of collective legacies. Placed in this symbolic framework, the creative process of working with the idea of heritage proposed by Simona Dabija, Ioana Marchidan and the team that accompanies them in this personal and collective identity reconstruction takes on the value of a ritual of reflection and community regeneration.
The project is touring in Baia Mare and Cluj.
The chosen title invokes another collective legacy, the novel „Acte originale / Copii legalizate” by 80’s writer Gheorghe Crăciun. The body and corporality were themes that preoccupied the author to the point of obsession.
—--
Legacies can be material, genetic, emotional, sensory, cultural, or related to status. The two artists creatively explore all aspects of this mnemonic Rubik's cube that is legacy, using their bodies and memories—whether humorous, tender, or painful. Things we treat with indifference as long as our grandparents or parents are alive gain importance when these people disappear, stirring up questions within us. How responsible are we for what we receive? What does a person truly leave behind when they die, beyond objects divided among heirs either fairly or in ways that create tension and family disputes? What do we inherit, and what do we do with this inheritance? How do we negotiate the pressure of carrying forward the work started by those before us versus the temptation to start fresh, disregarding the past? How do we resolve the tension between ‘they did their part’ and ‘I am doing mine’? Do we burden ourselves with unresolved history or live our own lives? And can we really live our own lives without a consciously assumed process of healing? We all live with these questions inside us, whether we are aware of it or not, and none of these questions has a simple answer. Choosing to let the body’s intelligence search for answers where the mind cannot find them, without the claim of bringing order to this existential chaos, might be the most honest way to explore the subject. And things become even more interesting when they arrive at conclusions that intertwine, although the artists start from very different family stories.
Thoughts about the process
"First, the stories surfaced. We talked a lot about our personal lives and the types of legacies. Later, objects that had remained with us suddenly came to mind, and we thought about what would be most relevant for us to include in the space. The chosen objects are extensions of people who are no longer here. They can divide or bring a family together. The objects shape micro-spaces within the performative space. We built the choreography by reiterating memories, sensations, and experiences from our childhood in relation to these belongings."
— Simona Dabija
"Movement comes organically in this performative installation. We can consider the body as a legacy. This body seeks to find the legacies we inherit, from genetic attributes to emotional ones. We tried to incorporate multiple types of legacies, including memories, which sometimes come distorted due to the passage of time."
— Ioana Marchidan
"One thing I’ve come to understand is that stories circulate from one person to another and that this social fabric we weave can become stronger if we are aware of how similar we are. We don’t want to give the audience lessons, but rather to incite them to question their own relationship with legacies. I think this performative installation comes at a moment of maturity, where our generation is finally wrestling with the legacies we’ve received, both on a personal and collective level."
— Rucsandra Pop
"There are two types of legacies — material (concrete objects) and immaterial (which remain stored in our bodies and minds: images, sounds, smells, etc., that are triggered by various factors). We are building an installation that holds together legacies coming from three people. Through sound, the performers' movement, and light (along with the technical elements present in the space — speakers, subwoofer, stands, microphones), the objects and characters become a composition freely traversed and subjectively perceived by each spectator based on their own decisions on how to use the space."
— Maria Ghement
"A stovetop, a photo frame, light stands, a coffee pot will be spun around the perimeter, playing a functional role in the performative dramaturgy. Speakers on the ceiling and at the end of the hall — between the doors — a stove, a rubber duck, a Pokémon, and a pan on a chair. In the center, a harmonic screen segmented and reassembled according to the needs dictated by the overall choreography. The screen is perforated by (inter)action in tandem. A wall on wheels, attracting newspapers, spoons, bags, binoculars, and a molar."
— Justin Baroncea
"My installations, such as 'MacGas' and 'Brave Pikachu,' are designed by combining everyday objects from my childhood with nostalgic and ironic elements. These installations not only integrate into the gallery landscape but also redefine it, creating a dialogue between past and present. The choreographers' performative act adds a dynamic dimension, making each installation an integral part of a living, interactive landscape. In this context, the installations become focal points for interaction and reflection, inviting viewers to reconsider their own memories and national identity."
— Dimitrie Gora
"I watch again, carefully, as a performative framework, an exhibition and performance space, is built in the exhibition space (at /SAC @ Malmaison). Curating a group exhibition is a very different endeavor from producing/curating a performative installation, but the framework, the space-context, as I try to create in both instances, remains a meeting place, with implicitly collaborative approaches. This framework becomes a space-moment that begins with (or is sparked by) the discovery and exploration of intersections of artistic concerns on the one hand (the body-memory/collection/archive, performative actions, and even the spoken words that become memorable images, spaces-within-spaces-...-within-spaces, etc.) and personal themes on the other hand. In this case, it is a kind of zoom out, starting from personal inheritances to general patterns of our relationships with legacies and extending to the assumption of collective cultural and patrimonial legacies.
Referring to the title of the installation, which paraphrases the title of a novel, it distills/reflects the central concerns of our curatorial program. „Spații Originale” ('Original Spaces') refers to the desire to create new spaces, specific to each installation and theme, which do not replace, but are nourished by the space-context (place/institution/history/cultural, social value, etc.). „Gesturi legalizate” ( 'Legalized Gestures') refers to the concern with how performative actions/gestures can become memorable images, and why not, even iconic ones.
During the working process, I (re)formulate specific questions (curatorial pirouette-intentions): can we create a 'zoom in — zoom out' perspective (through the theme), which is reflected in the careful construction of the performative space — a new space, defined by the architectural installation and the stage-technical equipment that together balance in a relational system the artistic objects with the emotional ones and with the performative actions-gestures? Because this specific space is being built in a space-context with a curatorial identity, /SAC @ Malmaison, which in turn is anchored in a community context, Malmaison Studios, (which creates and becomes cultural heritage and) which occupies two floors of this emblematic building for the theme, Malmaison, a collective patrimonial and cultural legacy with nearly 200 years of significant history. A building that is now at a new crossroads, waiting for political decision-makers to decide its fate between the deserved heritage status and that of a problematic pile of bricks on a plot, evaluated (only) for its real estate potential.
I return with a zoom-pirouette to the echoes — as personal as possible — that the theme has for me. Namely, to the legacies that define certain ways of being, of reacting, even today. For example, listening to music and reacting embodied, dancing, is for me such a legacy, it is innate, it runs through my veins. I am not a performer, but in everything I do in art, I try to subtly bring something of that, from the attempt to choreograph the act of walking through an exhibition, to all the curatorial intentions in this program of collaborative inter/multi/trans-disciplinary performative installations — Open Context at /SAC @ Malmaison."
— Alex Radu
Simona Dabija (Choreographer and Performer)
Ioana Marchidan (Choreographer and Performer)
Rucsandra Pop (Dramaturg)
Dimitrie Gora (Visual Artist)
Maria Ghement (Architect)
Justin Baroncea (Architect)
Alexandru Suciu (Music)
atelier SET (Set Design Production)
/SAC Team
Andreea Chircă (Curatorial Assistant)
Iulian Cristea (Technical Manager)
Lidia Dobrea (Production)
Anne Lolea (Curatorial Assistant)
Elena Maxemciuc (Curatorial Assistant)
Alex Radu (Curator)
THE SCRIPT
THE PUBLIC IS ENTERING
Simona is standing next to a billboard with newspapers.
Ioana is standing by the kettle on the stove.
Ioana starts counting to 100.
Simona interrupts Ioana’s counting with dates and newspaper headlines.
TEXT:
SIMONA
March 12, 1906
There is no place like ours
July 1, 1939
Want to get a quick tan? Nivea
March 23, 1965
The pilgrimage
November 20, 1980
Cluj is sitting on a powder keg
May 20, 1993
Orgy with vodka
November 21, 1945
Communists do not accept to be treated as second-class citizens
November 25, 2001
Alien attack at the North Pole
April 8, 2008
Geri Spice Girl falls in love with a dancer
MATERIAL BODY
SCRIPT 1. Body at Home - is about the zero moment of settling down after someone's loss, searching for the familiar. Fading memory of the space-home.
IOANA
Sometimes I see my body there. In that house where I used to run, walk, bathe in the bathtub, and step. I rummaged in all the closets. When I went to my grandmother's house I sat in the kitchen, that's where we ate, that's where we talked - she had a big table in the middle and a lot was going on around it.
In the hallway she had a little old table where you could find all sorts of things. Everything from pens and pencils and little diaries and sheets of paper, on which you could write down phone numbers. Once in a while she'd have me answer that old black phone to talk to NUNU TANTI and GHIGHI TANTI. I could barely hold the receiver.
SIMONA:
10th floor. Pants hanging on the coat hanger by the entrance with the belt still on, hat on a hat roll and shirt still on the hanger. When I saw the full hanger I knew Grandpa hadn't left the house. Things have changed around the room, but not much. A desk full of his belongings, papers, forks, some small glasses, now maybe a little tidier. The distances are the same.
IOANA:
On the right side there was a radio. All the time on radio românia actualități - the water level of the Danube - one hundred and fifty-one centimeters. Ice on the shore. Opposite the radio was the refrigerator. A large refrigerator with rounded corners and a long long long handle that made a grave sound (imitate sound).The refrigerator had Moskva written on it. There were books. Books, lots and lots of books. Many medical books.
SIMONA:
Many detective novels.
IOANA:
I was looking at the anatomy of the human body. I kept them. These books sat in the living room. Every time I'd get into bed, I'd lay my eyes on that book. Hector Berlioz.
SIMONA:
Mihai Eminescu
IOANA:
Symphonie fantastique
SIMONA:
Poems. I was drawn to the spine of the Mihai Eminescu book. It was yellow and I kept leafing through that book. I was trying to figure out my favorite poem. I didn't understand much of the poems, but I liked certain images.
IOANA:
Hector Berlioz Symphonie fantastique. I had no idea who he was.
SIMONA:
I'd heard of him.
IOANA:
The creaking of the floor helps me realize where Grandma's going. In the living room there was this old display case where she kept her fisherman collection.
In the bedroom there was a bed with a crate that my brother and I used to climb into. From the crate we'd jump into bed. We had a stupid game: Open the flower! Open the flower!
SIMONA:
I shared a room with him during the day. He'd watch TV and I'd do my homework at my desk. The TV was always on. Action movies, detective movies. Even when he was asleep. Non-stop. The bed had broken springs. Hollows made by his body. Dad sleeps there now. Lots of rags of all sizes with old smells: a head binding cloth, a cloth to put vinegar on his chest, a nose-blowing cloth, a cleaning cloth. Newspaper and magazine clippings. The girl on page 5 taped to the closet.
Going through a few positions quoting the girl on page 5. Passing to familiar/home positions, shaped from distorted memories according to the projection of one's own body into the past and home space.
CUT TO THE POMELNICUL CONCERT. BODY IS IN REPETITIVE ACTION AND ARMS CONTOUR CONCERT POSITIONS AND GESTURES.
IOANA:
I am left with 5000 lei
I kept the silver
I kept the magazine rack
I kept 2 bags
I kept a radio
I'm left with an underdress
I'm left with a platted gold tooth
I'm left with porcelain fishermen
I'm left with miles
I'm left with books
I'm left with a set of stainless steel pots
I'm left with the mink collar
I'm left with 2 black and white portraits
SIMONA:
I'm left with empty pateu boxes
I'm left with a sofa bed
I left with the hat
I'm left with handkerchiefs
I’m left with the civil code of '92
I'm left with mints
I'm left with posters of naked women
I'm left with letters
I’m left with African chocolate
I’m stayed with a pair of binoculars
I’m left with lighters
I’m left with newspapers
I’m left with a radio
I’m left with 0 lei
I’m left with the divorce annex from '67
I’m left with a chess board
GENETIC BODIES / SEQUENTIAL BODY
SCRIPT 2.1
Simona stops jumping, stands with her arms up in concert gestures and addresses the audience.
Ioana takes over the positions of the people in the audience.
SIMONA:
Whose eyes do you resemble?
Whose hair colour do you have?
Whose fingernails do you have?
Who do you look like in the shape of your face?
Whose lips?
Whose hands do you resemble?
Whose feet?
Whose ears do you have?
Whose belly button?
Who's your height?
Whose eyebrows?
Whose?
IOANA:
I look like Simona.
SIMONA:
I look like Ioana.
The sequential body - photogram, stop motion, succession, not Darwin, evolution style, something that is physically left behind. Resemblance - cloning - of body parts, noticing details in each other's bodies and developing them in motion.
Ioana starts counting down from 100 to 1.
Simona interrupts her counting with dates and newspaper headlines.
TEXT:
SIMONA
April 27, 1985
High-level meeting of party and state leaders of the Warsaw Treaty countries
May 4, 1952
Arrival of a group of Korean children in our country
August 22, 1943
Humiliation of Mr. Churchill
September 20, 1931
Lord, release your servant!
June 15, 1908
A prophecy for Tache Ionescu
January 1, 1940
Towards the Balkan solidarity
The life in the palace of justice
Suncaria Nicolau
A lot of cooking with the kitchen door open!
SENSORY BODIES
SIMONA/IOANA:
OLGA
She cooked and didn't keep the kitchen door closed. I would get food scents in my clothes and in my hair. I felt like I was carrying her cooking with me.
Every morning she would take all the sheets and pillows out the window. The smell of lavender. The magnolias and the cherry tree I'd climb. Always sweets - cherry cookies, jam cakes and homemade ice cream.
GRIGORE
He woke up every morning at 7 and made me French fries. I was up late at 10, but I don't know how he managed to keep them warm. The smell of mints coming from a margarine box on the desk. He liked peppermint-flavored candy - anything green and minty: candy, jelly beans, peppermint-flavored turkish delight. I liked his hands, he had these fluffy little hands, with very taut, soft skin. Cat paws. I loved touching them, pressing them. My favorite part of his body. His palms. And his eyes. Whenever guests came, he'd bring a tray of goodies: soda, juice, his mints, a piece of sponge cake.
PETRA
She washed and pressed the sheets non-stop. It was an extraordinary cleanliness. I even have a little slip on dress with her specific smell. The sound of keys and perfectly boiled eggs.
EMOTIONAL BODIES - THE HEALING SECTION, THE SYMBOLIC REVERSAL OF THE FAMILY TREE, POSITIONING YOURSELF AT THE TOP OF THE PYRAMID.
IOANA:
LETTER 1
20.01.1970
Mr. Grigore,
It must surprise you that I am writing to you, but I have missed Focsani and your letters.
Why have you stopped writing to me?
I don't think I've upset or offended you in the lines I've written. Thank you for the card, but I would have been more pleased if you had written me a letter than two lines. I wish I'd known more about you. I was used to expecting a letter from you, but now that you've stopped writing, I'm missing you. What's the matter?
Did you get married? Tell me, it's not hard, it's worse waiting. Or I don't know, maybe someone made a place for themselves closer to you, but that's another thing I wish you had told me because I remember you said we were friends, right? And I know there's no secrets between friends. Although we don't know each other very well, mostly through correspondence, I think I deserve your trust. How did you spend the winter holidays?
I spent it well, sometimes working, sometimes dancing, so it's all good. What's new in Focsani? I would also like to see Focsani, but at the moment I'm too busy and I don't have the time for a trip. In any case, when I can, I'll still come to see what's around the Tribunal. Or maybe you no longer work there. That's all right, but I'd still hate to see this envelope fall into foreign hands.
I end this letter by wishing you lots of happiness and good luck and remember, I'll be waiting to hear from you.
Love, Săftica
_____________________________
LETTER II
10.11.1970
Liești
Grigore,
I guess you didn't even expect me to write to you after all this time and yet I'm trying to do it now.
Why haven't I written to you? I don't know myself. At one time I said to myself there was no point in writing to you, and yet the doubt has passed. I'm sorry that you're ill, though I hope it's over by now. My father and mother were sick too, it seems like the disease bypassed me. Thank you for giving me the school inspector's address. I really needed it and I don't have anyone I know in Focsani to give it to me.
You asked me what I do? I'm not only studying, because I need a break, so on Sundays I go to weddings or I go out for a walk. Anyway, youth demands its rights. I wonder though, are you really that lonely? Have you no one to keep you company? I think not. It's a big city, and there's lots of girls, you can't not like one of them all, can you? You just need to know which one you're gonna pick.
I'm not doubting the fact that you seem so close to me, I know that maybe I really have awakened a sympathy for you and I wouldn't hide that I feel it too, but still we are far away and I wouldn't advise you to have me as a close friend. Anyway you are human in the first place and loneliness is not good for anyone. Work, all by itself, I don't think it fulfills you.
I have started to get bored waiting for the exam, I can't wait for it to come sooner and start learning. I always feel like I'm not doing anything and that annoys me a lot sometimes.
I hope these lines are welcome and I look forward to the day when we might meet again. I end by wishing you all the best, of course success and happiness.
Good bye!
Săftica
_________________________________
SIMONA:
TICKET 1
Dear Didi, please, if you can and if you'd like after work, be my guest for coffee
ask Ionuț if you can come, so I can know if I need to wait for you or not.
Kisses!
TICKET 2
Didi I looked for you at work but I couldn't find you so I sent the boy
come over today
Should the boy come for you at 3:30 or are you coming alone?
Please send me two cigarettes because I don't have any and I don't have the money to buy cigarettes.
I kiss you.
Livia
TICKET 3
Didi, please don't send that judgment from file 3166/92 now.
send it by the end of June.
And please put the copy of my father's authorization in file 4953/92.
I'll expect you at my place tonight and of course I'll be grateful and I'll buy you a drink because I'm sick, my tooth hurts and I'm swollen.
Please send two cigarettes.
I kiss you.
Livia
TICKET 4
Dear Didi, I sent the boy with the note in order to not be seen there.
If you can come today after 3:30 because tomorrow mom's coming and she's staying all week.
Let the boy know if you're coming or not so I know.
If you want, send me some cigarettes for the boy.
Love Livia
TICKET 5
Uncle Grigore, I'm sorry I wasn't home then. I went to town with my mother, but even so you didn't have any money. you just had 200 from what you gave me that you had left.
So today at 4 o'clock I expect you to come to my house and give me some cigarettes. don't send any more TOP because they are no good and I have no money and I would sell some bottles but the water doesn't run and I have nothing to wash them with....
kiss you. Livia. waiting for you.
______________________________
CORP HABITUS - STATUS
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STATUS - place in society
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CAREER CHOICES INFLUENCED BY THE CONTEXT IN WHICH YOU WERE RAISED
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LOADED VALUES TRANSMITTED
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YOU HAVE THE OPTION TO PERPETUATE OR GO AGAINST
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NEGOTIATION - between tensions that arise between worldview and values.
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SHAME
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YOU CANNOT ERASE THE INFLUENCES, THE IMPRINTS
IOANA:
My grandfather on my mom's side helped everyone. He had a lot of connections and people asked him for help. At night he would get phone calls to help someone, either with doctors he knew, or to help a child pass a class, because he knew the teachers. Whoever asked for his help, he didn't refuse. He was buried with military honors. He took me by the hand to the choreography high school. He taught me how to make a perfectly boiled egg by counting to 100 by the time the water starts boiling. He was a handful, he was quite small in stature.
SIMONA:
In the morning he was always with a book in his hand. He sat on the edge of the bed with his glasses on. He never fully read a book. He had several open ones with marks all over them. He'd read the civil code, detective novels, then a book about Stalin or the Russians. He hated them. "They'll bury us", he said. The bedroom was very small. A bed and a desk. Every day we practiced dances in the room on a piece of carpet. I'd put videos on youtube, sit in class and learn choreography. Hip-hop. I'd crank up the music and sweat my ass off. Grandpa never asked me what I was doing. He had no business.
He liked to listen to symphony and opera. Pavarotti. Mezzo or TVR Cultural. On the radio he only listened to the news. In the bedroom, opera, in the kitchen, my parents' kitchen, folk music. When I got a computer, he used to say: Play me a nice opera. You drove me crazy with that noise. I listened to house music. He collected things, even worthless things. "I don't throw anything away," he said. Pate cans made into a lamp. All the things made me nervous. Too much noise.
Mom liked to dance when she was young. Grandma said, "What is this? Is that a job?" That's when she stopped. My mom told me: Do what you like, be healthy! When will we see you on TV?
IOANA:
My paternal grandparents had this obsession - to succeed in life. Once in a while, I was on TV. Success. They had a house in Pangrati, right next to the television. The house was destroyed during the Revolution. Above them lived a big Security guy who ran away. When they died, most of their things went to grandpa's child. Grandma never had a word to say. She was spoiling him, cooked for him impeccably. He'd say: "I took you to see Moulin Rouge. They were old and he bought her a fur coat.
Ioana starts counting to 100.
Simona interrupts her counting with dates and newspaper headlines.
TEXT:
SIMONA
April 10, 1946
Government resists ratification of the agreement with Czechoslovakia
June 5, 1933. Focșani
Grigore was born.
September 30, 1934. Bucharest
Petra was born.
March 10, 1982
Filantropia Hospital. Ioana was born
August 5, 1994
Focșani County Hospital. Simona was born
160 years ago.Year 1864
Civil Code. About successions.
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LEGAL BODY - document body - octopus with documents - absence of it generating conflicts or resolving problems, provides clarity.
VOICE OVER.
Art. 650.
Succession devolves either by law, or according to the will of man by will.
Art. 651.
Successions are opened by death.
Art. 654.
In order to inherit, the person who inherits must necessarily be in existence at the time of the opening of the inheritance.
Art. 655.
Is unworthy to inherit and therefore excluded from succession
a person convicted of having killed or attempted to kill the deceased.
Article 657
An heir who is removed from the succession as unworthy is obliged to return all the goods and proceeds which he has had the use of since the opening of the succession.
Art. 660
Proximity of kinship is determined by the number of generations; each generation counts one degree.
Art. 661.
The series of degrees forms the line: a straight line is the series of degrees between people who descend from each other; a collateral line is the series of degrees between persons who do not descend from each other but who descend from a common author.
The straight line is divided into the descending straight line and the ascending straight line.
The first is that which connects the head of the nation with those who descend from him; the second is that which connects a person with those from whom he descends.
Article 667.
In all cases in which representation is admitted, the division shall be made by stalk; if that stalk has produced several branches, the subdivision shall again be made by stalk in each branch, and the members of the same branch shall be divided equally among themselves.
Art. 669.
Children or their descendants succeed their fathers, mothers, grandmothers (i.e. grandfathers), and any other ascendants, without distinction of sex and even if they are born from different marriages. They inherit equal shares when they are all in the first degree and are called according to their own right; they inherit by stem when all or one of them are called by representation.
Art. 670.
If the deceased has left no posterity, no brother, sister or descendants, the succession shall devolve to the next nearest ascendant.
Ascendants of the same degree shall inherit equal shares.
Art. 674.
The division of the half or three-fourths due to brothers or sisters, according to the provisions of the preceding article, shall be made between them in equal shares, if they are all of the same marriage; if they are of different marriages, the division shall be made by half between the two lines: paternal and maternal of the deceased; the first brothers shall share in both lines, the first or second brothers each in his line only. If they are brothers or sisters only in one line, they succeed in total, excluding all relatives in the other line.
By "uterine siblings" are meant siblings of the same mother and a different father, and by "consanguineal siblings" siblings of the same father and different mothers.
Art. 683.
A living spouse or the State, who have not complied with the formalities to which they are respectively indebted, may be liable to pay damages to the heirs who may be claimed.
Art. 686.
No one is obliged to accept an inheritance which is due to him.
Art. 687.
Minors and persons under guardianship cannot make a valid acceptance of an inheritance except in accordance with the provisions of the title of minority, guardianship and emancipation.
Married women cannot validly accept an inheritance except with the authorization of the husband or of the court.
