The latest new dance (Part two)
You can read more about André Lepecki and his poetics as a writer on the following link: http://www.sarma.be/nieuw/critics/lepecki.htm
CREDITS
Editor Sarma: Myriam Van Imschoot
Editor Portugal: Monica Guerreiro
Research in Lisbon: Jeroen Peeters
Coördination: Steven De Belder, Jeroen Peeters, Charlotte Vandevyver, Myriam Van Imschoot
Translator: Clive Thoms
Financial Support: Portuguese Institute for the Arts
Thank you to: André Lepecki for the contribution to this anthology, BLITZ for giving consent to republish the texts on www.sarma.be, Diana Teixeira (typiste)
The Convento do Beato was the venue, on October 31st and November 1st, for the pieces selected for the choreography competition organized by the Portuguese Commissioners for Europália 91, known as Novíssimos – “The Very Young”, or “The Latest Thing”. We reviewed some of them last week, and here are the rest.
3. José Laginha
It’s like this. The choreography is structured around the visual tension created by the large black figure stage right, which also serves to connect three dancers, and the exploration of space through creative use of lighting. Five dancers occupy and explore the stage in an intelligent way and Nuno Rebelo’s music creates a coherent and essentially successful atmosphere (the sound track formula has already been explored by Paulo Ribeiro in Taquicárdia).
Objectively, the choreography Of the items of intimacy runs into a few problems of balance and sometimes gets lost in the interaction between the various elements which contribute to the meaning. The use of lighting as a meaningful element and the figure connected to the huge dark mass stage right play an important role in directing the audience’s attention, and should therefore have been the object of greater care from the choreographer, who sometimes seems to forget things which in a performance should never be forgotten.
But no serious harm is done. What matters is that José Laginha has managed to give form to his idea of movement and his idea of dance, without worrying about mannerisms or gimmicks, and this was his main strength. Along with the performances by Amélia Bentes, Sofia Neuparth and José Laginha himself, who form a powerful and inspired trio, which contributed in no small measure to the success of José Laginha’s first major solo incursion into choreography.
4. Rui Nunes
Generosidades da alma (Generosities of the soul) was the most successful piece presented. Framed by a careful stage setting, in which the lighting design, the simple and effective sets by Félix Marques and the costumes designed by Rosa de Freitas and made by Augusta Castelo all contributed to creating the desired atmosphere, Rui Nunes and the actor João Cabral presented an intelligent exploration of the power relations between two men.
At the start, the whole stage is surrounded by masses of lovely white fluffy down, with two heaps of more white fluff in the middle. The piece starts with a musical introduction in which we hear shots, shouts and musical cacophony. The dancers show up. And then we have Salazar with his saintly uncle voice. And while he goes on about the “Father of the Fatherland” the dancers roll around the white heaps and more and more feathers fly up until the air turns white. The metaphors then used are unexpected and intelligent: the spinning tops which have to be kept spinning, the military music, the “father” leading the “son” by the hand (if we want to follow the image proposed by the choreography itself. But this could simply be the dominant man vs. the submissive man), the final thrashing, in reply to an offer.
In my opinion, the contradiction lies precisely in the choice of Salazar as the ghostly paradigm of tyranny. Because Salazar was a symbolically “passive” (or, psychoanalytically, “feminine”) tyrant. Nothing monumental, phallic or visibly violent about him, but rather the imposition of his iron will with the seductive talk of the land of gentle customs. Here, I think that Rui Nunes will have to rethink his paradigms. And then the actual speech chosen seemed to be off-pitch in terms of content. Otherwise, the handsome movement, the quality of the performance and the recourse to collective memory created a successful dance moment.