Paula Massano: Sea Dancer

BLITZ 31 Dec 1990English

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Contextual note
This text is part of the Portuguese anthology. This text collection contains 100% of the writings of André Lepecki for the magazine BLITZ. Sarma could realize this project by the support of the Portuguese Institute for the Arts.
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)

For practically a week, Acarte’s Sala Polivalente played host to the latest piece by Paula Massano. A performance by Companhia de Dança de Lisboa, “for all ages”, with special sessions for school audiences.

Following the opening blackout on stage, the first image we have in the piece is precisely this: a highly singular, highly static opening moment, underscored by the original music (original inasmuch as it has been especially composed, and not in the sense of being innovative) by António Pinho Vargas. The contrast or tension in this first image has a dual focus: a dialogue between the shapeless stage object, predominantly in tones of blue and occupying the back of the stage, and the area of yellow on the linoleum, which offers a muscular two-dimensional reflection of the movement suggested by the sculpture in blues.

The dancer’s body, lying on the floor stage left, and the costume mirror the duality proposed by the sets: blue shirt, yellow trousers. And why am I being so emphatic about the impact of these opening moments, this image offered to us for several minutes?

Because this prologue, or introduction, which inevitably refers us to the performance structure of classical ballet, with its musical overtures, will show itself to be the primary thrust of the choreography, and at the same time a sort of counterpoint to its imbalances: the carefully designed stage settings, in which the costumes and sets (both designed by Ana Isabel Miranda Rodrigues) work in unison will unfortunately turn out to be the only truly coherent thread running through the whole piece.

I think Paula Massano has run up against a difficult problem in her choreographic language, and has clearly failed to solve it. The problem is that of transposing a narrative into dance. This is a tricky issue, if we don’t want to deprive contemporary dance of its specific, fundamental and liberating features: the poetry of bodily expression, and release from the constraints of verbal codes, achieved by liberating movement from more or less narrative conventions. In other words, the search of another language originated from and anchored in what we identify as the unconscious. The logic of bodily expressiveness is a logic which is inherently poetic, and not narrative. And this is the main problem with A Bailarina do Mar (Sea Dancer): constant hesitation between being explicit and suggestive, between narrating and acting. This is a problem which can’t be solved through the means explicitly employed in this piece, as explained in the programme: the “characters” are not psychologically characterized. This expedient undermines the piece on two levels. Firstly, the audience has come to see a piece which is presented as being based on, or at least inspired by, A Menina do Mar, the children’s story by Sophia de Mello Breyner Andersen. But then they fail to find anything in the choreography which is remotely similar to the story. OK, so this was a clear decision taken by the choreographer. But they also fail to find any other connecting thread which might show there to be “characters”. Because, by definition, a character means some sort of biography, i.e. a past, a present or a future. A character always brings his (or her) story with him (or her), or else plays out this story. And this is clearly not what happens in A Bailarina do Mar.

Faced with this vacuum of meaning, instead of trying to connect the action to a “story” (a clearly impossible task, as works of art are only open to the extent and in the sense which they themselves permit), the children in the audience – curiously and significantly – tried to give an identity to the different characters and elements of the stage sets. So a consensus quickly formed that the yellow area on the floor was unquestionably a “boat” and that the masked chorus was made up of “fish”. I don’t think either the grown-ups or the children managed to work out what they were all doing down there.

And so back to the formal aspect. And here, it is difficult, to say the least, to see the point of the dialogue which Paula Massano seems to want to set up between movements based on Cunningham’s technique and others taken from the classical vocabulary. In comparison with Piña Colada or Estranhezas, her two previous pieces, the movement is less interesting, less captivating. And also on a formal level, the use of successive blackouts to divide the different “tableaux” got a bit tiring after a while: the blue sculpture loomed larger, and a sense of visual fatigue took hold. So, lastly, to the dancers. The Companhia de Dança de Lisboa was not performing at its usual venue, the Teatro São Luiz. The proximity of the performers to the audience was particularly cruel to most of the dancers, whose technical shortcomings were painfully clear to see. The exceptions were Maria João Pires and Paulo Jesus, who were excellent, and Joana Novaes, who danced correctly. And someone should have remembered to warn the dancers not to slap on so much make-up for this venue.

An unbalanced performance, in which the few good bits never stopped it from being disappointing where it should have been enchanting, and from boring those it should have stimulated.