Portrait Of a Dancer as Velvet

Hugo Calhim Cristóvão & Joana von Mayer Trindade

SYNOPSIS

Jadis, si je me souviens bien, ma vie était un festin où s'ouvraient tous les coeurs, où tous les vins coulaient. [Once, if I recall correctly, my life was a banquet. Every wine flowed, all hearts were open.] (J.A. Rimbaud)

There’s the disease and there’s hiding the disease. The first one is something Real with which one has to deal, a form of human existence. The second one subterraneanly breeds that which is monstrous. It is an ethical choice. Il faut être absolument moderne [One must be absolutely modern]. It is thus no wonder that the Real of the Dancer as a Portrait is insanity. An insane cowardice pursuing pacification in the dead portraying of dead shapes. Or in the dead portraying of that which does not wish to be a dead shape, showing the opposite of desire. This is the time of the Assassins [Voici le temps des assassins]. Will we be able to revert and invert, to portray the destruction of the Portrait? To eliminate the vanished nobilities and bourgeoisies dressed in purple and velvet that the Portrait is born to serve? Can the burned, shredded Portrait, seduced by itself as Narcissus, at some point experience its own dissolution? Drown in the waters? If that which is not the Portrait succeeds in destroying a negligible part of the Portrait, the roots of the Portrait may collapse a tiny bit. And thus the paradox we seek in this creation: what is a Dancer who has to dance all that does not dance itself while dancing him/herself.

J'ai tendu des cordes de clocher à clocher ; des guirlandes de fenêtre à fenêtre ; des chaînes d'or d'étoile à étoile, et je danse. [I’ve hung ropes from belfry to belfry, garlands from window to window, golden chains from star to star, and I am dancing.] — Joana von Mayer Trindade & Hugo Calhim Cristóvão (Quotes: Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud)

credits Direction, Choreography, Dramaturgy and Formation Joana von Mayer Trindade & Hugo Calhim Cristovão Dancer Sara Gil Agostinho Sound Design Paulo Costa & Nuisis Zobop Light Design Pedro Nabais Costumes UN T Scenographic collaboration Jérémy Pajeanc Photography João Octávio Peixoto Coproduction e difusão Nuisis Zobop Residencies Teatro Municipal do Porto, CAMPUS Paulo Cunha e Silva, Centro de Criação de Candoso, Fábrica Asa, CRL – Central Elétrica, Academia de Dança de Matosinhos, Teatro Académico Gil Vicente, Escola de Dança DNA – Dance N'Arts School Acknowledgment Cristina Aguiar, Cláudia Galhós, Francisco Pinho, Jean Arthur Rimbaud Coproduction Teatro Municipal do Porto, TAGV Coimbra