Context This project was originally called performances for alkantara. It was thought as an unique event and dedicated to alkantara where it was presented on its 2016th festival. The project was activated at par/ICI CCN Montpellier in December 2016 and we will keep on experimenting its relevance in different contexts.
One year ago we were caught by
something so common and at the same time so extraordinary that we felt obliged
to change some habits on the way we used to live, and therefore, on the way we
used to engage in our work. Since then we have been re-questioning our
methodologies and formats of presentation. During this process, the reasons
that impelled us to start our collaboration (ten years ago) emerged again: the
bare pleasure of the encounter with the other and with the audience, the
sharing of how the materials are generated more than its confinement to the
logics of a show, the performance as a system of liberties in action and the
focus on the presence and the performative state, on the how and not so much on the what.
The three performances we are going
to present at PAR ICI are a materialization of this process of re-questioning.
Some of these performances are based on materials from other pieces, previously
unused or re-contextualized; others appropriate exercises developed on our
research processes. All the performances are improvised and rely on a state of
research, disengaged from any need for coherence or unity. Taking advantage of the immediate,
unpredictable and ludic nature of the research, exposing its systems, logics,
and detours and revealing our own judgments about what we’re doing. Each
performance is supported by a desire to decompose or reduce our research to its
basic elements: body, voice, objects, sound and text.
Performance
# 1 objects
"Me voici sur une nouvelle
voie: je mets une pomme sur ma table. Puis je me mets dans cette pomme. Quelle
tranquillité!" Henri Michaux
A performance with objects. Two
different physical/mental states and the in-between possibilities: primal state connected to the absence of
conventions and memory about the functionality of things; dispersive state connected to the juxtaposition of time and
constant deviation of focus. Creating and getting out
from our own logics of relation.
animism Ÿ obsession Ÿ systems
Performance
# 2 writing
“Écrire, entendu comme un acte
physique; une sculpture miniature, cet ensemble de mouvements, cette saisie de
l’instrument qui attaque une surface, qui s’abat sur elle et la transforme. (…)
Et tout est bon pour écrire; tout est bon pour recevoir l’écriture.” Gonçalo M.
Tavares
Continuous writing with chalk on
black boards. Repeating a word until it transforms into another. Connecting
different types of content and revealing the way our mind works. The
performativity of writing. The physical act of writing. Deviations from
writing.
Trace Ÿ Repetition Ÿ Detour
Performance
# 3 text, voice and studio research at Ici
“We have to recognize a
very recent and strong attraction to the abyss”
A spoken word performance,
articulating numerous texts generated during our processes but never used in
our shows. The movement and the gesture as instigators of words. A spontaneous composition
of small narratives, beginnings and ends, the naming of things, a bunch of
absurdity and glimpses of intimacy. The movement and the gesture as digressers
from words. Voice and singing as something that urges
to pour out from the body.
Concept and Performance | Sofia Dias & Vítor Roriz
Artistic Collaboration | Filipe Pereira, Nuno Borda de Água, Catarina Dias
Sound | Sofia Dias
Coproduction | par/ICI CCN Montpellier, Alkantara
Acknowlegments | Artur
