From me I can't escape, have patience!
June 8, 9 & 10 at 7 p.m.
Duration: 45 min.
June 9: Meet the artists after the performance
Regular Price: 28$
25 and under, 65 and over: 21$
Each performer follows an individual score, but all of them seem subject to forces that outmatch their will and ability to resist. Like water turned swirling and choppy by a puff of wind, they react to the variations of the music performed live at the piano by choreographer Tânia Carvalho. Their bodies become notes, fingerboards, plucked strings, sighs. A leg traces a melodic line in the space. Feet run along an imaginary keyboard. Hands clap angrily. Contemporary, baroque or romantic, the music both manhandles and caresses the four dancers. Yet the dancers are as much masters as puppets. From me I can’t escape, have patience! is a brilliant study on the interdependence of dance and music. The universe depicted is imbued with strange, compelling atmospheres that echo psyches plagued by various torments and obsessions. With its expressionist inspiration, this remarkable piece reveals the singularity and talent of Tânia Carvalho, a Portuguese choreographer who co-founded the Bomba Suicida collective, which has more than twenty works to its credit.
While Tãnia Carvalho has often explored combinations of dance and the plastic arts, the relationship between music and movement has been a constant in her work since the start of her career. The title of her first solo piece, La-la-lalala, echoes the rhythm she chanted in her head while dancing in silence. In 1997 she created Femme au côté d’une contrebasse… and she soon plunged into composition and playing the piano. After nine months of hard work she was playing a Mozart sonata live onstage in Une lenteur qui paraît vitesse, performed in 2007. That same year she also presented Barulhada (the loud girl), where a dancer’s movements trigger the sounds produced by a drummer and bass player. For Danza Ricercata in 2008, she relied on the physical and emotional commitment of a pianist playing music by the composer György Ligeti to choreograph the movements of the piece.
With the choreographers Filipe Viegas and Clara Sena, in 1997 Tãnia Carvalho established the collective Bomba Suicida. This association for cultural promotion produces and supports work by young performing artists, such as Marlene Freitas and Luis Guerra, two of the dancers invited to Montreal.
« Les deux morceaux des stylisticiens incomparables, Israel Galvan et Tania Carvalho, sont étonnamment univoques et, dans ce sens, courageux. Dans From me, I can't escape, la danseuse et musicienne portugaise, soutenue par son groupe, se voue tout entière au rapport son et mouvement. Sa proximité de l'expressionnisme des films allemands en noir et en blanc des années 20 est aussi reconnaissable que l'expressivité de ses quatre danseurs (Marlene Freitas, Maria Joao Rodrigues, Ricardo Batista Vidal, Luis Guerra). La chorégraphe est elle-même au piano et joue des classiques fusionnés dans un staccato parfois ironique. Les danseurs citent, se refusent, contrecarrent et finissent par présenter leurs propres objectifs, après lesquels Carvalho se subtilise dans une marche funèbre distraite. Mais avant tout, ils sont bourrés de talents, tout en étant particulièrement sympathiques. »
Astrid Kamiinski, Berliner Zeitung, août 2009
Produced by Bomba Suicida
Choreography and Music: Tânia Carvalho + Tania Oak Tree
Performers: Tânia Carvalho + Marlene Freitas + LuÃs Guerra + Maria João Rodrigues + Ricardo Vidal
Poem: PatrÃcia Caldeira
Lighting Design: Anatol Waschke
Costume Design: Aleksandar Protic
Coproduction O Espaço do Tempo (Montemor-O-Novo)
With the support of Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian (Lisbonne) + Tanzwerkstatt (Berlin)
Redaction: Fabienne Cabado
Traduction: Neil Kroetsch