- Solo: Life is not useful (or it is what it is) (Création - November 2023)
In the search for philosophical and choreographic insight around the marvellous, Bruno Freire came across Ailton Krenak, one of the most important political voices of contemporary Brazil, a recent member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, professor honoris causa in two different universities, an indigenous militant and Brazilian philosopher. His publication “Life is not useful”, a critique of contemporary urban society, is the starting point for this danced lesson. Krenak argues that ‘life is an experience of wonderment’. This phrase keeps haunting Freire’s mind, becoming his mantra. In this performance, the choreographer rereads and interprets Krenak’s texts to understand them in depth while his body moves following the sound and the meanings of the words as if they were musical scores, inviting the audience to listen and reflect on them together.
concept, choreography & performance Bruno Freire (BE/BR)
light design Laura Salerno (BR)
sound design Tomas Monteiro (BR)
Provocations Cristian Duarte (BR), Ana Teixeira (BR)
Traduction from portugues helped by
Dramaturgy feedbacks and text adaptation Roz Whytes (english), Anna Czapski (french)
Life is not useful (or it is what it is) and Matamatá form a diptych.
This diptych is the production of two choreographic works that complement and complexify each other, like two photographic images placed side by side. Diptych is a project at the crossroads of theatre, dance, literature and visual arts, consisting of a piece for three performers (“Matamatá”) and a solo conference ("Life is not useful or It is what it is). It is the deployment of my infinite search towards and around the marvellous.
Faced with the zeitgeist of our time, the climate catastrophe, the imminent death of the largest tropical forest on the planet and other challenges, as a choreographic artist I ask myself: Will we be able to reforest/replant, to become a forest with our bodies and our cities, how are we going to find joy and pleasure and not fall into melancholic and eco-climatic anguish? How can we make a dance to delay the end of a world?
We start from bodily fabulations to perhaps make the audience’s thoughts dance.
