culturgest | duration 1h | tickets 10 € / 5 € 
thursday _ 5 junho 21h | friday _ 6 junho 21h
co-production alkantara

“Two years ago, I sent a short video of Jonathan Richman’s mythical Egyptian Reggae to Tiago. It was a joke, those kind of links we send in a lost moment. But in this small video Tiago saw an entry to something he had been looking for, choreographic material in unusual contexts. Soon I understood that this ‘hopping’ video would contaminate the working process of the piece that was coming to life. The original project faded away. Before, we would talk about sculpting choreographic materials, now we were discussing palm trees and dancing camels. We were drifting away from any idea of ‘good taste’ or seriousness. Nothing really clear, to tell the truth, but a playful desire to leave the usual obligatory discourse behind (the one that we have come to expect from choreographers when they become ‘serious’ artists), a wish to get a touch of ‘lightness’.
(…) Like his strange explorers who dance in the glittering set, he strains his eyes to see better, to better work the details. They try to find something on the empty stage… marvellous things.
I understood gradually that he was getting at something he had been looking for, maybe without knowing it, maybe by going through inumerous deviations. In this desert pop landscape of shifting dunes, we don’t know where we are. We recognize forms, we think they are improbable faraway mirages: cabaret, Nijinsky, Cunningham, Herzog, mystic discourses from the 70ies…
On the way out from the premiere at le Vivat (1 Feb 08, Armentières) nobody seemed to have seen the same performance. We still don’t know where Coisas Maravilhosas is situated, at what distance from the landscape of contemporary dance. Let’s find out together.”

Florent Delval

concept and artistic direction tiago guedes | dance cecília bengolea, denis robert, françois chaignaud, inês jacques, marlene freitas | artistic direction assistant pietro romani | light design caty olive | soundscape sérgio cruz | set and costumes carla freire, cypress cook | voice coach pedro teixeira (portugal), lucy grauman (bruxelas), inês jacques | technical direction mafalda oliveira | production materiais diversos | co-production culturgest (lisboa), festival vivat la danse! theatre le vivat (armentières), arcadi – action regionale pour la creation artistique et la diffusion en île-de-France (paris), théâtre de l´l (bruxelles), galeria zdb (lisboa), alkantara (lisboa), o espaço do tempo (montemor-o-novo) | thanks to joris lacoste, florent delval, giovanni di domenico, pakyan lau | support re.al, atelier re.al, teatro viriato, m.a.c cosmetics | project financed by direcção geral das artes / ministério da cultura

 PERFORMANCES | CALENDAR