The body as a document of today

There are individuals - amongst them artists working today - who still believe in art’s ability in however subtle a way to transform our perception of the world. There are no group even vaguely resembling, say, the constructivists or the surrealists in the enthusiastic promotion of new visions. Of course the life conditions have changed drastically but there is no doubt that our cultural perceptions need to be wider and frontiers can be opened to welcome and devise new perspectives. The world moves in a fast pace and in the midst stays the body trying to reassemble itself but being touched by miraculous new medical technologies but disembody by computer monitors, genetic maps, exhibition of frozen human models etc. We move forward in the age of metamorphoses and witness and sense physically the inescapable universalization of body vocabulary, expressions, reactions and curiosity. Dance is one of the peculiar answers and remains a mystery and adventure. Forever in transition between having to balance inner perception and experience with adaption to the other or outward circumstances give to us a door to welcome new impressions and translate into an input of new ideas and inspirations.

This time we could try a new form of contract and communication. Let us move away from a folkloric or exotic perspective and give an invitation card to some of the exceptional dancers and choreographers which, departing from their roots and cultural traditions, are inventing and reinventing themselves and devising new forms of movement and staging ideas. The focus should remain in the possibilities of communication, exchange, and transferring of information. What we have to do, is to continue a legacy of progressing the art of dance. In that sense I am sure that La Biennale di Venezia is one of the best places to progress ideas and develop new visions. What I am basically interested in, is to have strong exchange and confrontations of different persons and cultural views and perspectives, to open spaces for a symposium to further interrogate the body, a photo exhibition to document the body and performances.

Ismael Ivo
from the catalog of the 3rd International Festival of Contemporary Dance

It’s an important task to look and perceive the body at the beginning of this century.
Body culture as a medium to transform and develop new forms of expressions.
A global body states and reaffirms our progressions and transgressions as a documentation of our time.
In the midst stays the body. Attacked, targeted and interrogated in its nationalities, codes, behaviours, forms and norms. Further the view of gender, colour and religions believes we find a body seeking a free space and a room without laws or regulations.
But notice that body attack does not endorse the destruction of the body, but portray it in its diversities and beyond normativety.
The simposium offers an opportunity to create an open platform to confront barriers, borders and exchange cross references. I to see the body as a moving culture in constant transition and permutation.
An interactive encounter with artistic, intellectual, sociological and philosophical personalities offers a possibility for other perceptions. It’s a chance to expose the body as a major creative medium and a strong instrument of multiple expression and unlimited artistic capacities.

Ismael Ivo
Introduction of symposium from the catalog of the 3rd International Festival of Contemporary Dance

Ismael Ivo (Brasile/Germania)
Teatro alle Tese
Wednesday 8, Thursday 9, Friday 11 and Saturday 12 June at 8 pm.

Eréndira
(80') world premiere
ideation and choreography Ismael Ivo
with Arianna Belloli, Sylvia Parmeggiani, Caroline Baudouin Nehr, Ivo Bauchiero, Pan Sun Kim, Pichet Klunchun, Stefano Mazzotta
dramaturgical composition Helge-Björn Meyer
actress Cleide Eunice Queiroz
scenes Marcel Kaskeline
costumes Gabriele Frauendorf
light and music Peter Göhler
accordion Damiano Visentin
music Apocalyptica, Andreas Bick Windscapes
production La Biennale di Venezia and Cena Cultural Produçoes
 

Modern dance, butoh and dance theatre form the artistic hinterland of lsmael Ivo and blend with his Afro-Brazilian roots. From São Paulo to Berlin - where he currently lives - passing via New York, lsmael lvo, who has planned this festival, is the founder of a movement exploring the new Interethnic territories of dance. At La Biennale, he has already presented a dazzling solo inspired by Mapplethorpe and now, three years later, he is back in Venice with a new choreography, inspired by the magical realism of one of the greatest of Latin-American authors, Gabriel García Marquez. “A land abandoned by God on the edges of the continent: passers-by meet fleetingly without leaving trace. All are passing through, alone on the road, solitary travellers without origin. Nomads of the present. They come from Africa or from Eastern Europe. From Asia or from South America. All hoping for another, better, happier and carefree life. Their condition is that of the traveller in transit: they have already forgotten the past, while their future has not yet begun. But what future do they have in reality? Are they welcome? What strategies for survival must they adopt in order to live in their new country? Of what use is their origin, their culture, their personal history? To what point does their identity dissolve in order to facilitate integration?”. This is the background in which the tragic events narrated by Marquez in Eréndira take place, stigmatising the relationship between collective and individual moral guilt, between economic dependency and cultural identity. “The incredible story of Eréndira, enslaved and forced to prostitute herself by her grandmother, serves as the stimulus for research - conducted through dance - on the margins of society. Is it possible to impose an alien logic upon a person, without being violent or in some way destroying her? For Marquez, this sort of oppression ends in a double tragedy: the grandmother is killed by Eréndira's lover, who, however, cannot accept her new-found freedom and flees, abandoning her lover who is devastated by grief” (Helge-Björn Meyer).

First of all, as I did in other pieces like Othelo, etc. The choreographie work and the images are developed not from the story directly but from the subtext or the characters actions and motivations. In the context of actualizing the piece and put it in the relation of today. I try to make a pararell with a social and existencial issue. Eréndira is one oƒ the many young girls which enter in the list of disapearing persons in many cities of  the world. Eréndira is also one of the many young girls sold by their own parents or family to serve as a labour slave or sex slave in many countries of this world. I bring the dancers and the piece in the ambiente of south American, São Paulo city to witness and confront with the violence and the fact of that girls about 12 years old are forced into drugs and prostitution. The travelling circus of the García Marques character of grandmother there is the procession of the Personas non Grata: or the unprivilegied third world full of debits and selling it's soul. The magical realism is forced out of unbearable or impossible life conditions. It's an improvised world. The characters are looking for the promissed land or the El Dourado. lt's as the new world is unfinished and alredy in ruinas. The dancers and characters are requested to identify their perceptions and expose their own thoughts on the subject on the stage. A task to dance a character and exercise the freedom to have an opinion about it at the same time! It's a documentary tanz theater crossing over with reality, fantasy and poetry. Reality dependes basically from the standing point of the onlooker. (Jorge Luis Borges)

Ismael Ivo
from the catalog of the 3rd International Festival of Contemporary Dance