Såo Paulo, 15th December 2008
In Såo Paulo I talked to Silvia Leal, a visual artist who grew up in Rio and London. We talked about movement in cities. Silvia has a project to send artists around in a camper van studio making work (part of GEMA project: http://gemaproject.blogspot.com/)
I make movies. My work and residency is called Choreogeography. It’s grown out of the films: the mapping of places in movement and sound, emotions and choreography. Like Psychogeography, without the words.
Silvia says that she sashays more in Rio and feels physically freer than when she is in Såo Paulo or London. That women’s feet in Rio are turned out more in flip flops and so they sway their hips more. She feels more expansive in Rio.
I posed the same questions to Leticia Sekito a choreographer and performer in Såo Paulo (http://lesekito.multiply.com/). We continued a conversation re our identities in work and movement started when I was here last year showing films with the Danca em Foco festival (http://www.dancaemfoco.com.br/en/project.html).
We both have mixed backgrounds. Mine is Anglo / Jewish / Scottish. Martial arts have informed our work, in time and motion. Leticia was the first person in her family to visit Japan where she recently performed as part of the Centenary of Japanese immigration to Brazil. Såo Paulo has the biggest community outside of Japan. Leticia noticed how the women shuffled – she felt it when she went to the bathroom at night, trying not make a noise upon the wooden floor; that when women get older, it makes their legs bow.
For Leticia, Japan’s movement was ergonomic and designed / adapted in tandem with a practical use of small spaces. Fitting between things. Non-tactile, contained. When she came back to Brazil, Leticia could not believe the noise. Physical ‘noise’ and sound noise.
Me too. Såo Paulo seems so much louder than London. Is it because I’m in a new place, everything feels amplified? In Vila Magdalena / Beatriz where I stay, I exercised overlooking trees and a city twice the size of London. The sound of millions of birds amongst the hum of traffic creates a vibrant soundscape of contrasts.
It stays in my mind as Leticia takes me to a contact jam – contemporary dancers improvising with body contact under the concrete marquee in Ibirapuera park by the Museum of modern Art and Oskar Niemeyers wonderful (and covered up) Oca – half a perfectly formed, horizontal egg, rising out of the ground.
The marquee is a hive of activity and energy as middle to lower class teenagers meet and skateboard. Like an open birdcage with choreographed flocks, skinny jeans and colourful trainers, the incredible, dynamic, chattering sound amplified by the concrete canopy. The movement and speed inside is as fast as the darting birds v as I record & video, the movement of the dancers is sedate amongst the frenetic energy around.
These teenagers are from the relatively recently termed Emo generation. Young people showing physical emotion. Tactile, hugging, showing physical friendliness and engagement. Constantly active, bikes, skateboards, juggling, rollerblades.
The burst of energy and excitement forms a movie as I shoot. The coupling of two forms of physical intimacy and generations, fashion and concepts.
So I’ve begun my first new idea here as an offshoot of the main project & I will call it Choreosations – a series of video interviews started as above. Whilst Choreogeography has movement without words, Choreosations will have words without movement (well, kind of). I hope that the videos will explore the relationship between verbal and physical language.
I’m continuing research in the UK into neuro-biology. Whilst I’m here I wonder if when we travel and see more varied forms of movement, do we accumulate this in our databanks and do mirror neurons get to work imitating, adapting or evolving, perhaps capturing the bits that interest us – or might help in the survival of the fittest?
Does travel broaden the body?
Alex Reuben,
Arts Council England and British Council Artist Links, Artist in Residence,
Brazil 2008
http://www.artistlinks.org.br/