Lina do Carmo

Capivara

Solo Dance devised and performed by Lina do Carmo

Music by Paulo C. Chagas

In a dry and isolated area of the Northeast Brazil, we find »CAPIVARA«, a magic place. Once in the depth of a prehistorical ocean, today it shows its phantoms and archaeological treasures to the whole world. Only a few years ago the oldest signs of civilization on the American Continent were found there.

Innumerable paintings and inscriptions prove the human presence since fifty thousand years. They were the inspiration for Lina do Carmo to choregraphy a symbolic dance which follows the steps of humanity.

Lina do Carmo was born in Piauí, the land of the »Serra da Capivara«. Although living and working in Germany for many years it is not surprising that she has chosen Capivara as the theme and scenary for her new solo dance. This choreography is part of her artistical search of the universalization of her roots. Through her choreographic fantasy, she looks for the soul of nature and the inexorable beauty of the archaic expression.

The music for CAPIVARA was composed and recorded by Paulo C. Chagas who was born in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. He studied composition at the University of São Paulo, Brazil, at the Conservatoire Royal de Musique de Liège, Belgium und and at the Musikhochschule in Cologne, Germany. He lives in Cologne. Chagas composed ballet musics, operas, pieces for music theatre, multimedia projects, orchestras and choirs. An important part of his work is electronical and computer music. He was invited to several important festivals and his compositions were performed in Europe, the U.S.A. and Latin America.

Supported by: Ministerium für Stadtentwicklung, Kultur und Sport des Landes NRW • Kulturamt der Stadt Köln • Onix und Cohab (Lei A. Tito Filho)
Thanks to FUMDHAM (Fundação Museu de Homen Americano), Niède Guidon, Secretaria de Cultura Piauí, Sandra Melo, Heinz Wedewarth, Andreas Matthias Claus, Jörg Krauthäuser, Tanzprojekte Köln, Karo Nelles and all the others who have supported this production.

The Press

»Do Carmo's choreography is a partly abstract, partly impressionistic grounded dialogue with the archaic universe. The result is not at all a romantic ethnical painting, but an archeology of expression, not at last also an extension of her own vocabulary. In no second work do Carmo got so sucessefully away from her mime roots like here; nowhere else, she combines theatrical and dance elements so closely.«
(Ballett Tanz International / Josef Schloßmacher)

»The movements reflect at the same time the funny dynamic and frozen standstill of the figures. But Lina do Carmo does not risk to loose herself in irrationality: with her soft sense of humour the Brazilian who was student and assistant of Marcel Marceau creates an ironic distance to the story. Among all these scenes of hunting and worship, birth and death, she seems like a worked out female Chaplin, ready to jump across time and space.«
(Kölnische Rundschau, Cologne, Germany)

»Lina do Carmo unifies cultures ... She seems to be searching for something from former times, from the ancestry. But the most important is the substance of her mixtures. She is such a fine and powerful performer, everything her body does is organic, it seems materialized in her bones and muscles, breathing through her skin. The desire to make Capivara her theme already indicates a search for a Brazil without date, from the roots. There is a very fine treatment of the dramaturgy in Capivara. Her dance seems to come out of the stone. It would be important for the all Brazil to get in touch again with an artist of this calibre. There are not a lot of competent performers around like Lina do Carmo.«
(Helena Katz, O Estado, São Paulo, Brazil)

»Capivara: an old-time, whole stone ...
Lina do Carmo's performance is a moment of beauty and equilibrium ... There is only one expression to describe the performance “Capivara”: it must to be seen. It is a production that goes beyond the dance and deeply flirts with the poetry.
Capivara is it: a monstrous and delicate concrete poem. Lina polished the stone and found the gem... Capivara goes far, very far. In the meaning of the past, because it sweeps our unconscious. And throws itself into the future, because it is based on the best technique and capacity of synthesis that a careful artist could reach. It must be seen.«

(Durvalino Filho, Meio Norte, Teresina, Brazil)

 

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