This dance piece by Cape Verdean choreographer Marlene Monteiro Freitas is making its Spanish debut on 27 and 28 November at the Sala Roja Concha Velasco auditorium of Teatros del Canal, as part of the Autumn Festival. Inspired by The Thousand and One Nights and the character of Scheherazade, it explores survival in the face of patriarchal terror through a staging that combines dance, theatre and performance.
Having trained in Lisbon and at P.A.R.T.S., the prestigious school founded by Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Monteiro Freitas has built a career closely linked to the European dance scene, performing at venues and festivals in cities such as Avignon, Lyon, Vienna and Berlin. Her performance language is characterised by accumulation, transformation and excess, elements that transform her productions into physical and visual worlds of great intensity.
In NÔT (meaning ‘night’ in Creole), eight performers – who are simultaneously dancers and percussionists – traverse a phantasmagorical space characterised by the contrasts between love and war, captivity and freedom. The reference to Scheherazade serves as a starting point for exploring the power of stories to resist violence and keep the possibility of survival alive.
The carnivalesque nature of the performance brings forth a chaotic and exuberant world in which identities are constantly shifting and opposites coexist and clash. The narratives overlap in a succession of layers in which movement, sound and the physical presence of the performers create a stage experience characterised by tension.
This conception of the body and movement was already present in Monteiro Freitas’s earlier works, such as Bacantes, Jaguar and Guintche, where ritual coexists alongside the grotesque and musical blends with physical. Her productions have received widespread international critical acclaim for their ability to push the boundaries between beauty and violence to the limit.
Artistic credits:
Venue: Teatros del Canal - Sala Roja Concha Velasco
- Choreographer - Marlene Monteiro Freitas
- Assistant choreographer - Francisco Rolo
- Performers - Ben Green, Henri “Cookie” Lesguillier, Joãozinho da Costa, Mariana Tembe, Marie Albert, Miguel Filipe, Rui Paixão and Tomás Moital
- Set design - Yannick Fouassier, MMF
- Lighting design and technical direction - Yannick Fouassier
- Costume design - MMF, Marisa Escaleira
- Sound design - Rui Antunes
- Stage manager - Ana Luísa Novais
- Props - Cláudio Silva
- Set design intern - Emma Ait-Kaci
- Artistic advisory team - João Figueira and Martin Valdés-Stauber
- Production and distribution - P.OR.K
- Executive Director - Rui Silveira - Something Great
- Tour production manager - Niki Fischer - Something Great
- Production manager for the show - Janine Lages – P.OR.K
- Co-production - Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Festival d’Avignon, Berliner Festspiele, Kampnagel International Summer Festival, Culturgest, MC2 - Maison de la Culture de Grenoble, Le Quartz, La Comédie de Clermont-Ferrand, Maison de la danse Lyon, La Villette, La Comédie de Genève & La Bâtie – Festival de Genève, Onassis STEGI, Teatro Municipal do Porto and PACT Zollverein
- Artist residencies - O Espaço do Tempo, Alkantara, OPART, E.P.E./ESTÚDIOS VICTOR CÓRDON, Onassis AiR, MC2 – Maison de la Culture de Grenoble and Kampnagel International Summer Festival
- Institutional support - Dançando com a Diferença
- Acknowledgements - Carlos Duarte, Atelier MC2 Grenoble
Duration: 1 hour and 45 minutes
Please note: this show contains visual effects
