Movimento4
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Movimento4 was the first installment of a new annual festival showcasing the best of innovative Portuguese contemporary dance and dance-based movement in Britain.

Three residencies took place between October 2004 and January 2005 with Laban, Sadler's Wells in London and Nottingham's NOW Festival in Nottingham they played host to some of Portugal’s most distinguished and exciting choreographers. Each choreographer created a brand new work at their venue in conjunction with local partners including dance students, a company of older dancers and local artists.

The residencies culminated in three world premieres performed alongside showcases of existing pieces by the participating choreographers.

Who was Involved
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Joclécio Azevedo
Bomba Suicida
Clara Andermatt and the Company of Elders

Letter from HE Fernando António de Lacerda Andresen Guimarães, Portuguese Ambassador to the UK and Patron of Movimento4

Modern dance, combining visual freedom with strength and vigour, creates a unique movement, sometimes better understood by the soul than by the eyes.I say "modern dance" and not "ballet" as "ballet" is a modern art and dancing is prehistoric. The history of ballet is but a fragment of the history of dancing.As Lincoln Kirstein once said "it is difficult for most of us to remember, since the history of ballet is so richly documented, that even in the beginning of time dance has existed in all primitive societies". Humankind danced long before there was music. As a matter of fact, dance may have been the reason for music in the first place.

Dance is, probably, the first form of the human exteriorization of the soul. That makes it a part of our innermost essence, and, consequently, an essential part of ourselves.

For that reason, it is for me an honour and a pleasure to introduce to the English audiences some of the contemporary and innovative Portuguese Choreographers whom, together with the students at the British dance Institutes, have created new pieces for the Movimento4 event.
Andresen Guimarães

Joclécio Azevedo Residency
Monday 20th September to Friday 23rd October 2004

Performances
Thursday 21st October and Friday 22nd October, Laban

Joclécio worked with 3rd year BA (Hons) Dance Theatre students from Laban to develop new dance and performance art pieces that premiered at Laban and will then tour nationally in early 2005.

'He has opened my eyes to a whole new area which makes the notion of new choreography very exciting for me.'
Victoria Lewis, Laban sudent

'[I was excited by] his constant questioning of the contemporary modes of representation … I constantly had to challenge myself not to fall into comfort.'
Anais Bouts, Laban sudent

'Joclecio had a great energy in his delivery of his classes. I was excited by the 'movement vocabulary' and the use of text and objects.'
Mark Carberry, Laban sudent

We caught up with Joclécio to ask him some questions. Here's what he had to say about the project…

Please tell us a little about your work…
My work is based on the understanding of the body from different perspectives. The social body, the historical body, the aesthetical body and many others. I deal with environments where the body can be placed in order to perform different kind of operations, revealing itself in the process.

What are the ideas behind the production and performance of your pieces?
The performance is constructed of a selection of actions placed in time and order to produce meaning. Touching the frontiers between performance genres, disciplines and languages is a way of searching new forms of communicating with the observer, asking for a more participatory and critical response from them. The process of constructing a choreographic piece should start by asking: what is choreography? And what is the idea of body behind that? The production conditions and the context of a new creation, are already establishing what the piece could be. This calls for a response in creative terms, opening the possibility of using the context of creation as a subject and material for the creation. Whatever is the environment that appears in this process, it will be a support for the exposure of the body, raising also new questions concerning its materiality, psychology and appearance. I like the idea of thinking about the performer as someone who has a social role between Narcissus and the Idiot. Perhaps this idea suggests extremes in terms of social behaviours, but it also allows new possibilities for playing with the use of the body.

I am interested in using images in order to empty their surface, searching for their structures to reveal strategies of manipulation and power. The absurdity or the humour of my work could be the result of the exposure of all the contradictions inside the process, not as a goal, but as a consequence of changing the way we perceive and look to ourselves and to others.

How do you feel about coming to work in the UK?
After working professionally in Portugal for more than ten years as a performer, choreographer and also developing educational projects, I'm very happy to have this opportunity to develop my work in an international context with people from very different backgrounds, and to be supported by a strong production. I believe that the emphasis in creating challenging and interesting new production contexts is extremely important to open new ways to look at our performance practice.

Tell us about the Laban residency…
After one week of introduction work we are still trying to find bases for what the piece could be. Before starting the composition we are in a process of reaching mutual understanding, learning strategies of "negotiating" ideas, and responding to each other's expectations.

I believe that in an educational project like this the big emphasis should be put on the relationship between me and the students. I'm also trying to relate what I'm doing here with my past work as well as letting the environment, people and the local context determine the choice of vocabulary and the construction of the production process.

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Bomba Suicida Residency
Friday 15th October to Sunday 31st October 2004

Performances
Thursday 21st October and Friday 22nd Octber,
Sandfield Theatre

Bomba's choreographers, Felipe Viegas, Tânia Carvalho, Mônica Coteriano and Ivo Serra were resident in the UK's premiere festival of performance art. They had carte blanche to explore, create and present new work for the festival.

"The show was intense, delicate and funny by turns and sometimes all at once. It's the first time that I've seen the full Bomba and I loved it. Somehow their blend of dance, speech, projected imagery and song is both hot and cool. If they don't come back to the UK for a while, then I may have to go to Portugal to see them."
Leiza McLeod, Afrikan Caribbean Arts Forum Officers

About Bomba Suicida
Formed in 1997, Bomba Suicida is an association for cultural promotion, based in Lisbon. It produces and supports young contemporary artists working in the field of the performing arts.

About the NOW Festival Residency
The performances included pieces inspired by Nottingham. Choreographers involved in the project visited Nottingham in September 2004 to research and develop works inspired by the city.

The four pieces that Mônica Coteriano, Ivo Serra, Filipe Viegas and Tânia Carvalho presented in Nottingham for the NOW! Festival were put together after a one-week residency in the city.

The objective was to create four solo performances that would explore their perceptions of the city. The artists wanted to do more than simply reflect the city; they filtered the city through their subjective visions in order to connect with it in a more personal way. More than mapping the city, these four artists chose to 'breathe' it.

Four distinct pieces were developed in Lisbon over a period of a month and a half.

Mônica Coteriano worked with the idea of solitude in the urban environment, where people can be ignored to the point of oblivion, as if they do not even exist. The result was a choreography in which the feminine body is exposed in a wide space, moving without ever showing its identity.

Ivo Serra concentrated on the visual aspect of the city. From photos created digitally and edited in video, Ivo reconstructed an imagined city from the real one and confronts it with the expressionist poetry of T.S. Eliot. In 'Graffiti' the author questions the rules on which a city is made.

Filipe Viegas composed a piece in which the romantic poetry of Byron is brought face to face with a modern city apparently obsessed with consumerism. The clash of times in one place is presented in a piece that travels from the choreography of empirical existence to the popular performance of a rock singer.

Tânia Carvalho's subject was the unreal city: a city that exists in the dreams of a person asleep in that city. The result is a piece in which actions, movement and text succeed in a rapid and stricken velocity, one after another, with no gaps, just like dreams.

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Prior to the residency Bomba Suicida sent us some information to illustrate the basis for the work that debuted at the NOW Festival:

"Away from the heart" by Filipe Viegas
"Away from the heart" is a piece where Filipe Viegas confronts two distinct ways of thinking: the romantic poetry by Lord Byron and the consumist everyday life of nowadays Nottingham.

"The secrets of my Nottingham sleep" by Tânia Carvalho
Walking around in Nottingham by day, I discover a new city. A city with it's historical places and episodes; with streets shops and houses; with lots of different smells, noises and voices; rain and sunshine fighting for a place and much more.

Sleeping in my Nottingham rented bed by night, I create a world of illusions. Mixing all the things I've seen, smelled, touched, etc, in my dreams. Will my Nottingham dreams connect with real Nottingham? How?

"Graffiti" by Ivo Serra
"Urban, statement, reflexion, message, poetry, colours. Nottingham as a " graffiti " in video, words and sound."

"The woman who wasn't there" by Mônica Coteriano
"A week went by.
A memory is the only thing left.
Just a memory.
The woman who wasn't there."

Please tell us a little about your work for Movimento…

Filipe Viegas:"Away From the Heart" is a piece in which I present two different atmospheres: one filled with romantic and classical feelings and one where a song where a Lord Byron poem by is twisted into a rock single. The deeper and the superficial are put side to side to create a performance where the energy of the performer is the core that holds the two environments together.

Ivo Serra: " Graffiti " is a video with a live speech, it shows the process to get to an abstracted drawing of the city seen using video techniques, reflecting present, past, future, memories, existence and identity.

Tânia Carvalho: "The secrets of my Nottingham sleep" is a work based on my dreams during the residency in Nottingham. It will have a text part where I describe parts of those dreams with sounds recorded in Nottingham and a very choreographic part; I want to create confusion like we have in our mind when we dream.

Mônica Coteriano: Because it was a short time and everything happened so quickly I didn't even start to create during the visit to Nottingham... And that was the basis to start the piece. The feeling of being there but the only thing that stayed was just a foggy memory.

What are the ideas behind the production and performance of this piece?

FV: In "Away From the Heart" I want the audience to have a feeling that something is lost. Things like our history, our past are left behind and the focus is on the future, to what is newest. We should know that history repeats itself.

IS: The ideas behind "Graffiti" is that we live in a society full of visual information, that somehow is related to desires, wishes, concerns, fears, camouflaged by consumerism, and how images are reflected in our way of living. "Graffiti" is going to show as well that this way of art is not just vandalism.

TC: The idea behind "The secrets of my Nottingham sleep" is to give the audience a very personal point of view of the city, to speak about a city in a way that nobody can understand exactly, because it is an illusion that I created. The point is to make a bridge between real and not real, and to make unreal became stronger than the real, or even to make unreal became more real than the real. If I go to a city and I get an impression about it that is not the impression everyone else gets, I will have the idea that I had the wrong impression. But what goes in one's mind is always real even if people disagree or don't understand.

MC: While in the city I started writing a lyrics about what I people I saw, their behaviour and the things I heard. Mixing everything resulted in a song that I feel very happy about singing although it may sound sad.

How do you feel about coming to work in the UK?

FV: As a Portuguese artist I find it very difficult to present my work either in Portugal or abroad, so it is always great to have a chance to present my work anywhere. But being able to present it internationally gives me a chance to show my work to a new audience, and hopefully the communication between the piece and the public will be clear. Being successful will give more impetus to tour with my work and show it to more and more people: live art is emergent because it is ephemeral, and I will not last forever.

IS: I feel really happy to show my work in a different culture and language. And to prove to myself that my work as a Portuguese artist can communicate in another country, with a different culture.

TC: I feel very pleased that people from the UK showed interest in my work. The UK has a very big community of artists and people from a lot of places go there to find work in the arts. It is a good opportunity to show my work and for more people to see it.

MC:I feel very very happy, and more accomplished for me because it is very fulfilling to have people from other countries and cultures see my work.

Tell us about the NOW Festival residency…

FV: We spent one week in Nottingham with Dance4 and NOW Festival, they were wonderful to welcome us and find out all about our needs. This was essential to make decisions on what work I wanted to do. Being in the city that was the subject helped make clear all the initial ideas.

IS: As an artist being in Nottingham in the surroundings that Dance4 and Now Festival arranged for Bomba was fantastic, making me to feel at home, giving me the possibility to see the city and to work on it in a free way to accomplish my ideas about Nottingham.

TC: It was a very nice residency; the Dance4 team gave us a lot of support. It was nice to go to a city with the idea of creating something about it and to have only one week. Everything had to be very fast, I liked it being fast because, like that, I could think more of the impact that the city gives.

MC: One thing I have to point out is that everybody from Dance4 and the Now Festival were very welcoming and nice. I enjoyed it a lot because I had to totally be aware in order to absorb everything because it was a very short time. It was different in that sense from the other residencies I had experienced.

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Clara Andermatt Residency
Monday 10th January to Friday 21st January 2005

Performance
Friday 21st January, Lilian Baylis Theatre, Sadler's Wells

Choreographer, Clara Andermatt created a new piece for Sadler's Wells' Company of Elders (Over 60s Performance Group). This new work was performed at Sadler's Wells Lilian Baylis Theatre, alongside a UK premiere of Variations on Polaroid. This specially adapted piece draws on Clara's work 'Polaroid', first presented on February 2003 at Lisbon's Centro Cultural de Belém.

'Here was a strikingly different concept of dance teaching, for a group, from our regular weekly Friday morning dance class meetings; to be faced with consecutive daily dance rehearsals for two weeks, from 10 till 5 clock, each day and to present the completed dance show on the last Friday, before an audience, was in it self an exciting challenge that could not be resisted'
Geoff McGarry Company of Elders

We met up with Clara during her visit London to meet the Sadler's Wells Over 60's group. Here's what she had to say about her work in general and the project.

'The instrument for my work is the body - involving the idiosyncrasies of ones soul, thoughts and emotions

I want to understand natural humanity and understand other levels of consciousness. I want to understand myself and make myself understood through the human body.

I almost always lean towards the same theme - the theme of the turbulence that I feel is reflected onto me, onto those I see and onto others. Love, the complexity of meeting and the possibilities and impossibilities of communication are the recurrent themes of my work.

My artistic career has been marked by a voyage and I think that this journey has been continuous, via the meetings and exchanges which mark the origins of my work.

As a result my shows have an emotional, theatrical expression. Multidisciplinary working is another hallmark of my approach, where the crossing point of various languages, methodologies, techniques, and disciplines serve to strengthen my choreographic discourse. I like to work with others and for others, these collaborators are the source of my inspiration and a point of communication.

I enjoy long processes of creation, where the reflection, exploration, improvisation and final construction of the show can be created in their own time and developed and matured, partly with predetermined ideas, but also with other artistic collaborators' interpretation, which allow me to discover, develop and consolidate my ideas.

Music deeply inhabits all of my creation. It can have a much more relevant means of illustrating the body's experience. It has a life of its own and is an integral part in my work onstage.

Throughout my career I have had the opportunity to work with many, many students, dancers and collaborators with different cultural and social backgrounds, ages, and artistic specialisms.

I have, therefore accepted the invitation of Moviment04, to work with a group of people all over 60 years old. It follows, naturally that I believe that this is going to be an extremely enriching and challenging experience. Nonetheless, it will be very challenging, not only because of the specific characteristics of the people I will be working with (who I met in December for the first time) but mainly because the time with which I will be working with them will be rather short!

The group is made of people whose past was not especially marked by professional performing activity, and this gives added value to this project's community aspect. I believe that art has a great role to play in the area of community development, and an important aspect of being an artist is to accept and indeed to propel projects that contain this message. In Portugal, unfortunately, community projects neither have the investment nor the performance opportunity that they have in other countries, notably in the United Kingdom.

I did my academic dance training at London Studio Centre for four years. It made me wish to follow a career as a dancer, so I have a particularly affectionate connection with London's people and with the city itself.

This project as part of the Moviment04 series, revives memories of the many things that I lived and learned here, and so naturally when I was offered this commission, I grabbed it especially fondly and energetically. In addition, as a result of my international career in other countries, I have not had the opportunity to present my own work in the UK. That this project allows me to open this opportunity makes me even more pleased.'

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The project was run by the hub, a London-based arts development practice in conjunction with partner organisations Laban, NOW Festival and Sadlers Wells. It was funded by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and Arts Council England and supported by Vida Nova magazine.For further information about the hub

Please contact:
the hub
10, The Whitechapel Centre,
85 Myrdle Street, London, E1 1HL
020 7377 1373
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