Performance no Braço de Prata, nov.2009

A BRIDGE TO A TIMELESS PLACE
"Life lived with poetry in mind is itself an Art"
Ferlinghetti

ensaio de 'A Bridge to a Timeless Place', 2009

''Poetry, the shortest distance between two human beings''
Ferlinghetti

"A Bridge to a Timeless Place- performance for two living beings" (coming soon on Braço de Prata...)

"Two women" by Sofia Ferreira 2006

After the journey there is...staying, remaining and relating. This 'relating' is what interests us most, because it contains in itself a constant possibility of discovery and rewriting of the Present.

"Every movement means occupation and definition of a

new border and transformation will occur on both sides!"

It carries also a responsability towards the knowledge of the past, although it brings in itself the seed of the new each moment!

"...even in Raissa, sad city, runs an invisible thread that bonds a human being to another for a moment, and then tears itself apart before streching itself between moving points, drawing new quick sketches, in such a way that in every second the unhappy city contains a happy city that isnt even aware that she exists."

Italo Calvino (The Invisible Cities)

They are together and they relate through a rope or a feeling of intimacy. The rope allows the exploration of physical situations as a contrast between imobility and expansion, contention and movement. They can create one, two or as many forms as they wish... to experience a poetic metamorphosis of that volatile territory, with no time and no place, that Human Relations are.

"Poetry, the shortest distance between two human beings"

Ferlinghetti (Poetry as Insurgent Art)

Depois da viagem existe ... o ficar, o permanecer e o relacionar.

Este 'relacionar' é o que nos interessa mais, pois contém em si a constante possibilidade de descoberta e reformulação do Presente.

"Cada movimento significa ocupação e definição de uma

nova fronteira e a transformação ocorre em ambos os lados"

Acarreta também uma responsabilidade em relação ao conhecimento do passado, mas traz em si também a semente do novo a cada instante!

''... mesmo em Raissa, cidade triste, corre um fio invisivel que liga um ser vivo a outro por um instante,

e a seguir se desfaz, e depois torna a estender-se entre pontos em movimento,

desenhando novas rápidas figuras, de modo que a cada segundo a cidade infeliz

contêm uma cidade feliz que nem sequer sabe que existe.''

Italo Calvino (As Cidades Invisiveis)

Elas estão juntas e relacionam-se através de uma corda ou um sentimento de intimidade.

A corda permite a exploração de situações fisicas, contrapondo imobilidade e expansão, contenção e movimento. Poderão gerar uma forma, duas formas, ou muitas formas... para experienciar a metamorfose poética desse território volátil, sem tempo nem lugar, que é o das Relações Humanas.

"Poesia, a menor distancia entre dois seres humanos."

Ferlinghetti (Poesia como uma Arte Insurgente)

G.I.'s street performance

"Rosário-Ecce Virgo Concipiet" Already on a street near you

"Quae est ista quae progreditur quasi aurora consurgens,
pulchra ut luna, electra ut sol, terribilis ut castorum acies ordinata."


"Who is this one woman walking as the dawn, beautifull as the moon,
shining as the sun, fearless like a well organised army on the battlefield?"
(Hymn 6, 9- in Sermon XXI Padre Antonio Vieira)

She is double and ten thousand millions at the same time, she is the Mystic Rose, the Heart, the Center. Her creative force receives, gives birth, protects, nourishes all life...because existence originates from nonexistence and motion from nonmotion.

"And see, while your heart asks 'when?', how all this as to be before we find eachothers face without any mirror, we have to cross the narrow door
and feel where all this time a rose as secretly been opening inside us."
("The Way of the Alchymist- The art of transformation)

"Quem é esta que vai caminhando como a aurora quando se levanta, formosa como a lua, brilhante como o sol, terrível como um exército bem ordenado posto em campo?"

(Cântico 6, 9-citado por Padre Antonio Vieira no Sermão XXI)

Ela é dupla e dez mil milhões ao mesmo tempo, ela é a Rosa Mistica, o Coração, o Centro. A sua força criativa recebe, concebe, protege, nutre toda a vida... porque a existência se origina na não-existencia e o movimento na imobilidade.

"E observa, enquanto o teu coração se questiona 'quando?', como tudo tem de ser antes de encontrarmos as nossas faces sem qualquer espelho,
temos de atravessar a porta estreita e sentir onde durante todo este tempo uma rosa
se tem estado a abrir secretamente dentro de nós."
("O Caminho do Alquimista- A arte da transformação)

A Transformative Art...

The imobility, the breathing, the pause...the moment where the infinit materializes!

It's the only performance we can remember that gives us the power of being both the observer and the observed at the same time in a moment of total PRESENCE. Observing not only ourselves, in a meditative state, but also having an anthropological look over human nature.

"Performance" art in itself was a step ahead to dilute the borders between Life and Art and a means to explore the physical dimension of the body: the implication of the "artist's body" is the only characteristic that doesnt change in the definition of performance art- he is a cultural, social and political agitator!

We Will be Your Mirrors

The distance between the artist and his work of art is undefined. The borders between the spectator and the performer are also diluted.
It's an ephemeral creation, always in transformation, where we assume different archetypes.
It's a form of expression, more than by the action, by the fact that one simply IS!Something internal arises transforming itself in an afirmation of existence...
Feeling our own limits, not only at a physical level but also emotional, mental and even spiritual. Because our eyes can reveal more than the form we take...because we assume the god in us and life itself as a work of art...

Some lose notes about STILLNESS taken from the book "Movement for Actors" (edited by Nicole Potter)....

In medieval church were displayed frozen arrangements, sometimes in procession, of costumed performers reproducing allegorical scenes from the Bible. In Renaissance this was a popular form of entertainment with images of art and literature.

In the XIX century the Pose Plastique, an imitation of classical art, reappeared and was part of cabaret and music hall, specially with Nikita Baliev, a russian producer who develloped the concept of "living dolls". Also Gordon Graig (1872-1966), considered the placement of the actor as a "super-marionette" wich "will not compete with life but rather will go beyond it's restrictions".

For Maeterlinck (1862-1949), one of the first playwrights and theorists of symbolist drama, the silence of a static theater opened a window of spiritual and mysterious forces that control human life and helped to create simple characters of universal significance about human condition. Silence and stillness are a grounding or blanck canvas from wich a production springs and can remain a dynamic and expressive element.

She can be likened to the japanese aesthetic concept of the spaces between the lines of a visual design being as important as the lines themselves-seeing the lines as borders for the spaces.

The image of a stillbody as a mirror to the unconscious connotes a border state of awareness between waking and dream, living and dead, as in a trance state, where the body serves as a kind of mask pointing to possession by multiple inner selves, emotions and extreme forces.

Yeat's says about this inner life:"Who follow the old rule (and) keep their bodies still and their minds awake and clear, dreading especially any confusion between the images of the mind and the objects of sense; they seek to become, as it were, polished mirrors. ("Per Amica Silencia Lunae"in Mythologies, 1917)"

Genevieve Stebbins, on the turn of the XXth century and one of the first theorists of social performance of womanliness, considered this a creative work of intellectual love, a spiritual aspiration toward a superior and definite type of beauty in wich lives and moves a human soul. She used bodily discourse to define a gendered identity that became a performance based assumption that an interior self could and should be expressed and experienced by means of a visual code of womanly poses and movements.

Performance art of the 1960s and 70s emerged from visual art, and so had a natural affinity for stillness. The body again became a direct medium of expression, as conceptual art and happenings put emphasis on the direct experience of time, space, and materials- Gilbert and George ...

The street performers who pose as "living statues" force our curiosity that is piqued to look for signs of life- breathing, a blink, a slight swaying or flinchering-, to give away their artifice. The body is exposed to close scrutiny, and its lack of action, of forward movement, allows the audience to "read" the static image at its own pace and follow its own train of thought.

The fixed image of the body in live performance has a particular resonance since that body occupies the same time and space as the audience and our experience of rythm and tempo are related to pulse and emotion. Our connection to the performer is a kinesthetic one, as we watch a body not unlike our own breathing and held in space, still in a dynamic relationship to gravity in a balance of dynamic forces and heightened awareness of the present moment.

Stillness abstracts physical form, while asking us to reconsider what it is to be alive, sensate and human.

Ilya Prigogine, the physicist known for his work in chaos theory and who finds in art new models for nature, has characterized our era as a convergence of times and spaces in a "time without measure" of stillness: "what we have in mind may be expressed best by a reference to sculture- be it the dancing Shiva or in the miniature temples of Guerrero- in wich there appears very clearly the search for a junction between stillness and motion, time arrested and time passing. It is this confrontation that will give our era its uniqueness."

G.I. JANE´S : this is a government issue.

G.I. Jane's.... performed by kitsune & hanamiche 2009 Sta_Cruz - Portugal

An "agit-prop" project that recalls the image of Rosie the Riveter, the american ícon of II World War, where art is the form of feminine emancipation and liberation...

"We proclaim life as a work of art"

"Yes, We Can"

"The body is the door"

"We will listen with the sight and skin...we will cover ourselves with eyes"

"We soaked our hair with ink and wrote on the walls"

"To keep the soul and the body together is equal to remain alive"

"To live and not to survive"

"What do we really do with the time that is given to us?"

"We buy there for we Are?"

"Protect us from our desires"

"How aware are we?"

"How do we know? We dont..."

"It's never too late to become what might have been"

"All the time I was doing this I was thinking of you"

Most of our "propaganda" phrases are taken from women artists statements but not only...some of the most inspiring ones:

"The extrareligious sacredness is created by the triangle of Love, Poetry and Rebellion. (Octávio Paz)"

"We are all born poets, untill they get you... (Charles Bukowsky)"

"Must I create a sistem or be enslaved by another men's?! (William Blake)"
"Spread joy, love and confusion" (Henry Miller)

"The Three Parcae"

"The Three Parcae" 2008 Sta_Cruz - Portugal

A work in progress as a butoh performance...

When all the souls had chosen their lives according to their lots, they went before Lachesis (lachos= one’s special lot or portion of fate). And she sent with each, as the guardian of his life and the fulfiller of his choice, the genius (daimon) that had been chosen…Lachesis leads the soul to the second of the 3 personifications of destiny, klotho (klotho=to twist by spinning)… under her hand and her turning of the spindle, the destiny of the chosen lot is ratified, his karma. Then the genius again led the soul to the spinning of Athropos (Atropos= not to be turned, inflexible), to make the web of its destiny irreversible by cutting the umbelical cord for one to be born and the strings of life when one's time is over.

The law of rythms...

The Butoh Performance: search a small video of a rehearsal in Youtube "Parcas.mov"

Brida

Brida performed by hanamiche 2009 Sta_Cruz - Portugal

She is the symbol of the Black Goddess... she is the woman that predicts the future, that runs wild under the rain and the moon during the nights, she is the one that spreads magic...

Cuckoo Clock

Cuckoo Clock performed by kitsune & hanamiche 2009 Sta_Cruz - Portugal

Inspired by the bird call used to announce hours since XVII century in the Black Forest...

Pierrot

Pierrot performed by Elektra 2009 Sta_Cruz - Portugal

Pierrot estatuado por Elektra 2009 Sta_Cruz - Portugal

The original free-spirited revolutionary of european improvisational theatre. Heartbroken, eternal wanderer, carrying with him the remnants of his scattered life, he is the personification of inocence and lunacy...

Oya

OYA performed by Vixen  2009 Sta_Cruz - Portugal

OYA estatuada por Vixen  2009 Sta_Cruz - Portugal

Yoruban Orisha of the winds and tempests. Also known as Iansãn, she is the bringer of Change and Seeker of Truth. As  a godess she carries a Sword, symbol of war, and an 'Eruxeim' wich is a kind of wip, to call upon the storms. She is also  the daughter of Yemanjá .

Susan Small

Susan Small performed by hanamiche 2009 Sta_Cruz - Portugal

A colourfull statue with body painting in an true-false effect with the dress. She is a flower-woman playing with two rainbow butterflies in her hands.

Prémio do jurí Festival de Estátuas de Espinho 2010

Ícarus

Ícarus performed by Vixen 2009 Espinho-Portugal

Ícarus estatuado por Vixen 2009 Espinho-Portugal

Mythological character. Son of  the  architect and craftsman Daedalus.  He manufactered wings of feathers and wax, to flee from the Labyrinth in which both were held captive. Inspite his father's warnings, he  flew too close to sun, and the heat melt down the wax, and he could no longer fly.... the sea ( wich is known as Icarian sea) received him.

Golden Hammadríade

Hammadríade performed by hanamiche 2008 Sta_Cruz -Portugal

As a symbol of a (h)earthly force it's a return to the roots by connecting with the spirit of trees and it's inner movement...

Um poema de Ricardo Reis ("Odes"):

Vê como com o seu jeito sempre antigo
Aprendido na origem azul dos deuses
As ninfas não sossegam
Na sua dança eterna
E como as hammadríades constantes
Murmuram pelos rumos das florestas
E atrasam o deus Pã
Na atenção à sua flauta

Ganhou o Concurso de estátuas-vivas de Fronteira 2009

Beatrix

Beatrix performed by Kitsune, 2008 N. Regedoura-Portugal

pink lady with glasses and bubbles, coming out of dream land...

Urantia

Urantia performed by Vixen,  2008Espinho-Portugal

Urantia estatuada por Vixen, 2008 Espinho-Portugal

From the cocoon, a new being is born.

Narciso

Narciso, performed by Vixen .2006 Arnhem-Holland

Narciso, estatuado por Vixen. 2006 Arnhem-Holanda

2nd Prize at World Statues Festival

 She is like Narciso, leaning with fascination, gazing at her own reflexion, leaning, but not falling....

Pietá

Pietá performed by Vixen and Zizi, 2005 Espinho-Portugal

Pietá, estatuada por Vixen e Zizi, 2005 Espinho-Portugal

What if... Jesus had been a woman...

Geisha Azul / Blue Geisha

Blue Geisha, performed by Vixen in 2004 Espinho-Portugal

Geisha Azul, estatuada por Vixen em 2004, Espinho-Portugal

In japanese (kanji),  Gei= art, and  Sha= person. Meaning artist or performing artist.