The report of my death was an exaggeration
This statement, rightly adopted as the tittle of Susana Otero's first long choreographic work, was a comment by Mark Twain upon the reports of his death due to an alleged illness.
The piece is inspired by texts of the Portuguese novelist José Cardoso Pires, especially “De Profundis – Valsa Lenta”, which the author wrote after recovering from a stroke that temporarily deprived him of his speech – a period he refers to as the “white death”; and “Fumar ao espelho” (Smoking at the mirror), an autobiographic monologue.
Susana Otero makes in this work an exercise in irony, reflecting on life and death – the white death and the other one, a lot darker and overreaching -, and on contemporary dance itself and its power as an art form. Always with great tenderness towards the “creatures” that she sets on stage, Susana Otero appeals to a strong empathy from the audience – one sees this performance as if one is under the Sun: enjoying the warmness or coying away from the burn.
On stage two men and one woman, lost like Godot waiting for himself (the Beckett reference makes quite a lot of sense in this case). The work enfolds between the spoken word – that movement of the voice – and the dance - that voice of the body -, interacting, without trampling or invading each other, with an ease oblivious of any dogma of arts miscegenation or fashionable quirks in current artistic creation processes; a good example of what a certain exercise of the contemporary has to offer.
“And now what, José?
…. you walk, José!
José, where to?”
“José, at the mirror, shrugs.”
Ficha
idea, direction and coreography Susana Otero . dancers (improvisation and interpretation) Sara Leite, Rui Marques e Flávio Rodrigues . text free adaptation from «Fumar ao espelho», by José Cardoso Pires . music Quarteto Dissonante, W. A. Mozart . light design João Teixeira . costumes Susana Otero . graphic design Patricia Costa . production BCN