Sílvia Real
Andiamo![CD]
by Sérgio Pelágio (original music for Andiamo!
by Francisco Camacho)
This record presents the music composed by Sérgio Pelágio for Andiamo!, a show by Francisco Camacho dedicated to the memory of choreographer Paula Massano, which premiered in 2012 at Fábrica ASA (Guimarães, Portugal) and was reprised in 2013 at Centro Cultural de Belém (Lisbon, Portugal).
“There must be something curious about the proximity of a volcano.”
D. H. Laurence, in Sea and Sardinia
The setting evokes a volcanic crater, suggesting the imminence of catastrophe as well as the power of creation. In their passing through these sites, several people forge their identities. Through their initial interactions, we discover their petty need to be in control of situations, never missing an opportunity to dominate others. While observing them, however, it is difficult to say who actually controls whom and what. At a certain point, they will take a step towards another being. Faced with this new becoming, they are challenged, both in their individuality and in their attention to the other. This gesture will lead to the shattering of their adopted personas, revealing their desperation.
In response to a need for action, their answer will be to imagine and to reinvent, to create.
An unidentified figure, ignored by almost all of them, looks at us, the spectators, throughout the whole discourse of their actions. *
* abstract from the Andiamo! booklet, Centro Cultural de Belém 2013
ANDIAMO! CREW
composition, electric and acoustic guitar, loops
Sérgio Pelágio
mastering
Paulo Curado, except track 5 by Moz Carrapa
graphic design
Carlos Bártolo
released December 8, 2014
produced, played, recorded and mixed by Sérgio Pelágio
This performance is dedicated to the memory of Paula Massano (1949–2012), dancer and choreographer, who was one of the most influential people in my professional career. Through her, I had my first encounter with artistic techniques and approaches that I did not know. Above all, I discovered improvisation and the role of the performer as co-creator, with an increased sense of responsibility in the construction of a performance, and the satisfaction of this shared responsibility. That working time with Paula Massano is the source of my greatest interest in such a group creation: the challenge and enthusiasm of bringing together a team of collaborators, from dancers and actors to musicians, from theorists to set designers, costume designers, and lighting designers. It is in this gathering of diverse experiences and artistic visions that the proposal for the show to be created materialises. The different contributions constitute the matter from which the show is built. It is through dialogue, both artistic and professional, that we jointly propose an aesthetic experience that we hope to be a possible answer to the observation of the world, present and past.
We focus on human behaviours and social interactions, on relations of power and domination, exclusion and inclusion, dependence and self-determination. We attend to complementarity and symmetry in the development of scenes; working equally at the individual and the group level. We explore movement in the tension between animal and human, mundane and improbable, melancholic and vigorous.
In defining the scenic space, we opted for an idea of an exterior landscape with material typical of internal spaces, a space of passage, in which the threat of danger goes alongside a certain coldness or de-characterisation. To inhabit it, alongside other characters, we summon figures from different imaginaries, such as the mamuthone – from the carnival in Mamoiada, Sardinia – or that of a messenger – as in Greek tragedy.
We could not, nor did we want, to alienate ourselves from the specific context in which we live, locally and globally. Andiamo! is a call, necessarily treacherous, to those on and off stage who believe that the structures – and their strategies – that shape our lives must be confronted.
Francisco Camacho, text included in the Andiamo! booklet, CCB 2013