Assim vai o mundo

At the time, Sérgio Pelágio wrote the following on Assim Vai o Mundo (So is the World):

Those people who always talk as if they knew everything are a mystery to me. Are they really like that? Do they really take themselves seriously? Or do they tremble with fear at night, when they go to sleep, in a nightmare of doubt? “What do you do when someone like that shows up?” asks Alvy Singer in Woody Allen's film Annie Hall when, while queuing for a film session, he is forced to listen to the opinions of the man behind him on a book by McLuhan. “And what’s best is that you know nothing about McLuhan! Wanna see?” Magically, Alvy makes Mr. McLuhan appear behind a wall, and the man says to the man: “You know nothing about my work.” And Alvy concludes: “If life was like this...

What would the world be like if we could always turn to the McLuhans? If we had access to multiple sides of an issue simultaneously, as if we could see everything from above as well as from within? Is it so difficult to expand our consciousness beyond the limits of the small glimpses we can have of the world?

Assim Vai o Mundo takes place in the present, at a time when, from an infinitude of viewpoints, we are all looking toward the next millennium. If a photograph were taken of us now, we would all appear in the picture. We decided to seize the opportunity. One of our cameras was the internet because all viewpoints are there. “The Internet has created the most precise mirror of people as a whole that we've yet had. We see the mundanity, the avarice, the ugliness, the perversity, the loneliness, the love, the inspiration, the serendipity, and the tenderness that manifest in humanity” (Jaron Lanier in Wired magazine).

“Assim vai o mundo” (“So is the world”) was the subtitle of the documentary series featuring international news that used to be shown in Portuguese cinemas until the 1970s.

FICHA TÉCNICA

Conception, choreography and performance
Sílvia Real
Conception, original music, sound
Sérgio Pelágio
Performance
Luís Elgris, Olinda Gil, Nines Gómez, Rolando San Martin, Sílvia Real
Costumes
Ana Teresa Real

Scenography and graphic design
Carlos Bártolo

Lighting
Carlos Ramos
Astrologist
José Augusto
Scenography assistance
Sérgio Carmo
Light operation
Bruno Gaspar

Co-production

"EXPO '98 / Festival Mergulho no Futuro"

MC / IPAE - Ministério da Cultura / Instituto Português das Artes do Espectáculo

Production

Produções Real Pelágio

Support

MC / IPAE - Ministério da Cultura / Instituto Português das Artes do Espectáculo

Câmara Municipal de Mafra
Festival Danças na Cidade
Companhia Clara Andermatt
Lisprene - Materiais e Equipamento de Construção
Marotta - Moda feminina

Thanks
Departamento de Química da Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da U.N.L., José Augusto, Miguel Azguime, Paula Azguime, João Buinheira, Rebecca Collins, Paulo Henrique, Jorge Lampreia, Ana Maria, José Alexandre Pelágio, Rosa Peliças, Domingos Real e Gertrudes Real

Photography
Luciana Fina, Olga Ramos e Jorge Gonçalves

PRESENTATIONS

August 1998
Teatro Maria Matos, Lisboa
(Festival Mergulho no Futuro /Expo’98)

November 1999
Cinearte, Lisboa
(Festival Danças na Cidade 1999)

February 2000
Rotterdamse Schowburg, Rotterdam

February 2000
Teatro Académico Gil Vicente, Coimbra

March 2000
CAM/Acarte, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisboa
(MuDanças 2000/Rencontres Choréographiques Internationales de Seine-Saint-Denis)

August 2000
Auditório Jaime Lobo e Silva, Ericeira
(Festival 3 semanas 3 nomes)

September 2000
Auditório Pedro Ruivo, Faro