Solo para dois intérpretes was commissioned by CCB (Invenções [Inventions] project), based on the idea of ​​bringing together a choreographer and a musician who did not know each other. The creative process, which began during an artistic residency at CENTA, in Vila Velha de Rodão (Portugal), had its share of tribulations, as Sérgio Pelágio recalls in this short interview:

How did the creative process for this piece develop?

I think Sílvia had an initial conversation with João Madureira in which she presented the first ideas to him. Then the improvisations began with Miguel and Filipa. Some time later, in a second meeting with João Madureira, he showed up with the music written and completed. The music was beautiful, a solo for violin and electronics, but the rest of the team was far from having the work finished, and at a point already very distant from the initial ideas shared at the outset with João Madureira. This forced us into doing a comprehensive brainstorming session and working in a way that was unprecedented to us, which was having a musical score already completed, in a rather conventional way to which we were not at all used.

How did you come up with the idea of ​​the tennis match?

At some point, we went to visit the presentation space and were surprised that it was required for the audience to sit around the performers in a rectangular arena… Another brainstorming session followed, this time with some panic as the premiere date was very close and this seating arrangement meant throwing away everything that had been done up to that point. I don't remember who was the person (maybe Miguel?) who, gazing at the space’s floor plan, said that it looked like a sports gymnasium. And that's what led us to the tennis match. João Madureira's music didn't suggest a fixed pulse or a closed form, and we felt that the choreography of the unpredictable movements of the players during a tennis match, with the random rhythm of the ball sound and of the dancer-players’ feet, made sense within the score. Filipa worked on Serena Williams, Miguel on another world tennis star whose name I don't remember, and Ângela Ribeiro was the one who played the sound of the ball by hitting a microphone while following the match from the control room. The ball didn't actually exist, of course (enough of uncontrollable things).

From this point on, everything got under control, or did other challenges arise?

At the CCB, the lighting designer Paulo Graça resolved almost the entire show with just one very expensive and precious film projector. There was only one at the CCB and nobody was allowed to touch it, and he placed it at the centre of the stage-court, from where it emitted a constant white light and an ambience very similar to sports arenas. And thus, in the blink of an eye, the problem of the lighting design, for which we had no idea, was solved…

What is left to say about this creative experience, after all the constraints having been overcome?

This piece, which was a major headache at the beginning of the creative process full of constraints, ended up working and being especially fun to make precisely because of that. Therefore, for some time, when I taught sound design for dance and theatre, I showed this piece as an example of a work that is born only out of trying to find the solution to a lot of unexpected problems and tough nuts to crack. It was called "solo for two performers" because the piece was divided into two parts: in the first, the violinist performed João Madureira's solo piece, thus ensuring an immaculate diffusion of the musical work, and in the second part there was Sílvia Real's solo (with two performers) over a second performance of the soundtrack, this time with the noises of the ball and the bodies, the shouts and breaths of the performers. It ended up being a very competitive tennis match without a ball, about the clash between different creative processes, ultimately showing that such a clash can unexpectedly transform into a creative spark.

PS: On the eve of the premiere, Sílvia received a phone call from choreographer João Fiadeiro asking if she happened to remember that he had previously created a solo with the same title! Fortunately, he didn’t mean to sue us, it was just out of curiosity. The gig took place and Serena Williams won.