Story Case

Story Case deals with empty places and people with no history, in the sense of a yet to be seen narrative, yet to be performed. Similar to the body in dance, the individuals in Story Case reveal themselves to us and with the flow of time we document them until they are transformed into characters. Photographing those people makes them become the lead thus creating all the requirements for a story to unfold before the eyes of those who watch. This fictional document ambivalence characterizes the field of investigation and explorations within this project, which combines dance and photography, finding in the desert its inspiring stimulus. In the words of Maurice Blanchot: “The desert is still not time, nor space, but a location without place and a time with no reproduction. There, one is just able to roam, and passing time does not leave anything behind, it is a time without past, without present, time of a promise that is solely real in the emptiness of the sky and the barrenness of a naked land where there is never man, for he is always on the outside”. Besides the metaphor of the body’s representation and this reality detachment to produce another poetical reality, the desert is the lived and experienced moment. In the words of Adalberto Alves, in the desert we even “listen to the rhythm of the breathing which is the reflexion of the heart beat”.

Né Barros

Credits

Concepção e coreografia: Né Barros
Fotografia: Cesário Alves
Musica: Alexandre Soares
Intérpretes: Joana Castro e Pedro Rosa
Desenho de luz: José Álvaro Correia
Dispositivo cénico: Teresa Grácio
Edição para projecção vídeo: Hélder Luís
Textos: Adalberto Alves e Maurice Blanchot
Coordenação técnica: Matu
Produção executiva: Patrícia Caveiro
Co-produção: Balleteatro e Teatro Nacional S. João
Classificação: M/12
Duração: 45′
Circulações: Teatro Carlos Alberto (2009)

Press

I want you to know how much I enjoyed watching the DVD of “Story Case.” It’s tremendously haunting, a very chilling study of the existential human condition—of individuals estranged from their environment, unable to ever feel completely “at home” regardless of whether they’re in an urban (man-made) environment) or in the “natural” world. Especially for the female performer, the work generated a sense of perpetual “migration,” of being stranded in a “desert”, both spatial and temporal. We often feel a deep longing for complete absorption into a “continuous present” (made possible by sex or drugs or some sort of trance-inducing activity). But here she seems trapped in a present which is no longer connected in any meaningful way to either a past or a future. The moment when she scarred her own bare back was especially powerful–as was the sequence in which she repeatedly “whistled” in a way that suggested both panic disorientation. This built beautifully into the frantic movements in which she rotated her body weight precariously onto the sides of her feet. And the theatrical elements of the mise en scene were richly imaginative: the suspended white rectangles were striking in their own right, but also very effective as projection screens. I especially liked the moments when we saw images of the actual theater refracted onto the screens. The layering of images was also striking (when the projections appeared on the back of the male dancer and his shadow was then projected onto another surface). His shadow is especially powerful as he takes his shirt off over his head. The images near the end —of the woman with the tree branch and a scarf over her head –powerfully evoke not only migration, but also the plight of a refugee. And the final image (in which she plays the guitar as the lights behind her intensify) felt empowering. I got the impression that she was “in control” of her own destiny for the first time in the course of the dance. Not sure if that’s what you intended, but that’s what was conveyed to me in a powerful way. Finally, it makes perfect sense to learn from the credits that some of the text is by Maurice Blanchot, because he’s so good at constructing a “land without man”: the sort of environment that begs only for our absence. So… Congratulations.

Roger Copeland