SO CLOSE
UP IN THE MOUTH
FOR MOMENTS OF HAPPINESS
AN INVISIBLE STORY
IT COULD ONLY BE WITH YOU
CHOREOGRAPHY FOR LISTENING

QUASAR CIA DE DANçA

UP IN THE MOUTH

The new performance by Quasar Dance Company, Céu na Boca (Up in the mouth), tries to establish a dialogue between the paradise we desire and the reality that is afforded us. The design of Quasar Dance Company’s 22nd piece stemmed from the curiosity about the laws of physics and evolutionist theory. Star explosions, black holes and gravitational movements provided allegories in choreographer Henrique Rodovalho’s initial process of creation.
“That was only the starting point, because what really mattered was to place this context in the construction of a larger narrative,” explains the choreographer. Through two months of work, the narrative evolved in a non-linear manner, unleashing actions, reactions and relationships steeped in irony, desire, frustration and humor. According to Rodovalho, Céu na Boca sways between density and lightness: “One realizes that disillusionments are an aspect of life and we need to take advantage of that,” says the choreographer.
Such a reflexion aludes briefly to another of Quasar’s performances, Por instantes de felicidade (For Moments of Happiness, 2008), which reveals that happiness is not a natural condition of human beings. “More than in the previous piece, Céu da Boca stresses that the need to seek moments of happiness is absolutely necessary – it happens,” he says.
Metaphor and anti-thesis punctuate the debate throughout the play. Paradise is the unattainable ideal and mouths are tangible reality. Such a duality emerges also in the onstage movement, which goes from intense to inexistent. Those who have wtinessed the company’s trajectory will notice the nuances in the transformation of the fragmented movement style, a trademark of the group which has influenced interpreters and instigated Dance researchers the world over.
On a dreamlike stage environment, the optional absence of a set signals a territory that could be anywhere, so that the construction of a time-space relation is left to the lighting. The eight dancers on stage do not represent characters – they are ordinary people involved in varied pursuits. For them, the costumes by Cássio Brasil are a synthesis of an individual’s complexity, featuring several styles and combinations, in sober colors. As for the soundtrack, Rodovalho chose contemporary electronic music as well as instrumental pieces played by big bands over 50 years ago, in the US and Europe. According to him, this is the type of music capable of creating a present-day ambiance.

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