©Elisabeth Vieira Alvarez
Artistic direction, choreography, video, stage and costumes design: Rafael Alvarez
co-created and performed by: Bruno Freitas, Diana Bastos Niepce, Frederico Augusto, Jonathan Taylor, Margarida Sousa, Margarida Paiva, Maria Abrantes et Rafael Alvarez
Technical Direction and Light Design: Nuno Patinho
Production and administration: BODYBUILDERS | Rafael Alvarez
Finantial Management: Sara Lamares
General Coordination Plural / LIGA Foundation: Cristina Passos
Press: Mafalda Simões
Support for the execution of the wardrobe: Atelier de Couture / Fondation LIGA
Video recording and editing: Bruno Canas
Stage Photographie: Elisabeth Vieira Alvarez
Graphic design: Paulo Guerreiro
Coproduction: BODYBUILDERS | Rafael Alvarez, Fundação LIGA and Vo’arte
Partner: Escola Superior de Dança
WAVE Projet was supported by the Portuguese Republic - Ministry of Culture / Directorate General of Arts
©Elisabeth Vieira Alvarez
©Susana Paiva
©Susana Paiva
IN THE SILENCE OF THE FIRST WAVE
by Rafael Alvarez | BODYBUILDERS
& Plural_Dance Company
première
February 20th 2019
INART - Community Arts Festival
Municipal Theater São Luiz, LISBON
In the silence of the first wave, we are led to plunge with our paper bodies into a sea of emotions, images, memories, shadows and promises of plural futures. In the range of a wave and in the immense void of a sheet of paper, we are an open book, a blank sheet, a canvas naked to the eye, bringing into the body a sea of reasons to celebrate the diversity - Seven waves for seven performers, in a wave that connects and embraces.
Silence allows us to listen, makes space for others, allows us to meet. The sea cleans, washes, brings and takes back. Invades, floods, wraps, purifies and sinks. Blow and pacify. It is diving, agitation, vital energy, revolution and revolt. It is foam of the days, infinite blue. It is depth and mirror. It is freedom and transparency. It is an endless world and horizon. In silence we are a wave (of change). Between immobility and speed, near and far, closer than far, we sail from east to west, in the silence of the first wave.
IN THE SILENCE OF THE FIRST WAVE a contemporary inclusive dance piece directed by the portuguese choreographer Rafael Alvarez within the scope of its WAVE Project, results from a collaboration between BODYBUILDERS and Plural_Dance Company / LIGA Foundation (Lisbon, Portugal) in partnership with the Escola Superior de Dança (ESD) [Higher School of Dance]. This new creation by Plural deepens its pioneering path of more than 25 years in Inclusive Dance, with the participation of dancers with functional diversity and recent graduates from Escola Superior de Dança, regular partner of Plural since 2000. On stage seven dancers with and without disabilities celebrate human diversity by posing the challenge for an increasingly plural world and stage.
The WAVE Project (Portugal-Japan-France-Malaysia) directed by the choreographer Rafael Alvarez / BODYBUILDERS, gives continuity to his research and choreographic creation started in Japan in 2017. In addition to the presentations in Portugal, Japan, Laos, Egypt, Cape Vert and Thailand of the solo "IN THE RANGE OF A WAVE" (2017) and the duet A WAVE FROM A DISTANCE" (2018-19), the project also includes a set of community dance activities of creation and presentation (residences, performances, laboratories and masterclasses) involving locally professional artists and students of artistic higher education, dancers with functional diversity, 55plus and seniors movers.
An initial image motivates the creation of this project, remaining invisible but present - "The Great Wave of Kanawaga", iconic work of the Japanese painter Hokusai, created in 1830 and reproduced from the mid-1870s through a series of lithographs using the traditional Japanese print technique known as ukiyo (literally, "floating world").
©Joaquim Leal
©Elisabeth Vieira Alvarez
Plural is an inclusive dance company with a pioneering path of more than 25 years focusing on the creation, research, training, awareness and production of choreographic projects, at national and international level, resulting from the meeting and artistic collaboration between interpreters with and without disabilities , professionals, students and the dance community. The challenge launched by each of its shows promoted by the LIGA Foundation since 1995 with presentations in Portugal, Spain, Italy, United Kingdom and the United States, is to think and reinvent Human Diversity through the Body and Contemporary Dance, creating opportunities for a increasingly plural world and stage. It also organizes regular training in Inclusive Dance (regular classes, laboratories and workshops) aimed at participants with functional diversity, students and professionals in the areas of dance, rehabilitation and social inclusion.
The LIGA Foundation trains people in situations of vulnerability, namely with disabilities, promoting skills, autonomy and quality of life, through the provision of resources in the areas of (re) habilitation, professional training and employment, accessibility and the arts, contributing to the development of a more inclusive and plural society. Publicly constituted on March 2, 2004 by personalities from different sectors of Portuguese society, the founding associations, LPDM Centro de Recursos Sociais (1994) and the Portuguese League of Disabled People (1954), are the first response in this field, organized by Portuguese civil society. It covers about 1,600 people / year, between zero and over one hundred years old, with limitations on their physical, social and / or cultural functionality.
