HAU 1: 19th / 20th April, 7.30 pm

Dimenti

»A Mulher-Gorila« (The Gorilla Woman)

European Premier / Talk with the audience: 20th April, after the performance

In The Gorilla Woman, the category of gender, defined by the politically charged concepts of “femininity” and “masculinity”, is the focus of debate. The piece is a critique of the instrumentalist categorization with which immutable gender characteristics are defined and identities established and reduced to a supposed essence. By creating dissonance in the binary structure of the relationship between “women” and “men”, this work attempts to grasp different sensitivities and understand sexuality as a historic and dynamic system.

While citing theories by Judith Butler and Michel Foucault, among others, the work searches for the possibilities to reformulate/define questions of gender with critique and parodies. Ballroom dancing, Hollywood musicals and animated films are woven into this piece as choreographic threads. Originals and copies become interchangeable, as do the stage and backstage, boys and girls. In sum, these are polarizations in a practice of differentiation, in which the fundamentally chaotic is supposed to be given an apparent order.

The Gorilla Woman was created in 2006 in the Ateliê de Coreógrafos Barsileiros and was re-worked and updated by the members of the Dimenti (Bahia) ensemble.

Choreography: Jorge Alencar / Assistant direction: Alexandre Molina and Jacyan Castilho / Ensemble: Antrifo Sanches, Daniel Moura, Fábio (Osório) Monteiro, Jorge Oliveira, Lia Lordelo, Olga Lamas, Márcio Nonato, Tiago Ribeiro, Vanessa Mello / Musical Direction / Original Soundtrack: Tiago Rocha / Set Design: Miniusina de Criação / Costume: Rino Carvalho / Seamstress: Angélica da Paixão / Light: Rivaldo Rio / Production: Ellen Mello

Dimenti

Founded in 1998, Dimenti (Salvador – Bahia) produces its own pieces with a dance company of the same name as well as works by other groups. In addition, Dimenti also works in the field of education. The group organizes and realizes tours, workshops, discussions, exchange programs; they publish, create documentary films and experimental videos in the form of dance and theater projects as well as in the audio-visual realm.

Dimenti are working on the development of a poetic technology and securing their repertoire. It encompasses various artistic languages and professions in a variety of formats (dance, theater, music, literature, communication, psychology).

In a majority of Dimenti’s works, they focus on interaction of different media. Here the mechanisms of humor are a research tool for dance, for example in the choreographic translation of literary works or the reflection of physicality in animated films.

Significant aspects of the company’s research work are: a dramaturgic approach that resembles a mosaic, a discontinued narrative, constant abrupt change in physical states, the simultaneity of unrelated bodily action, a confrontation with different subjects through the use of opposites and critical comedy.

The dramaturgy is based on metaphoric associations and connections within the texts. It thus creates unusual relationships and atypical contexts that allow for more freedom of analysis as well as a re-interpretation of the source material at hand.

Jorge Alencar

Jorge Alencar: is a dance and theatre creator. Since 1998, when he founded the ensemble Dimenti (Salvador-Bahia), he has been the artistic director of the ensemble. He studied communication science at the catholic university of Salvador and dance and performing arts at the state university of Bahia. His scenic and audiovisual work deals with the topics of gender and performativity, aesthetic formats and cultural stereotypes in a critical and humorous way.

With more than ten pieces to date, he took part in important national and international events: world cultural form, São Paulo; Ateliê de Coreógrafos Brasileiros, 1st, 4th, 5th editions; Itaú Cultural Rumos Dança 2006/2007; Festival Internacional de Artes Cênicas, Bahia; Panorama de Dança, Rio de Janeiro; Bienal de Dança, Ceará.

With the Ensemble Dimenti, he received the audience prize of the Festival de Teatro de São José do Rio Preto (São Paulo, 2000) for the best piece and the prize for the best piece and the best direction of the Fenateg (Paraíba 2003). He received the prize for the best experimental video of the Festival de Gramado cine-vídeo 2007 for the dance video Sensações Contrárias. Furthermore, the Rolex Mentor and Protegée Arts Iniciative (Switzerland) nominated him for their program.