Dance Bailarina Dance (Dance Ballerina Dance)

The 1940s and the 1950s are considered the Golden Age of American musical cinema. The dance routines and the music scores were a substantial part of the narrative of these films, and it is these two elements that are the starting point for “Dance Bailarina Dance”, a piece by choreographer Clara Andermatt and composer João Lucas, for Companhia Nacional de Bailado (National Ballet of Portugal). Jonas Runa brings interactive software to the composition, adding electronic sonorities to Lucas’ music.

The title comes from a 1947 song, "Dance, Ballerina, Dance", written by Bob Russell and Carl Sigman, immortalized in the voices of Vaughn Monroe, Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra. But it is the spirit of George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Glenn Miller, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Ginger Rogers, Esther Williams and so many others that inspire the work, and become the raw material for this contemporary approach to that age, and for a reflection on this time of joy in the post-war years.

 

“While the world falls apart, we hear the fireworks that explode in an ecstasy of light; a light that bathes Humanity and propels it to survival. It is the heartbeat that establishes the geometry of the movement, the intrepid search for joy, the courage revealed when everything is falling apart. We dance. Exuberant waves, apparently superfluous symmetries, dizzying falls that reflect the strings, the pendulums and the pointers of a world that keeps turning while the spheres intone: we are from here and everything passes by. Let us step into another order of things, and the time will follow.”

Clara Andermatt e João Lucas (2013)

categories

Direction and choreography Clara Andermatt | Musical composition João Lucas | Orchestra director Pedro Moreira | Performance Companhia Nacional de Bailado (first dancers Adeline Charpentier, Ana Lacerda, Barbora Hruskova, Filipa de Castro, Filomena Pinto, Inês Amaral, Peggy Konik, Solange Melo, Alexandre Fernandes, Carlos Pinillos, Fernando Duarte, Mário Franco; solists Fátima Brito, Isabel Galriça, Mariana Paz, Paulina Santos, Leonor Távora, Yurina Miura, Brent Williamson, Luis d'Albergaria, Maxim Clefos, Rui Lopes Graça; coryphaeus Andreia Pinto, Annabel Barnes, Catarina Lourenço, Irina de Oliveira, Maria João Pinto, Marta Sobreira, Seongwan Moon; Armando Maciel, Freek Damen, Miguel Ramalho, Pedro Mascarenhas, Tom Colin, Xavier Carmo; corps de ballet África Sobrino, Anabel Segura, Anna Blackwell, Carla Pereira, Catarina Grilo, Charmaine Du Mont, Elsa Madeira, Filipa Pinhão, Florencia Siciliano, Helena Marques, Henriette Ventura, Inês Moura, Isabel Frederico, Margarida Pimenta, Maria Santos, Marina Figueiredo, Mónica Garcia, Sílvia Santos, Susana Matos, Vera Alves, Victoria Monge, Christian Schwarm, Dominic Whitbrook, Dukin Seo, Filipe Macedo, Frederico Gameiro, João Carlos Petrucci, José Carlos Oliveira, Kilian Souc, Mark Biocca, Nuno Fernandes, Ricardo Limão, interns Andréia Mota, Giorgina Hauser, Júlia Roca, Melissa Parsons, Lourenço Ferreira | Set designer Artur Pinheiro | Costume designer Aleksandar Protic | Lighting designer Rui Horta | Electronic music and interactive software Jonas Runa | Music Circular Ensemble | Rehearsal coordinators Cristina Maciel and Fátima Brito | Rehearsals assistant Madalena Brak-Lamy | Production Companhia Nacional de Bailado

Photos by CNB/ Rodrigo Souza

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