Invitation

Dance Bailarina Dance (Dance Ballerina Dance)

In “Dance Bailarina Dance”, a commission by Companhia Nacional de Bailado (National Ballet of Portugal), Clara Andermatt turns to the great American musicals from the 1940s and 1950s, jointly signing this new creation with composer João Lucas. Images from the screen are recreated onstage, in an approach that is simultaneously risky, experimental, and conducive to reflection. The music is interpreted by the Circular Orquestra Ensemble, conducted by Pedro Moreira.

Paris and Helen (Parid ed Elena)

Premièred in the second half of the eighteenth century, the opera “Paride ed Elena”, by Christoph Gluck, tells the story of the events that start with the judgment of Paris and end with the flight of Paris and Helen to Troy. A story of love and seduction, one of the most fascinating and enduring Ancient Greek myths. Clara Andermatt was invited by the Opera Studio of Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa (ESML) to develop this project with the school’s students. For the mise-en-scène, Clara Andermatt’s opted for a contemporary aesthetic to depict this lyric opera, bringing new dynamics and equilibriums to the piece, by resorting to unusual systems for choreographing bodies and movement.

Vira como a Vida (Turning Around Like Life)

Clara Andermatt created “Vira como a Vida” with a Folklore group from the collectivity Casa do Povo of Serzedelo, and the rock band Macadame. Serzedelo is a village with around 4000 inhabitants in the North of Portugal. This piece was made for a programme in the ambit of Guimarães 2012 - European Capital of Culture. “Vira como a Vida”, a show for the public space, was part of a parade led by the Catalan troupe La Fura dels Baus. The title derives from a traditional folk dance called “Vira”, which means spinning or turning round and round. In this piece, tradition and contemporaneity meet and intersect through sound and movement.

Deriva (Drifting)

A book by Alexandre O’Neill, called “Uma Coisa em Forma de Assim”, gave the name to a programme devised by Companhia Nacional de Bailado, the National Ballet of Portugal, to commemorate the 2011 International Dance Day. The National Ballet invited nine of the most well-known Portuguese choreographers – Clara Andermatt, Francisco Camacho, Benvindo Fonseca, Rui Lopes Graça, Rui Horta, Paulo Riberiro, Olga Roriz, Madalena Vitorino e Vasco Wellenkam – to create short pieces for the company’s dancers, to music composed and interpreted by the pianist Bernardo Sassetti. Clara Andermatt’s piece, within this programme, is called “Deriva”.

 

Durações de um Minuto (The Duration of a Minute)

Invited by Jorge Salavisa, at the time director of one of the most important venues for the performing arts in Lisbon, the São Luiz Teatro Municipal, Clara Andermatt and the film director Marco Martins speculate over how each minute is spent along our lives, and the way people relate to time and memory. “Durações de Um Minuto” is a piece based on texts by Gonçalo M. Tavares. The dancers, actors and musicians were asked to contribute biographical details for the construction of the performance.

E Dançaram para Sempre (And They Danced Forever)

Teatro Nacional de São Carlos, the National Opera House, asked Clara Andermatt to accept the challenge of developing a piece based on André Hellé’s "La Boîte à Joujoux", a ballet for children. Andermatt rose to the challenge and created “E Dançaram para Sempre”, a choreography for an adult audience, that questions the ambiguous intimacy with the toy box, and the innocence or perversity that it summons in each of us. The plot of the piece and Debussy’s music gave Andermatt ample possibilities to expand the narrative, exploring the imaginary and the real within the narrative context of this classical piece. Andermatt invited to work with her the visual artist Joana Vasconcelos, the pianist António Rosado, and the interpreter Marcelino Sambé.

Silêncio (Silence)

Invited by the Festival Temps d’Images, Clara Andermatt creates “Silêncio”, a work where she looks for new understandings of what goes beyond the field of dance, in order to relate it to image and sound. For this creation, Andermatt invites the composer Vítor Rua, the Danish choreographer and dancer Peter Michael Dietz, with whom she shares the stage, and the French filmmaker F.J. Ossang, drawn by the singularity of his work and the confluence of thoughts and concerns.

Dançar Cabo Verde (Dancing Cape Verde)

In 1993, Jorge Salavisa, who was responsible for the Dance programme for “Lisbon'94 - European Cultural Capital”, invited Clara Andermatt and Paulo Ribeiro to travel to Cape Verde to work together on a new piece, based on the encounter with the dances and the music from that country. “Dançar Cabo Verde” signals the start of a new relation between Portuguese contemporary dance and traditional African expressions, and a long and remarkable collaboration of Clara Andermatt with that country.