Corpo Clandestino — Victor Hugo Pontes | Nome Próprio
Corpo Clandestino is a place where seven interpreters speak. The bodies of Ana Afonso, Andreia, Gaya, Joãozinho, Mafalda, Paulo and Valter are vehicles of identity: they produce images that cannot be forgotten, they tell us things that we might not think we would hear. The mold of these bodies is rare, insusceptible to categorization, often referred to an invisibility that comforts those who (not) see and destabilizes those (not) seen. This place of comfort is here deliberately empty. Corpo Clandestino constitutes an exercise in displacement and recomposition: what is not usually on the scene is put on the scene; attention adjusts; unique physical pieces fit together. On stage are performers whose non-normative bodies throw the spectator, without a net, in a landscape seldom glimpsed – that of a corps de ballet configured in opposition to classicisms and ideals. On stage there is, after all, a single body, made up of seven truly unique pieces. As part of the Rota Clandestina/Municipality of Setúbal program, this creation by Victor Hugo Pontes rethinks the normativity of bodies in force until the 21st century, proposing a path of communicability and sharing, alternative to reductionist, standardized and useless perspectives. From the moment the spectator’s point of view coincides with the interpreters’ point of view, it becomes indisputable that we can all occupy and share the same world, however different our bodies may be.
About Victor Hugo Pontes | Nome Próprio
Founded in 2000 by Victor Hugo Pontes – choreographer, stage director and artistic director –, Nome Próprio produces contemporary dance pieces and theatre. Among them are “Porque é infinito”, “Meio no Meio”, “Os Três Irmãos”, “Drama”, “Margem” (Best Choreography 2019 Award by Sociedade Portuguesa de Autores), “Nocturno”, “Uníssono – Composição para cinco bailarinos”, “Se Alguma Vez Precisares da Minha Vida, Vem e Toma-a”, “Cair”, “Orlando”, “Coppia”, “Fall”, “Zoo”, “A Ballet Story” (Dance Show of the Year 2012, “Público” and “Expresso”), “A Strange Land”, “Fuga Sem Fim”, “Vice-versa”, “Rendez-vous” and “Manual de Instruções”. Throughout the years, Nome Próprio has developed projects with several artists and institutions, presented both nationally and internationally: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Centro Cultural de Belém, Teatro Nacional de São João, Teatro Municipal do Porto, Centro Cultural Vila Flor, Maria Matos and São Luiz Teatro Municipal, Festival Panorama (Brazil), Festival de Dance de Cannes (France), Théâtre de Liége (Belgium), among others. New creations will premier in 2022.
