First a murmur, then the touch of a violin and a smile on the faces on stage: as the first notes of “Tabula Rasa” are heard, Arvo Pärt’s composition from 1977 sets off on a journey of permanent discovery in motion. The masks fall off, it would seem, the very ones that writer Maya Angelou says are armor for life, even when they take the form of an apparent smile or laugh. We are in a territory of lightness and silence, in the midst of chaos, elements that impact the creative power of the dancer and choreographer Benvindo Fonseca. The creator took the name of the Estonian composer’s piece and made his own “Tabula Rasa”, a dialogue between movement and music, about and for the people who see and listen to it. Danced by 10 dancers from the Companhia Portuguesa de Bailado Contemporâneo (CPBC), the work opens on October 1 and 2 at the Teatro Meridional, in Lisbon.
Armed with meaning, intent and autobiography, Benvindo’s “Tabula Rasa” carries the minimalist and baroque side of Pärt’s composition. Traced by the force of the silences, more than by the musical composition, it is, after all, a cult piece, arising after a period of “artistic reorientation”, assumed by the composer himself. Coming to us and starting from this declaration of silence and manifesto of concentration before the most ethereal aspects of life, Benvindo’s choreography is, above all, a translation through dance. “I realized how he himself admits to having made this composition for people. I don’t do anything pointless. I am no longer interested in doing things for the sake of doing them and there has to be something that moves me and moves everything. That’s where I feel useful. I want to make people think. After this pandemic, where are we? If people are the most important thing, let’s talk about them”, explains the creator.
Between duos and bodies lined up in a group, there is still a hermetic side, where moments of disharmony and imbalance become essential for the development of the choreography. Hence, “Tabula Rasa” wanders between movements of lightness and lyrical force, but also of chaos, in which bodies seem to fight detached from their nature. “We live in a chaos in which we have to learn silence. They gave us this silence to understand each other. People to be with themselves – and I myself am there – need to stop. In this mission that involves the creator and his interpreters, the same goal is sought. “It serves to learn to live with silence, to value ourselves and to be in the moment. It will always have to do with our maturity.”
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Source: Observadora
