Brazilian dance company T.F. Cia de Dança presents Border Bodies as part of the São Paulo showcase at Assembly @ Dance Base.
This urban-contemporary dance piece seeks to acknowledge the beautiful and vast heterogeneity of humankind. In the midst of the silence of distancing, it explores our intrinsic need to connect, rediscovering and inventing ways of being together. Hierarchies between social roles are tested, questioned and reorganised.
Created by Igor Gasparini, Border Bodies blends urban dance techniques with contemporary perspectives to create a complex work that involves many layers. The piece is performed by seven dancers from a variety of backgrounds and dance experiences, including hip hop, breaking, popping, vogue and contemporary.
We see how, despite their diverse backgrounds, the artists can unite, demonstrating that different individualities can empower each other when they act as one. In times of social segregation, we deal with a crossing of mental boundaries as well as physical ones.
The dancers are already in position as the audience files in. For the first several minutes, on the face of it, very little appears to be happening and it’s an extremely slow development from stillness to obvious movement. Then, very gradually, the piece unfolds as the dancers seek to find themselves within their community.
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Contemporary works such as this are open to interpretation. For me, some elements are contradictory and confusing at times. At one point, we see the dancers climbing over, around and through each other. Whilst the roughness of this could be interpreted as the nature of human relationships being uncomfortable sometimes, for me it disrupted the flow of the piece as a whole.
That’s not to say though that others wouldn’t find this work incredibly moving, and indeed the overall consensus in our audience appeared positive. The fearlessness of the dancers has to be admired. They are fully committed, to themselves, to the piece and to each other. I personally would have liked to have seen even more of their individual dance expertise. We only really got a proper glimpse of this at the end, when they really showcased their individual facilities and talents.
For some, this piece could evoke emotion and memory, and be seen as a powerful display of human nature. Border Bodies is a layered contemporary piece that is very open to individual interpretation.
Listings and ticket information can be found here
