Post-performance talk/Book Launch Dança Fora de Si - A obra coreográfica de Marlene Monteiro Freitas

Five works on stage and an iconographic imaginary in turmoil. Armed with these ingredients, Alexandra Balona enters into dialogue with the work of Cape Verdean choreographer and dancer Marlene Monteiro Freitas. On stage, the choreographies construct hybrid spaces of estrangement and contradiction, bodies and materials in diaspora transform in the search for meanings that echo many imaginaries. Love and anger simultaneously give way to parody and enjoyment, allowing us to grapple with the brutality of history and the present. In the book, the author follows the paths of "openness, impurity, and intensity" that run through Marlene Monteiro Freitas's work, to convey the sensitivity and violence that resist words. The humanity of the choreographic works is the key to discovering the sources, references, theories, and political dimensions of a work that defies all classification. This book offers a glimpse into the dazzling work of a choreographer whose boldness shakes the foundations of the theaters she performs. It focuses on five representative works: Guintche (2010), Paraíso – coleção privada (2012), Jaguar (2015), Bacantes – prelúdio para uma purga (2017), and Mal – embriaguez divina (2020). It follows Monteiro Freitas' creative methodology and crosses references from her personal choreography archive with works from art history, navigating between ideas and possibilities like an Atlas supporting the weight of the world. The astonishment results in a careful reading, capable of observing and, from fragments, revealing methods, processes, and mechanisms of art. The texts in this book are "small critical machines for reading the illegible."

The talk/book launch will be attended by the author and Marlene Monteiro Freitas.