Joana von Mayer Trindade & Hugo Calhim Cristóvão / NuIsIs ZoBoP

Jadis, si je me souviens bien, ma vie était un festin où s'ouvraient tous les cœurs, où tous les vins coulaient. [Once, if I recall correctly, my life was a banquet. Every wine flowed, all hearts were open.] (J.A. Rimbaud)

There’s the disease and there’s hiding the disease. The first one is something Real with which one has to deal, a form of human existence. The second one subterraneanly breeds that which is monstrous. It is an ethical choice. Il faut être absolument moderne [One must be absolutely modern]. It is thus no wonder that the Real of the Dancer as a Portrait is insanity. An insane cowardice pursuing pacification in the dead portraying of dead shapes. Or in the dead portraying of that which does not wish to be a dead shape, showing the opposite of desire. This is the time of the Assassins [Voici le temps des assassins]. Will we be able to revert and invert, to portray the destruction of the Portrait? To eliminate the vanished nobilities and bourgeoisies dressed in purple and velvet that the Portrait is born to serve? Can the burned, shredded Portrait, seduced by itself as Narcissus, at some point experience its own dissolution? Drown in the waters? If that which is not the Portrait succeeds in destroying a negligible part of the Portrait, the roots of the Portrait may collapse a tiny bit. And thus the paradox we seek in this creation: what is a Dancer who has to dance all that does not dance itself while dancing him/herself.
J'ai tendu des cordes de clocher à clocher ; des guirlandes de fenêtre à fenêtre ; des chaînes d'or d'étoile à étoile, et je danse. [I’ve hung ropes from belfry to belfry, garlands from window to window, golden chains from star to star, and I am dancing.] — Joana von Mayer Trindade & Hugo Calhim Cristóvão

(Quotes: Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud)


Joana von Mayer Trindade is a choreographer, dancer and teacher. She has a master’s degree in solo/dance/authorship from the Berlin University of the Arts, and a degree in psychology from the University of Porto. She completed the contemporary dance performer course at Forum Dança and the Essais course at the National Contemporary Dance Centre in Angers.
Hugo Calhim Cristóvão is a director, choreographer and researcher. He has a doctorate in philosophy from the Faculty of Letters of the University of Porto wit the thesis Actor-Network Theory: Methodology and Ontology. An Eventual Irreduction of Philosophy to Be, and a master’s degree in contemporary philosophy with the thesis The Dionysian, Zos vel Thanatos, and the Zoetic Art – Sorcery of Austin Osman Spare. He has a degree in philosophy and in theatre, specialising in acting and actors directing, from ESMAE – School of Music and Performing Arts.
Together they co-founded the research group NuIsIs ZoBoP (2004) and created Abbadon, She Will Not Live, VELEDA, ZOS (She Will Not Live), Meninas [Girls], Nameless Natures, O Céu é apenas um Disfarce Azul do Inferno [Heaven Is Just a Blue Disguise of Hell], Da Insaciabilidade no Caso ou ao mesmo Tempo um Milagre [On the Case’s Insatiable Nature or a Miracle at the Same Time], Mysterium Coniunctionis, Dos Suicidados – O Vício de Humilhar a Imortalidade [On Those Who Committed Suicide – The Habit of Humiliating Immortality] and Fecundação e Alívio neste Chão Irredutível onde com Gozo me Insurjo [Fertilisation and Relief in This Unbending Ground Where I Joyfully Rebel].