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Here is a reflection about the work of Tamara Cubas,the fourth text of the series 7X7, in which I invite young artists to write their reflections about the work of other artists – in this case, those programmed at the second edition of Festival Contemporâneo de Dança, held in November in São Paulo. The idea is to create a synergetic action instigating sensitive a critical analysis of the art of dance by young artists that are growing within it. I invite all readers to comment, reflect, participate… This helps to feed this little project intending to speak and write about dance. Sheila Ribeiro.

Tamara Cubas bt Arthur Moreau

The piece ATP, created by Uruguayan Tamara Cubas, one of the artists who participated in the 2º Festival de Dança Contemporânea de São Paulo, investigates motives and positions that are assumed on stage. These are her coins of poetic energy, in an analogy with ATP, a nucleotide responsible for energy storage in chemical connections in creatures with metabolic activity. Metabolism is the set of transformations chemical compounds undergo inside living organisms. Thus, the three dancers, Mariana Marchesano, Miguel Jaime and Santiago Turenne, transport their energy to several pre-established laboratorial events, such as remaining still in different points of the stage; taking turns being handled by the other two castmates; making different juxtapositions of the bodies; dragging the microphone through the floor; placing the microphone against in different places of the bodies, in different ways. How much each one is dressed with their costumes in each action, in each scene, is another variant. Here, Cubas demonstrates a metaresearch project: a presentation concluded from a research with research as its subject.

Everything that is experienced communicates. That means that every body is affected by the signs of the world. Many of these affections cause insignificant differences. Art, contemporary above all, proposes to cause differences that make a difference.
In ATP, the bodies are efficient in their uninterested movements, in the sense of being carried out without a deliberate purpose, more or less like natural phenomena. Being affected by the investigations of Cubas’ generic proposals can establish broad questions. This communes with the stage settings appearance, which is composed by white walls and floor. It´s an aesthetic that has been often reconstructed in the last years, such as in Alain Buffard’s (Not) A Love Song (2007), and Carmen Gomide’s Desvio para o Vermelho (2009). It alludes to the idea, configured in the fields of museology and plastic art, of the white cube, whose concept was debuted in 1929, during the construction of MoMA’s current building, designed by architects Philip Goodwin and Edwarda Stone and intensified in the 50’s. It is the ideological thinking that a given object inside a white space would be much more suitable to be observed because it would be neutral regarding other factors. From another angle, this causes a contrast if the instigating possibilities of vertiginously shifting meaning nexus are considered, from the play to other dramaturgies of the body. This translation is moved by the curiosity and interest like that of an archeologist finding a very old artifact, already without any original cultural purpose and without financial value.

The people on stage must build energies coming from the construction of their own movement. This is the rule suggested by ATP in making and speaking about a dance. It means that even if she makes cuts and/or dialogues with other kinds of knowledge, she must renew herself with her specificities, which are also fleeting because they are her main strength. And this renewal takes place in an active way. Thus, it is a power plant of herself: she generates energies from that which she used herself.

Cubas gifted the dance of São Paulo with her mobilizable research. The initial capital of the research’s actions, which is her intentions and her argumentation, and the resulting transformations carry their own impulses and stimulus. If the category has much to demand, it must place a lot of value on each of the steps of the choreographed political dramaturgy. Thus, their individualities must submit in favor of the interest art has for them and that can better have many more.

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Disconnections and connections in dance

The concomitant occurrence of two important events for dance in São Paulo was a symptomatic fact. The 3º Bienal de Dança produced by SESC Santos, with performances both in the unit and in others spots around the city, took place from December 3 to 10. And, 82km away, between November 5 and 15, the 2º Festival de Dança Contemporânea de São Paulo, also took place at Galeria Olido. Both events matured in comparison to their previous editions. The one in Santos, in the amplitude of stage possibilities, in the program’s visibility and in the amount of options of pieces. The one at Galeria Olido, in the general conception and in the coherence and quality of the invited artists.

Taking the capital of São Paulo since the beginning of the 2000’s as reference, there has been an increase in dance’s cultural basis, with intensification of meetings among professionals, the increase of its number year by year, with the establishment of colleges, of more schools and events. However, at the same time, this bigger movement still hasn´t transformed into convergence towards an emancipatory agenda of tasks. Some urgent common problems have already been identified by some of them. It is necessary to keep this up and to develop mobilization actions. Mainly against the State of São Paulo Culture Office, which deals with dance in an authoritarian way, imposing projects without dialogue with representatives of the community and whose main priority, Cia. de Dança de São Paulo is, in many ways, rather misguided and misplaced. The dance movement in São Paulo, in its historical evolution, is strongly inclined and favorable to kinds of dances that are different from that. However, the most intriguing point is that the State’s official company has an annual financial support that amounts to more than R$ 13.000.000,00, while the other groups or artists that have solo careers in dance can only plead, or compete for a grant from the government of less than half that amount, altogether. And it will also probably get, according to a project recently opposed by public action, a luxurious building in the Luz district. This region is undergoing revitalization to become a place suitable to receive the upper class.

The current cultural policy is not a cultural policy. Dealing with and conducting artistic manifestations and actions as if they were industrial commodities hugely weakens the power of their social role. Dance people are partners of the state in this contradictory dialectic that goes on with disturbing tranquility.

The 2º Festival de Dança Contemporânea expressed itself mainly through modesty. It glimpsed in one little place the small and loyal audience for this gender. It brought to its pieces, meeting and workshops, artists and/or researchers with significant career experiences, coming from Latin America or Europe and from Marrakesh, Marrocco, came pioneer Taoufiq Izeddiou. This legitimation is a signature. Marcelo Evelin and Adriana Grecchi have been struggling for years for some issues within dance. It is very important, just like in their example in the Festival, that the artistic direction of an artistic event is under the responsibility of people intimate to the art concerned. Such policy and its habits are, at least in the city of São Paulo, starting to ground this obviousness.

Likewise, an action with the appearance of habit. However, this case is also due to conditions other than the curatorial attitude. For example, the regions or nations that are not usually represented in São Paulo’s art festivals are still regarded as being almost completely heterogeneous. The cultural complexity can develop in any country, be it poor or not, distant or not, well-known or not. And that includes states in Brazil itself. This policy with post-colonialist overtones can be found in the country in another, but similar, proportion of projects awarded by the state’s funding programs and those favored by tax rebates (cynically called “sponsorships”) of companies. Nevertheless, there are also few places in which knowledge and research fields about dance’s contemporary issues and problems. Its bodies construct, with its stored energies and chemical connections, their places thinking in a critical and political way.

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The expression “White Cube” was created by Brian O´Doherty and is used to define the modern museum. To learn more, consult his book about the subject: Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space.

Arthur Moreau has a degree in Communication of the Arts of the Body from PUC-SP, is a post-graduate student in Yoga at UGF-SP and member of Cia. Depois do Incêndio.

Read also: 7×7 – Dancing beyond the door

7×7 – The flag is not white

7×7 – Everything you always wanted to know