Performances Dance in the city
20.07 | 20.00 | 30'
Kalamata Municipal Railway Park
MARCO DA SILVA FERREIRA
Fantasie minor
All terrain executive production by the Centre Chorégraphique National de Caen en Normandie
With its title borrowed from the lexical field of the piano, Fantasie minor emerged from the encounter with Chloé Robidoux and Anka Postic, young dancers from Caen. They have been dancing together since childhood, with a background in urban dance (hip-hop, dancehall, house), which played a role in their relationship and their development as individuals.
This piece responds to the proposal of the Centre Chorégraphique National de Caen en Normandie to imagine a work that can be performed in very different places: with an easily adaptable stage measuring 4 × 4 metres, Fantasie minor can be presented indoors or outdoors — in theatres or gardens, in public squares, and so on. The stage space imposes a constant proximity on the dancers, a factor they must navigate and negotiate.
This sharing of space between two people is also reflected in the music of the piece, Franz Schubert’s Fantasie in F minor, Op. 103 — a composition for piano four hands, in symmetry with the four feet of the dancers in this limited space.
Because they come from a culture of “battles” and “cyphers,” the two performers constantly reinvent their practice. There is something both fraternal and competitive between them, as if they were continuously responding to the logic of a game. These biographical elements, these youthful reminiscences, run through a choreographic composition inspired by the dances their bodies have studied. As I see it, Fantasie minor is a kind of rite of passage — an idea underscored by the Fantasie in F minor, the last piece composed by Schubert before his death at the age of 31, like a premonition of another rite of passage.
The dance engages with this composition through the illustrative approach that urban dances take to music. The performance begins in a virtuoso, almost conquering fashion, but as the choreography progresses, other sensibilities emerge. As if, beyond “conquering the stage and the audience,” the dancers were allowing themselves to feel or reveal a more fragile dimension. The music moves through moods that allow the performers to alternate between these two sensibilities. The hard-toed boots on their feet amplify these variations. Worn like ballet shoes throughout the piece, they give their figures a weightier and more grounded aspect. The duet is built around this contrast between the foot that strikes the ground with force and assurance and the almost crystalline piqué of classical ballet. Absurdity and virtuosity become a springboard for aesthetic, technical, and personal rediscovery.
— Marco da Silva Ferreira, September 2021
- Conception, choreography: Marco da Silva Ferreira
- Performed by: Anka Postic and Chloé Robidoux
- Sound design and creation: Rui Lima and Sérgio Martins, from Fantasie in F minor by Franz Schubert
- Pianists: Lígia Madeira and Luís Duarte
- Recording and studio mix: Suse Ribeiro
- Lighting design: Marco da Silva Ferreira, in collaboration with Florent Beauruelle and Valentin Pasquet
- Costumes: Aleksandar Protic
- Choreographic assistant: Elsa Dumontel
- Technical manager: Valentin Pasquet
- Executive production: Centre Chorégraphique National de Caen en Normandie
- Co-production: Le Trident, Scène nationale de Cherbourg-en-Cotentin; TANDEM Scène nationale Arras-Douai; Culture Commune, Scène nationale du bassin minier du Pas-de-Calais; Espace 1789, Scène conventionnée d’intérêt national pour la danse de Saint-Ouen; Atelier de Paris / CDCN
- With the support of: Ministère de la Culture (“Residency for Associated Artist” of DRAC Normandie), the Calvados Department for a residency in Terre d’Auge, Caisse des Dépôts, Institut Français for the France-Portugal Season 2022
- Studio provided by: La Bibi, Caen
The Centre Chorégraphique National de Caen en Normandie is subsidised by the French Ministry for Culture – DRAC Normandie, the Normandy Region, the City of Caen, the Calvados Department, the Manche Department, and the Orne Department. It receives support from the Institut Français for some of its international tours.
MARCO DA SILVA FERREIRA
Marco da Silva Ferreira was born in 1986 in Santa Maria da Feira (Portugal). He graduated in Physiotherapy from the Piaget Institute, Gaia (2010).
A professional performer since 2008, Marco da Silva Ferreira has danced for André Mesquita, Hofesh Shechter, Sylvia Rijmer, Tiago Guedes, Victor Hugo Pontes, and Paulo Ribeiro, among others. He worked as an artistic assistant to Victor Hugo Pontes for Fall and Se alguma vez precisares da minha vida, vem e toma-a in 2014, and later as a choreographic assistant for Mala Voadora’s staging of Hamlet. His work as a choreographer has developed around urban practices, in a continuous reflection on the meaning of emerging dances today, through an abstract and highly autobiographical expressionism.
His career took a turn with HU(R)MANO (2013), which was selected as an Aerowaves Priority Company (2015) and performed at international festivals including Mercat de les Flors, Barcelona; Atelier de Paris / CDCN June Events, Paris; Panorama Festival, Rio de Janeiro; Lublin Dance Theatre, Poland; The Place / Currency Festival, London; L’Hexagone, Meylan; (Re) acquaintance, Grenoble; and Les Subsistances / MOI de la danse, Lyon.
BROTHER (2016) premiered at Teatro Municipal do Porto and was also selected as an Aerowaves Priority Company (2018) in Sofia. Its international tour included Théâtre des Abbesses, Paris; Lyon Biennale; Julidans, Amsterdam; Hellenic Festival, Athens; Charleroi danse; La Passerelle, scène nationale de Saint-Brieuc; Scène conventionnée danse, Pau; Pôle Sud CDCN, Strasbourg; Espace 1789, Paris; Festival Interplay, Turin; Le Grand T, Nantes; Théâtre Jean Vilar, Paris; Teatros del Canal, Madrid; Kinneksbond, Centre Culturel Mamer, Luxembourg; Le Quartz, Scène nationale de Brest; and Dansens Hus, Oslo. The piece received numerous positive reviews in the dance press, praising the artist’s work.
BISONTE premiered at Teatro Municipal do Porto in 2019 and was recently performed at Teatro Municipal São Luiz, Lisbon; Charleroi danse, Brussels; PT’19 in Montemor-o-Novo; and went on a French tour in 2020 (Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lyon, and Paris).
SIRI (2021), his most recent work, is a co-production with filmmaker Jorge Jácome. It premiered at Festival Dias da Dança in Porto and is supported by the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès as part of the New Settings programme.
Between 2018 and 2019, Marco was associate artist at Teatro Municipal do Porto, and from 2019 to 2021, associate artist at the Centre Chorégraphique National de Caen en Normandie.