Do the parts speak of the whole? | Silvia Soter

In search of body movement
Silvia Soter / O globo

Do the parts speak of the whole?: Dani Lima performances maturity in choreographical language

It was not by chance that the name of Dani Lima´s latest work, showing at Espaço Sérgio Porto, until next Sunday, is organized as a question. “Do the parts speak of the whole?” is careful about not being a statement to be able to open to each spectator a possibility of reflection, an interesting and delicate experience, fed by the dance, by the artworks of Tatiana Grinberg and by Felipe Rocha´s environmental sound.

“Do the parts speak of the whole ?” is not exactly a performance. That is what might be unexpected to the audience that has followed Dani Lima´s career, ex-member of Intrépida Trupe. Until then, the choreograper´s name was associated to aerial dance with pop colors and to the female universe, her strongest mark.

If this is not a performance, is not a work in progress either, in the sense of presenting the audience the process instead of the result. The audience’s look is central in this work of Dani Lima. Most of the times, when the spectator is given the possibility to follow the process of creation of a work of art, this spectator is sure to be generously received in a space he does not belong. He is a voyeur of the artist’s intimacy. Part of the interest in getting to know the entrails of the creative process is exactly because it is a unique and intimate moment, not open to strangers. But what happens in “Do the parts speak of the whole?” is something of a different order.

In fact, the spectator is not a voyeur or an intruder. It is to him that the question is posed, once he is supposed to figure out the dance from the beginning, from what each spectator can feel or not. Without the spectator, “Do the parts speak of the whole?” would not exist.

The encounter between the artworks and the restlessness of Dani Lima and Tatiana Grinberg resulted in an involving product. Felipe Rocha´s contribution is also fundamental to create the sound, visual and, sometimes touchable space, in which the spectator is submerged, being obliged to move in order to chose what to follow, without being able to capture the whole.

The objects built by Tatiana Grinberg serve, visibly, as a triggering element of all the reflection of the play, getting correspondence in the dance, which is seen only partially, and in the music that spreads in pieces through the space. However, the work of the visual artist is so present that in some moments the reappearing of the pieces is redundant.

In “Do the parts speak of the whole?” Dani Lima goes far apart from her previous references to get closer to a dance which is made in the body, searching in movement for the ways for her ideas, which reveals the maturity of the choreographic language of this competent dance company.

Silvia Soter is a dance critic and teacher.

O Globo - 08/30/2003