Past event

27 May 2022

Teatrostudio

17:00
English Italiano

For her new creation, at the crossroads of the image and the body, the visual and the living, Brazilian dancer and choreographer Ana Pi is carrying out poetic and political research in Haiti on ancestral sacred gestures and their perpetuation in the imagination today.

A time for learning from her contemporaries, transdisciplinary Haitian artists, and a time to open a fantastic dialogue with Maya Deren, American experimental filmmaker born in 1917 in Ukraine. The two women share the same transversal creative process of absolute curiosity, which combines the artistic process with a methodology of research. Maya Deren, from the 1940s onwards, had empirically studied Haitian culture, its dances and voodoo heritage; an experience reproduced in the book The Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti and the posthumous documentary film with the same title released in 1985.
Ana Pi weaves in a same move fragility and balance, archives, imagery of the past and futurity, observing how these sacred dances have been preserved and how they resonate today.
The Divine Cypher circulates between images and dance, fiction and time travel, inspired by the filmed gestures and dreams of Maya Deren or those of her predecessor, Katherine Dunham.

choreographic and scenographic conception, videos, research and interpretation
Ana Pi

light creation
Bia Kaysel

light reinterpretation
Jean-Marc Ségalen

stage management, alternating
Bia Kaysel
Jean-Marc Ségalen

music and sonorities
Jideh High Elements
Emy de Pradines
Auguste de Pradines – Ezili Nenenn Ô
Julien Creuzet
Maya Deren

real memories, dreamed dialogues and/or multiple collaborations
Katherine Dunham
Maya Deren
Emy de Pradines
Lumane Casimir
Martha Jean-Claude
Toto Bissainthe
Marie-Ange Aurilin
Ginite Popote
Tara El
Wendy Désert
Gerda Boisguené
Murielle Jassinthe
Trvania   
Jenny Mezile

semiotic outlook
Profe. Dre. Cida Moura

philosophical outlook
Profe. Dre. Maria Fernanda Novo

plastic outlook
Julien Creuzet

filter design
Emilien Colombier

costumes
Carla de Lá
Miliane et Isabella Rodsil
@remexefavelinha

contributions to scenographic realisation
Studio Julien Creuzet with Garance Cabrit and Louis Somveille

production / diffusion
Sarah Becher

communication / press
Louise Marion

production
NA MATA LAB

executive production
Latitudes Prod. – Lille

co-productions
The Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Research Institute for the Study of Art from Latin America & Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA
Terra Batida, Alkantara, Portugal
Be My Guest — Réseau international pour les pratiques émergentes
La Briqueterie CDCN du Val-de-Marne
CNDC, Angers
Kunstencentrum Vooruit, Gand – within the framework of the cooperation programme Hauts-de-France / Flandres.

film co-production
with the participation of the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain’s Soirées Nomades

with the support of
Spedidam
Region Ile-de-France
DRAC Ile-de-France

Thanks to the ancestor’s persistence and to the young people who will join this timeless cypher. To Maya Deren and the keenness of all the traces she offers us, to the wisdom and power of Madame Katherine Dunham her predecessor, to Lia Rodrigues who has been opening the way for a long time. This dance is dedicated to the revolutionary beauty of the Haitian people, from the past, the future and the present.

Brazilian choreographer and visual artist, Ana Pi is also a researcher in urban dances, an impromptu dancer herself and a teacher. Her practice is situated between the notions of circulation, movement, belonging, memory, colours and ordinary gestures. In 2020 she created the association NA MATA LAB. Her first documentary, NoirBLUE - les déplacements d'une danse (2018), was selected by numerous film festivals and received considerable acclaim.
Together with her aunt, she created the choreographic piece O BΔNQUETE (2019), commissioned by Associação Videobrasil. In 2018 she created COROA a performance and installation for the Galeria Vermelho in San Paolo, which was also presented at the Lafayette Anticipations Foundation in Paris; that same year she was awarded the "Premio Rivelazione" from the Cooperativa Paulista de Dança di San Paolo. In 2017 she created NoirBLUE, a solo work for the stage conceived together with Jean Marc Segalen and Jideh High Elements and which was presented in France, Portugal, Belgium and Spain; also that year was the project Periphery & Peripherals, developed in collaboration with the Brazilian cultural centre Lá da Favelinha of which she has been a dancing partner since its creation. In 2015 she created DRW2 for the Instituto Inhotim and in 2014 Le tour du monde des danses urbaines, a project for the CDCN in France; with these interactive conferences she exhibited in Africa, South America and Europe, involving a multi-generational public from many social and cultural walks of life, as well as many institutional organizations with over 400 performances. In addition to these main projects, she developed the practice CORPO FIRME; danças periféricas, gestos sagrados and works with artists on various types of projects.
She lives in France where she is associate choreographer with Dancing Museums and is associate artist with the production company Latitudes Contemporaines.