Mysterious Heart
Tânia Carvalho
tanzmainz
In 2024, Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels is supporting the Théâtre de la Ville for the presentation of Mysterious Heart by Tânia Carvalho with the company tanzmainz.
The tanzmainz company has built up a reputation for excellence with unforgettable original works, both dazzling and delicate, under the guidance of Sharon Eyal; so it was only logical for the company from Mainz to extend an invitation to Tânia Carvalho who has also brought inventiveness to writing for large ensembles, and at the most demanding levels for technical performance and apposite expression.
Eleven performers have recalled authentic emotional experiences to make Mysterious Heart an invitation to set out on a subtle journey between baroque exuberance and the presence of death, being carried forward by the vocal tumult of Tânia Carvalho and to music by Diogo Alvim. Yes, the woman from Portugal is also an outstanding singer, cultivating a light-hearted and facially expressive approach. Then, as if in a dream, emanations from the subconscious are transformed, becoming distorted images where otherness and difference give rise to beauty.
© Andreas Etter
About the artist
Tânia Carvalho
Tânia Carvalho was trained in various schools in Lisbon, both classical and contemporary. She is an actress as much as a dancer, and founder of the renowned collective, Bomba Suicida (1997-2014). Tânia asserts herself as an artist whose will to express herself is not restricted to a single language. In different styles, her performances, already comprising a repertory of more than thirty pieces, all show attention to line, structure, and space. Tânia Carvalho frequently moves from the realm of choreography to that of musical composition. Her creations venture into shadowy areas, the vivification of paintings, expressionism, and the memory of cinema.
Thus the artist constructs her own mysterious cosmogony – a collection of codes that transcend the very art of movement – that is made manifest both in the linguistic and semantic care she takes in choosing the titles of her works and in her frequent exploration of territories beyond choreography, such as drawing. For over twenty years, Tânia Carvalho has followed her path in an ever more reflective and multidisciplinary vein.
Photo: © Ruj Palma
