Tânia Carvalho Program
Ballet national de Marseille
In 2022, Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels is supporting the Theatre de la Ville in its presentation of a program comprised of three pieces by Tânia Carvalho, performed by the Ballet national de Marseille.
The Ballet national de Marseille – direction (LA)HORDE presents a program composed of three pieces by Tânia Carvalho, performed by the dancers of the Ballet national de Marseille:
Xylographie (20min)
As If I Could Stay There For Ever (10min)
One Of Four Periods In Time (Ellipsis) (20min)
This hour and ten-minute-long program combines solos and pieces for larger ensembles. In it, choreographic structure is continually explored through several registers of perception. From one piece to another, the creative energy of Tânia Carvalho crosses aesthetics and spaces, in search of a movement, each time renewed.
Created for the Opera de Lyon in 2016, Xylographie is inspired by an ancient Chinese printing technique, each of the dancers reproducing an identical movement, out of sync with one-another. Teetering between undulation and segmentation, the solo As I Could Stay There For Ever creates, through relentless execution of short expressions, a singular gesture made up of explosions of movement. Created in 2021 for the dancers of the Ballet national de Marseille, One of Four Periods in Time (Ellipsis) is an intriguing group dance, spectral and with no adherence to time. The gestures of each of the dancers collectively create a choreographic tableau of multiple out-of-sync movements.
Each of the three pieces of this program represents the singular style of Tânia Carvalho, who thinks in movements, corporeal intensities, rhythms, and textures of movement.
Xylographie
Xylographie
20’
Created for the Opera de Lyon Ballet, Xylographie is a reflection on multiples. In order to “print” the movement onto the stage, Tânia Carvalho has the dancers repeat the same movement out-of-sync, from the same choreographic phrase.
The choreographer was inspired by the process of xylography, a printing technique developed in China in the 6th century. The title itself was also inspired by the spelling of the word and the fact that it starts with ‘X’, because X’ could mean many things. It is used in mathematics as an unknown value, on maps to indicate where the treasure is, or even to signify something or someone unknown.
Photo: © Ballet de l’Opéra de Lyon
As If I Could Stay There Forever
As If I Could Stay There Forever
10’
Choreographer and performer of both dance and theater, Tânia Carvalho has demonstrated her creative energy from her very first pieces. In darkness traversed by intense blacks, As I Could Stay There For Ever delivers a dance of explosive movements through the relentless execution of a score of frequently renewed short choreographic phrases, the vocabulary of which seems to draw as much from bodily mime as from contemporary dance.
Between undulation, swaying, segmented movements and abandoned impulses, Tânia Carvalho creates, through her vision of movement and her total commitment, a singular gesture of meticulous precision, whose lines and curves of movement constantly reveal themselves in a different fashion.
One of Four Periods in Time (Ellipsis)
One of Four Periods in Time (Ellipsis)
20’
Tânia Carvalho chose to compose this new piece with the dancers of the Ballet national de Marseille. Through the movements that she conveys, images appear and accumulate to create a defined form. Here, writing appears as a choreographic exploration that eliminates the verb and diverts from expected narrative structures, to better play with emotion and to immerse itself in the intense relationships between music and dance.
A lover of drawing, Tânia Carvalho presents choreography that also borrows its contrasts from cinematographic expressionism. Created in 2021 for the dancers of the Ballet national de Marseille, One of Four Periods in Time (Ellipsis) is an intriguing group dance, spectral and not adhering to time. The gestures of each of the dancers collectively create a choreographic tableau of multiple out-of-sync movements.
Photo: © Théo Giacometti
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
About the collective
(LA)HORDE
In 2023, Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels is supporting the collective (LA)HORDE for their new creation Age of Content with the Ballet national de Marseille, as well as its presentation at Biennale de la danse de Lyon and Théâtre de la Ville. The initiative is also presenting Room With A View and a specific program in collaboration with NYU Skirball in New York.
