PEDRA DURA | BE (ON) YOU by Tales Frey

8 November | 16:30

Location: Praça do Infante and Museu de Lagos – Núcleo Dr. José Formosinho (Activity Room) Organised by: CAMA a.c. with support from CM Lagos and DGArtes Duration: 60 min (performance) + 30 min (videos) Age rating: To be classified by CCE Free entry

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Part of the 5th edition of Pedra Dura – Algarve Dance Festival.

Be (on) you investigates the relationship between identity, desire, and otherness through the encounter of the body with its own image. By kissing their reflections in a double-sided mirror, two performers (a cis man and a trans woman) stretch the boundaries between self and other, presence and projection. The repeated and prolonged gesture reveals layers of affection, narcissism, strangeness, and weariness, transforming the space into a field of sensitive and symbolic friction.

After the performance, the audience can move to the Núcleo Dr. José Formosinho of the Museu de Lagos (Activity Room) to watch the following videos by Tales Frey:

Entering the Samba | 9 min | M18 A videoperformance that stems from a childhood memory to address the gesture of repression and physical punishment. “Boy, you will enter the samba!” was the phrase Tales Frey heard from his parents when, after some mischief, he was threatened with “slaps on the bottom” as punishment. In this video, that memory is shifted to a situation of sexual connotation and infused with a certain humour, contrasting with the violence of the act itself. The original audio of the performance, later treated to acquire a drier and harsher sound, brings the sound of the blows closer to that produced by gunfire, accentuating the violent dimension of the action.

Being at Par - Step by Step | 16 min | To be announced The design of an eccentric object – a single pair of shoes with openings for four feet – forces two bodies to position themselves facing each other, and as they move, their steps resemble those of a dance, with the resulting thuds understood as noise music.

One Must Suffer to Be Beautiful | 2 min | M12 On the tips of two large nails, Tales Frey supports his heels and balances on these objects for a brief moment. Then, as he cannot resist, he breaks the upright posture and, once again, balances on the objects. He repeats this action numerous times until exhaustion. In this creation, there is a reference to the use of high heels, and thus the relationship between fashion and the ideal of beauty with pain.