PEDRA DURA | A MYSTERIOUS THING, SAID E.E. CUMMINGS, by Vera Mantero

7 November | 21:00

Location: Centro Cultural de Lagos Organised by: CAMA a.c. with the support of CM Lagos and DGArtes Duration: 20 min Age rating: M12 Tickets available at the CCL reception or through BOL

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This event is part of the 5th edition of Pedra Dura – Algarve Dance Festival.

The solo "a mysterious thing, said e.e. cummings" premiered in January 1996 for the "Tribute to Josephine Baker", an initiative by Culturgest in Lisbon. In her interpretation of the life and work of the black dancer and singer from the early 20th century, Vera Mantero chose an approach that transcends the figure of Josephine Baker. For the programme, she wrote: "It is a thing I would like to find or create, a vast territory where the richness of spirit reigns. (...) This spirit I speak of has no desire to annul the body, nor any shame of its desire and its sex; what this spirit I speak of wishes to annul is boorishness, terrifying stupidity, profound ignorance, poverty of horizons, materialism, etc. etc. (unfortunately, the list seems long...)."

"An impossibility, a misliving, a sadness, an absence, a heartbreak, an incapacity, atrocious," are some of the words that repeat with increasing insistence throughout the performance, where Vera Mantero precariously balances on a pair of stilts, moving to the rhythm of the difficulty that the words enunciate, unable to remove her feet from the condemnation to which they remain nailed. An exasperating embodiment of a malaise that, as we know, always begins with not knowing what to do with the body.