TOT

Marcela Levi & Lucía Russo / Improvável Produções (Brazil) - Julidans NEXT: Iron Mouth / Boca de Ferro

He dances like a madman to sordid Latin American rhythms. Among the spectators, the dancer Ícaro dos Passos Gaya delivers the final blow. The beats that we hear refer back to the smuggling routes of northern Brazil in the 1950s and the uplifting music that came from it.

The traditional music of the Pará region in Brazil has its roots in the Caribbean rhythms. As well as perfume and whiskey, smugglers from the region also introduced the merengue, the salsa and the zouk. Wild parties were held to that music, which were announced through a person with a megaphone, known as the so-called ‘boca de ferro’, or ‘iron mouth’. More than sixty years later that music and culture live on in the furious beats of the tecnobrega - every month there are around 3000 tecnobrega parties in this region.
In this solo by the Brazilian choreographer Marcela Levi and the Argentinian Lucía Russo, the audience and dancer are in the same room. The performer’s ecstasy, sweat and exhaustion are unavoidable. The tecnobrega beats rain down, the man becomes possessed by it. It is a hellish dance, irreverent, playful, provocative, fierce, crafty and sensual. This is music that takes possession of the dancers. In that possessed state, all the good and bad sides of people come to the surface in an ecstatic manifestation of humanity.

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