For his second appearance at Oriente Occidente, Brazilian choreographer Guilherme Botelho returns to show us his keen insight into everyday life and the deepest uncovering of emotions through art. Alongside him is his company Alias, founded in Geneva in 1993, a city he adopted at the age of nineteen when he joined the Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève as a dancer. In Geneva, Botelho continued his path as an independent creator focused on seeking meaning as a source of movement, rejecting any compromise with aesthetics or polished style.
Caroline de Cornière stands by his side, along with a team of dancers with strong personalities from various continents, all loyal to his improvisational method and his art suspended between dance and theater. The clear lines of his poetics aim to discover unexplored and hidden paths, exploring the unsaid and translating the inner debate that influences our relationships with the world into movement.
His pieces are "slices of life," questioning the relationship between the individual and the world. Consider "En Manque" from 1994, which asks, "What do we do to be loved and to satisfy our needs?" or "Contrecoup" (1996), focused on violence, particularly that which simmers within domestic walls, and "L'Odeur du voisin" (2001), created for Oriente Occidente and set in an office, or "Le Poids des éponges" (2002), recently seen in Italy, where the same situation is interpreted differently based on each person's experiences.
With "Escucha mi cantar," Botelho's penultimate work from São Paulo, his gaze on the world becomes almost voyeuristic. The choreographer enters through the service door into three identical rooms, each showcasing different stories sequentially through a revolving and segmented set. In one room, a lone woman; in another, a man; and in the third, a couple navigating everyday actions and the loneliness that empty space feeds, along with fears and hopes. Obsessions, anxieties, and moments of intimacy unfold in this swirling whirlwind that blurs the performers' ghosts with those of the audience, projected into a daily life so real it seems Hollywoodian.
The visual inspiration for the environments recalls four paintings by contemporary artists: "Hotelroom" (1931) by Edward Hopper, "Offene Türen" by Vilhelm Hammershoi, "Bad boy" (1981) by Eric Fischl, and "The Room" (1967) by David Hockney. The work's source is a quote by Georges Haldas: "Descend into the rooms of the greatest melancholy and seek the sequins of happiness that fled since childhood."
