Mal – Embriaguez Divina
Marlene Monteiro Freitas was celebrated for her carnivalesque-ecstatic 2019 tanzhaus nrw piece Bacchae – Prelude to a Purge. For Mal – Embriaguez Divina, the artist engages in an exploratory pursuit of evil (mal) as the driving force in so many stories. Evil was not only personified by the devil, by witches or magicians, but it was often also suspected to lurk in the animalistic, in the forces of nature, or in “uncanny” female sexuality. Portguese mal resists unequivocal translation: It means discomfort, suffering, agony, defect, or simply evil itself. Embriaguez Divina marks evil as a divine delusion, opposing it at the same time with boundary breaking ecstasy as elusion. Mal – Embriaguez Divina positions a choir in the centre which is under the influence of haunting visions, toxic testimony, infections, and festering facts.
Marlene Monteiro Freitas, born on the Cape Verde Islands, working and living out of Portugal, transfixes her audience with a language that is opulent, strong in imagery and rich in allusions. With boundless creativity, she connects diverse, unsettling as well as humorous elements that simultaneously form a machine producing sensual impression in her excessive and expressive works. Choreographer Marlene Monteiro Freitas received numerous awards, among them the Silver Lion for Dance at the 2018 Venice Biennale as well as the Premis de la Crítica d’Arts Escèniques in Barcelona for Bacchae – Prelude to a Purge as Best International Production in 2020.
Duration: 100 min.
Choreography: Marlene Monteiro Freitas; Support to Creation: Lander Patrick de Andrade; With: Francisco Rolo, Henri „Cookie“ Lesguillier, Hsin-Yi Hsiang, Joãozinho da Costa, Kyle Scheurich, Mariana Tembe, Marlene Monteiro Freitas, Miguel Filipe, Tomás Moital; Lighting design, stage design: Yannick Fouassier; Stage creation assistance: Miguel Figueira; Stage Manager: Flávio Martins, João Chicó; Sound: Rui Dâmaso; Costumes confection: Marisa Escaleira; Research: Marlene Monteiro Freitas, João Francisco Figueira; Dramaturgy: Martin Valdés-Stauber; Distribution: Key Performance (Stockholm).
A production by P.OR.K (Bruna Antonelli, Sandra Azevedo, Soraia Gonçalves - Lisbon) and Münchner Kammerspiele, coproduced by Biennale de la danse de Lyon 2020 and Pôle européen de création – Ministère de la Culture/Maison de la Danse en soutien à la Biennale de la danse de Lyon 2020 (Lyon), Festival d´ Automne (Paris), Culturgest (Lisbon), HAU Hebbel am Ufer (Berlin), International Summer Festival Kampnagel (Hamburg), Kunstenfestivaldesarts (Brussels), Künstlerhaus Mousonturm (Frankfurt), Les Spectacles Vivants/Centre Pompidou, NEXT festival (Lille, Kortrijk, Tournai & Valenciennes), Ruhrtriennale (Bochum), TANDEM Scène nationale (Douai – Arras), Teatro Municipal do Porto (Porto), Theater Freiburg (Freiburg) as well as Wiener Festwochen (Vienna). With support from CML – Câmara Municipal de Lisboa, Dançando com a diferença (Funchal), Fabbrica Europa|PARC- Performing Arts Research Center (Florence), La Gare – Fabrique des arts en mouvement (Le Relecq-Kerhuon), Polo Cultural Gaivotas | Boavista (Lisbon) und Reykjavík Dance Festival (Reykjavík). P.OR.K Associação Cultural is funded by Governo de Portugal – Ministério da Cultura / Direção-Geral das Artes. This guest performance is funded by Land NRW, as a takeover from the program of Ruhrtriennale 2020.
