Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Presents MANUELAGEM
CIEE Theater  – November 16 – 9 p.m.

Manuelagem – Language of the hands. This term, carved by Câmara Cascudo in his book “História dos nossos gestos”, translates the essence of artistic labor. For it is on everyday life and in the infinite hours of thread by thread weaving an idea that the artist builds his dialogue with the world. And after so much walking and unwalking this path we realize we are doers of ourselves and of the others. We weave and unweave tirelessly as a motif or moto-continumm to proceed, and it is in this intricate web of dreams and desires that the act of doing recreates and rediscovers the world.
Not by chance, Ana Vitória has found Villa Lobos. For maybe it was the time for the artist to meet herself in her maturing process, after so much doing and undoing herself.
Meeting her peers, she has met her country, waking a boldness which is only allowed to skilled hands, used to doing many sewings.
A great poet says: “Brazil doesn’t know Brazil” and indeed we don’t know ourselves. But the colonization, instead of making us blind, only makes us numb. Therefore, it is always time to look inside ourselves, as if we were in a ciranda (circular dance)…
Villa himself lived his awaking in time to give us our country back. Our voices, our colors, our dances and our sweating, making us aware we are so beautiful, so manly, so feminine, so sincere, so strong as the deepest roots in our forests.
“Fingers and arms speak ages before the voice”, says Cascudo, making us live again our history where Gesture always came before words. He says more: “It is said that the folkman with his hands tied becomes speechless” and it reminds us of the brazilian artist Villa Lobos who, with his composing hands, helped build our identity, giving us back our dignity and enthralling us with his poetry.
The dance piece MANUELAGEM, through sound and movement, proposes this look, or else, this listening of our indian, popular, erudite and Brazilian boundaries. Ana Vitória.

Technical info
General direction, choreography and interpretqtion: Ana Vitória – Musical direction : Marcelo Rodolfo – Music: Rudepoema –  Heitor Villa Lobos – Interpreter: Nelson Freire – Direction asistance: Jean Marrie Dübrul – Scenography: Analu Prestes – Costumes: Claúdia Diniz - Lighting: Renato Machado