Sideways Rain and Normal

Vienna [ENA] „It takes courage to tackle big issues because somehow everything of importance seems to already have been discussed or published at some points”, - Guilherme Botelho. “Sideways Rain” and “Normal” are the catchy titles of the two dance performances by the Swiss / Brazilian artist Guilherme Botelho which were presented in frames of the ImpulsTanz Festival in Vienna .

Guilherme Botelho is one of the greatest artists in the modern ballet scene of nowadays who could only be compared may be to Pina Bausch. His company Alias was founded in 1994 in Switzerland and since this time has produced several inspiring and innovative performances while experimenting with movements and repetitive moves. Since its grounding the company produced more than twenty-five shows and had nearly five hundred performances in twenty countries of Europe, Africa, Asia, North and South America.

In “Sideways Rain” the team of fourteen men and women performs an impressive parable of the course of life. This is the opulent move where the dancers are moving in one direction, repeating movements of each other, going over and over again through the stage. They walk, run, fall, get back, stop, start again if they would have been moved by an inexplicable urge to run. They repeated their movements one time, ten times, hundred times or even more. There is something highly meditative while watching this performance, making someone thinking about circle of life, eternity and connection of everyone to each other in a metaphysical sense. Or connection of everyone to the circle of life and everything living and breathing on our Earth.

It seems that this performance repeats the principles of nature where the circles are coming together while adapting to the changing conditions of life and environment. A fascinating performance which captures some one’s attention until the end. This performance is a metaphor for life where energy repeats itself, turning into different forms, disappearing, and appearing again as there is no energy which can appear from nowhere and go to nowhere, but everything is a change and is a movement from one form of energy to another.

In “Normal” another experience with movement and gravity is presented. The dancers fall and get back and fall and rise again. Like this the entire performance, like the entire circle of life with all its moves, falls, experiences, and rises again. The performance shows someone who follows this circle while falling and getting back, collapsing, and rising again, going to bed and waking up again, catching up with winter and catching up with summer, dying and being born again. The performance is built on the repetition of movements which are however never identical while having bigger or smaller differences. It concerns to the permanent transformation of life while explored in the form of virtuoso choreography.

Guilherme Botelho is frequently considered as a choreographer of human psychology and sentiment who portraited various stages of life. In his works the stage becomes a medium between the spectator and him, his view of life. His company Alias shows a fresh uncompromised look at our everyday life. He is applying movements as his own language while expressing perceptions and unconscious emotions through individual energy.