Performance will close the workshop ‘From Inspiration to Sketch – Upcycling in Denim,’ promoted by FASP

The Cia de Dança do Pantanal (Pantanal Dance Company) performs this Friday (27), starting at 4pm, in front of IMNegra (Instituto de Mulheres Negras do Pantanal – Pantanal Black Women’s Institute), in downtown Corumbá. The performance will close the workshop ‘Da inspiração ao croqui – upcycling em jeans’ (From Inspiration to Sketch – Upcycling in Denim), taught by Anderson Bosh and Luiz Gugliatto, the company’s costume designer.

The choreographer of the Cia de Dança do Pantanal, Wellington Julio, explains that the show Migrante will be presented, which speaks of the back-and-forth and the pains and joys caused by this movement of migrants and immigrants.

“Migrantes is a work that tells a bit about the reality of those who come and go. Many times, these people are forgotten. And the performance speaks a bit about the loves we leave behind when we leave a place in search of something new. It also talks about happiness and about being welcomed. Often, we want to sing, speak, be heard and, sometimes, we can’t. Depending on the tone of your skin, the shape of your face or your body. Depending also on who pulls you backward and forward too,” he states.

The show was created from testimonies gathered during the creative process, from both migrants and immigrants. The testimonies became movements that are now performed by the company’s dancers, wearing costumes created by Gugliatto.

The stylist, fashion producer and costume designer, Luiz Gugliatto, explains that the theme chosen for this year’s autumn/winter is the power of sustainability for the planet. “The collection seeks the marriage between being sustainable and being comfortable, while the patterns were designed for people who seek style and beauty without losing the practicality and functionality that today’s world demands. Reusing denim and other materials is essential to turn a used product into a new piece,” he says.

On Sunday (29), the festival’s last day, the Cia de Dança do Pantanal, founded five years ago at Moinho Cultural, performs again. This time on the Palco Rio Paraguai (Rio Paraguai Stage), at Porto Geral, with the trio Hermanos Irmãos, made up of Márcio De Camillo, Jerry Espíndola and Rodrigo Teixeira. Musicians Carmen Monges (Paraguay) and Ruben Goldin (Argentina) also take part in the performance. The show is the festival’s final attraction.

INFO
Cia de Dança do Pantanal Performance at IMNegras
When: Friday (27), at 4pm
Where: Instituto Mulheres Negras do Pantanal (Rua Delamare, 949 – Centro, Corumbá)

Migrantes by Marco Aurélio Machado de Oliveira*
How many Mediterraneans are our worlds made of? Some gigantic, gaining strength and voice in the news. Others so tiny that they only fit in the footprints they leave before us. Some visible, stirring commotion and empathetic demonstrations. Others so pale that only verbal abandonments can reach them.

And the show Migrantes by the Companhia de Dança do Pantanal leads us to reflect on how many epic or inglorious struggles, calculated or rushed toward their end, our gestures of welcome are made of. Some recorded, commented on, promised and forgotten. Others, whose brightness reaches whomever it concerns, are not even known.

And, among so many things, there is a time that saves, that of art. So Manoel de Barros taught me. And unlike the poetic gaze at a firmament about to disappear, or a song predestined on so many corners, migration and art have no endings. Márcia Rolon, Rolando Cândia and Wellington Júlio did this well, restoring our dry paths.

And, speaking of endings, how many borders must they cross and how many dreams must be left beside the shipwrecks faced daily? How much vigor must be tested under the cold mesh of indifference? How many ways of courting or loving, rituals of miracles that recall their grandparents, languages, skin colors and passport records need to be tattooed onto the decisions of accepting them or not?

In this plot, so strong and made up of risks of missing lives and policies, art brings memories that do not end in me, nor in you. Moinho Cultural revives in us a hopeful curve. And we cannot give that up. Just like migrants, art imposes meanings on us, leaving the idea of unchecked repetition as it truly is: worthless.

*Professor at UFMS, poet and Board Member of the Instituto Moinho Cultural Sul-Americano