Photographs: Let it Burn © Ícaro Gaya, Paula Kossatz
Let it Burn
Artist: Marcela Levi & Lucía Russo
Country: Brazil / Argentina
Type: Dance / Performance
Year of creation: 2017
In Let it Burn, Marcela Levi, Lucía Russo and Tamires Costa confront the audience with historical and current stereotypes of the bodies of black dancers. By invoking in turn burlesque standards, stand up, show off and even music hall, dancer Tamires Costa shatters and subverts these codes by excessively embodying them: bulging eyes, frenetic dances, smiles deformed to the point of rictus and obvious white teeth reminiscent, among other things, of the practices of blackface in the United States and the performances of Josephine Baker. The references to Nina Simone’s hypnotic and imperious body movements or Michael Jackson’s virtuosity and perfectly judged technical skill also weave a narrative arc through black history. Before the audience, the stage turns into an arena in which Tamires Costa makes herself both the guardian and agent of the claim about the body’s explosive power in response to the domestication of people of African descent in Brazil who are told not to be too visible in public.
CREDITS
Artistic direction
Marcela Levi & Lucía Russo
Performance
Tamires Costa
Co-creation
Tamires Costa
Ícaro dos Passos Gaya
Trainees
Taís Almeida
Anne Naukkarinen
Sound
all the team
Light design
Catalina Fernández
Costumes
Levi & Russo
Video documentation
Renato Mangoli
Luiz Guilherme Guerreiro
Production
Improvável Produções
Co-Production and Distribution
Something Great
Artistic residencies
Centro Coreográfico do Rio de Janeiro, Consulado da Argentina no Rio de Janeiro, Espaço Cultural Sítio Canto da Sabiá, Projeto Entre
Support
Bisturi Material Hospitalar
FoBras