"A Notícia Da Minha Morte Foi Um Exagero" de Susana Otero - 15min/PT from Ballet Contemporâneo do Norte on Vimeo.
Ballet Contemporâneo do Norte (Northen Contemporary Ballet)
is a portuguese contemporary dance company founded in 1995 by Elisa Worm and,
currently, works and resides in Santa Maria da Feira, a town south of Oporto.
The company has funding by the portuguese government and by the local City
Hall.
“The reports of my death were greatly exaggerated” is the
first long piece of Susana Otero, dancer with the company since 2002, and its
artistic director since July 2011. The work was inspired in texts by the portuguese
novelist José Cardoso Pires, especially “De Profundis – Valsa Lenta”, which the
author wrote after recovering from a stroke that temporarily deprived him of
his speach – a period he refers to has the “white death”.
In this piece Susana Otero makes an exercise in irony,
reflecting on life and death, and
on contemporary dance itself and its power as an art form. Always with
great tenderness towards the “creatures” that she sets on stage (two men and
one woman), Susana Otero appels to a strong empathy from the audience – one
sees this performance as if one is under the Sun: enjoying the warmness or
coying away from the burn.
