Marlene Monteiro Freitas

Thursday 28 June 2018, 8:00 pm
Teatro alle Tese - Arsenale

La Biennale di Venezia has awarded the Silver Lion to dancer and choreographer Marlene Monteiro Freitas from Cape Verde.

Considered one of the finest talents of her generation, Marlene Monteiro Freitas, born in Cape Verde and now living in Lisbon, has been the surprise of recent seasons with her electrifying presence and the Dyonisiac power of productions “about metamorphosis and deformation, influenced by the Carnival tradition of her native island” – as the motivation reads. “Freitas’ work, continues the motivation, reveals the desire to break through the boundaries of the aesthetically correct. Working on the emotions rather than the senses, the choreography gives form to gestures and words that are hard to express, opens up to the imagination, to our multiple selves, creating heterogeneous situations and beings, with the paradoxes they carry, forcing us to ‘look’ at things differently”.

Marlene Monteiro Freitas (Cape Verde, 1979) studied dance at P.A.R.T.S. in Brussels, and in Lisbon at the Escola Superior de Dançae and the Fundaçao Calouste Gulbenkian. In her native country, Cape Verde, she co-founded the dance group Compass and collaborates with Musician Vasco Martins.
She works with Emmanuelle Huynn, Loic Touzé, Tania Carvalho, Boris Charmatz. Her creations include: Of Ivory and Flesh - Statues also suffer (2014); Paradise - private collection (2012-13); (M)imosa (2011), a project developed with Trajal Harell, François Chaignaud and Cecilia Bengolea; Guintche (2010); A Seriedade do Animal (2009-10); Uns e Outros (2008); A Improbabilidade da Certeza (2006); Larvar (2006); Primeira Impressão (2005). The common denominator for these works are the themes of opening, impurity and intensity.
Marlene Monteiro Freitas is the co-founder of P.OR.K, a center for the production of performing arts in Lisbon, where she currently resides.