Title: Codara
Creation: Mario Bermúdez. Cía. Marcat Dance
Performers: M. Bermúdez, V. Wulff, P. Montoya, A. Chavero, D. Vervoort, A. Mañé.
Everything is orange in Mario Bermúdez’s Codara (orange is the new pink), and the choreography stays in the sunset for almost an eternity. Leaning on the narrative of Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez, and with a formal obsession about movement (fed by steps and poses from classical ballet), Bermúdez gives us a traditional, conservative and neo-classical way of working with choreography.
How so? First, the treatment of space and time. The scenery is a blank space in which the dancers’ movements draw a series of lines and points. The effect of seeing a two-dimensional space. In relationship with time, the performance starts and ends at the same time as the Concierto de Aranjuez. The main theme seems to be influenced by the moods and some historical background of the music. There’s an interesting tension between what we are seeing and what we are hearing, since in this concerto, using the guitar as a main concert instrument is refreshing and shocking.
In the partnering between the three male and three female dancers, we often see the figures of a heteronormal couple. Bermúdez also builds movement qualities to signal male strength in contrast to female delicacy (accentuated by the costumes: men in pant and shirts, women in little nightgowns). This is disturbing in the way that can be read as a reinforcement of traditional gender constructions.
Something that caught my attention from the very beginning is the diversity of bodies that the choreographer chose to tell his history: the male bodies are noticeably different from each other (though the female bodies less so). In moving in this choreographic direction, Bermúdez can make us believe that there isn’t only one body that matters.
Elías Míguez
(Fotografía de J.C. Arévalo)