Title: Business World
Creation: Javier Guerrero. Cía. Montón de Paja & Trigo
Performers: Javier Ara y Naya Monzón
Two dancers on stage do their jobs. They step on the beat, with choppy arms and mechanical twitches and jerks that show the body in positions of power and gender binarism. Looking for the stereotypes of the body language to communicate what a successful man and woman are in this business world.
Choreographer Javier Guerrero works with the gesture, and is inspired by the silent movies of Charles Chaplin in the 1920s and 30s. Bringing alive “Modern Times” seems to establish a parallel between the Great Depression and current employment conditions – a topic that, indeed, must worry the dance industry nowadays. Javier Arán and Naia Monzón are the two dancers struggling to survive in the modern, industrialized world. What happens with the bodies of thousands of workers in this environment governed by multinational companies? The performers manage to surf the situation and triumph in the task of executing this choreographic gear as two dance machines.
Business World continues the scenic vocabulary and composition that Guerrero and his company “Montón de Paja, Montón de Trigo” have been building over the years – and the work has already found success in some of the more important Spanish competitions such as Burgos-New York, and Masdanza. This piece not only represents the latest company production, but is also part of current choreographic trend in which Marcos Morau (Spanish Dance National Prize, 2013) may be the best example, if not the leader.
Alfredo Miralles
(Fotografía de Juan Carlos Arévalo)