RENAN MARTINS
GLORY (2017)
"How many lives do I have to wait?
How many hearts does it take to break this body?
'Til I feel like somebody?
How many lives do I have to wait?
How many hearts does it take to break this body?
'Til I feel like somebody?
I wanna live, wanna die on a silver lining
I wanna ride the wings of love
When I die, don't you cry, I'll be flying by you
I'll be riding wings of love"
Extract of Wings of Love by Liv
Renan Martins creates GLORY in collaboration
with the musician and performer Gasper Piano and the
2017 graduated students of Artesis Conservatory Antwerp.
GLORY is a love ritual where 6 performers
glide a constant clockwise motion.
This motion is imposed upon them, challenging
their sense of togetherness, of community.
As the ritual evolves, their need to belong,
to support and be supported reveal
more primal formats of human interactions.
GLORY looks at connection as the reason in
which we are all here. It suggests love
as our true essence.
Love being us, naked, raw, alive, cracked and open.
Choreography
Renan Martins
Created with and performed by
Coco-Noemi Jimenez
Dan Mussett
Elsa Ferray
Francesca Chiodi Latini
Gasper Piano
Mery Coopman
Renan Martins
Steffi Mennen
Wibke Storkan
Rerun performed by
Coco-Noemi Jimenez
Elsa Ferray
Gasper Piano
Hernan Mancebo Martinez
Mery Coopman
Steffi Mennen
Wibke Storkan
Duet version
Renan Martins/Daniela Morais
Rafaela Sahyoun
Assistant
Jaroslav Ondrus
Costumes
Wibke Storkan
Music
Gasper Piano
Lights
Dominique Pollet/João Rios (Brazilian adaptation)
PRESS
"Yet never does the comedy feel forced, or worse, ironic. Everything about Glory feels heartfelt. As with child's play, it is both brutal, but innocent; theatrically performed, but – seriously – real. This show, for besides everything else it is a captivatingly entertaining ride too, celebrates what it means to be human, together. From cliché contemporary conception 'till the remix of a pop song infused with Indian incantations, and the pile of joy at the end. It does so, without ever feeling fake, fantastical, or naive. It does so, magically, naked and pure, without smoke and mirrors, without cuts or editing to be perceived; it can do so only without industry. Never feel these performers as if acting; here there is hope undisneyfied. This is a generation of dancers tired of hermetic concepts, of postmodern deconstruction; something more essentialist is exposed, brought visible and vulnerable, rather than the abstract. To be able to speak both to the Antwerp art scene and tourists on the beach, to make both still and reaching from the tip of their seats, there is some magic in that, something glorious, about hope, optimism, and peace.
Thanks to an amazing level of maturity and craftsmanship, these young dancers (all only just graduated from the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp's bachelor course) evoke an experience where what is lacking and lost in today's urban jungle re-appears within reach, and freed from political opportunism, or romanticised melancholy. Glory simply is a must feel."
M.\V. d.B. (Maarten Van den Bussche)