LIVING DANCES
Living Dances is a research project initiated by Las Negras Productions based on the research around documentation, transmission and preservation of “endangered” dances of different countries. This project is a result of personal fascinations, interests and formation that through the past years Bertha and Maite Bermudez have been part of. Living Dances aims to cover in the coming years different dances, problems and perspectives around rituals and performances that different communities have been carefully preserving through oral transmission. Mongolia, Venezuela, Spain, Namibia and Solomon Islands are the first places where Living Dances will focus on, producing along side the research, film documentarie and social programs to envigorate, preserve and transmit the dances; Bi Biyilgee the dance of life and Golpe Negro (working title). In order to allow a physical experience of the documented dances each project will also develop an interactive installation.
The format of interactive installation has been thought as a companion to the series of film documentaries in order to allow an audience to fully understand the dances and their hidden knowledge. This knowledge is accessible when being experienced and for this reason the creation of two interactive and interdisciplinary installations using motion capture, sound feedback and film as modes of communication will be part of the project. The main motive of the installations will be the need of the audience to experience movement in order to access information. The movements will be linked with the different styles and motives the three different dances the project documents provides with; Bi Biyilgee from Mongolia and Chimbanguele from Venezuela. With these installations a circle of transmission is created where the experiences of the dances are not safe to be observed but to be re-enacted.
