Algum Dia Tinha de Ser a Sério

Ivan Franco

Jul 8, 2006 art

“Algum Dia Tinha De Ser A Sério” is a dance piece directed by me and Lígia Teixeira. It’s about the relationship between a woman and her imaginary companion. The woman lives between two spaces: bed and concrete reality.

Placed on the bed is a full sized aquarium, representing the woman’s dream-space. The man’s image lives bi-dimensionally both on the bed and the aquarium’s side. They interact in a love dance and are participants in the woman’s shift between the two worlds of dream and reality, from passion to disillusion.

The Performance:

“Algum Dia Tinha de Ser a Sério” is a dance performance which represents the love relationship between a woman and an imaginary man, by staging the telematic contact between the two. In a room, where a bed bridges between real and imaginary, the lovers inhabit different dimensions: while the tridimensional woman is inside the aquarium, the bi-dimensional man is on the bed.

Technically the telematic experience is accomplished by using two synchronized projections of the man on the bed, captured in realtime in an alternate room, where the dancer is filmed. He also has reference video monitors, which allow him to see the stage action. The woman is inside a full water tank, placed over the bed, where the two projections (vertical and horizontal) are applied on the bed’s surface and on the back face of the aquarium. Image projection over the tank’s translucent surface is possible by using a special transparent film, which induces the illusion of a holographic video image.

The feminine character is also confronted with a third space: the outside world. It reveals the harsh confrontation with the “concréte” quotidian, a world apart from the room, the dream’s private space, able to induce the illusion for the imaginary lover. The traveling between these two worlds is symbolized by a lamp, switched on and off by the dancer, transporting her from one world to the other.