Tanzquartier Wien

“Cubas’ works not only try to think about the ‘others’ who are constructed by hegemonic forces, but also the ‘others’ of the self-empowering, decolonial processes too often lead by local, white, heterosexual, middle-class, cultural elites.” Lucía Naser/Seismopolite

Uruguayan choreographer and artist Tamara Cubas counts among the most distinctive voices on the South American performance scene, while still being largely unknown in Europe. Over 1,000 scattered planks of wood in Act 2 – To Resist provide the shaky ground for a one-hour state of emergency. The vibrations generated by the unstable surface reinforce the trance-like resistance displayed by the five dancers. They symbolise a new form of living together, liberated from superordinate authorities. The tense atmosphere drawing the audience in becomes ever more charged over the course of the performance.

To Resist is the middle part of Tamara Cubas’ Anthropophagic Trilogy, which examines three choreographic works from Brazil, the origin of the cultural anthropophagic movement established in the 1920s in answer to the European culture of dominance. To Resist is intended as an act of resistance against the commercialisation of our emotions and bodies but also against the institutionalisation and hierarchisation of human relationships.