Aural Setting: The music is written by Percossa. The music includes vocal sounds and is played live by four percussionists, influenced by Brazilian samba music. The dancers also contriubute to the vocal sounds.
Costume: Designed by Itzik Galili.
Male and females both wear black vests and different coloured Lycra shorts.
The colours used are carnival inspired and come in 10 different colours (such as yellow, white, red, blue and green) and enhance the lighting. The uniform look adds to the feeling of equality between the men and women in the ensemble sections. The men also wear metallic, disc-shaped collars that reflect the light for the opening of the dance.
Lighting: Designed by Itzik Galili.
The different coloured and times lighting creates a chequer-board effect on stage and defines the lines and spacing for the dancers during large ensembles sections. The lighting and speed is pre-programmed and in a way, dictates the speed and pace of the music and movement.
Performance Environment: End Stage – these are often rectangular or square and only have the audience on one side
Staging/Set: The percussionists perform on a raised platform at the back of the stage and in one section skateboards are used to propel 5 dancers across the stage.
A LINHA CURVA
Choreographer: Itzik Galili
Performed by: Rambert
Premiered on: Tuesday 12th May 2009
Dancers: 28 dancers, 15 male and 13 female
Style: A blend of samba, capoeira and contemporary dance techniques
Stimulus: The starting point for the piece focuses on Brazilian culture and Galili wanted to create a celebration for the Brazilian way of life and the ability to ‘live in the moment’. ‘A Linha Curva’ translates to ‘The Curved Line’ in Portuguese. How does the movement reflect this?
Choreographic Approach: Galili worked collaboratively with the dancers and nearly all motifs were created through improvisation.
Task: Galili set the dancers a task, to create a short solo (2-3 counts of 8) of their favorite movements that could be performed within a square (this related to the chequer-board lighting used in the piece) which was then taught to the other dancers. Could you incorporate a task like this in to your group choreography?
Choreographic Intention: To have fun!
There are however contradictions, which is evident from the title of the piece itself ‘A Linha Curva’. Large ensemble sections of the piece are performed in regimented straight lines, creating a sense of a Samba parade, full of vibrant and Brazilian inspired movement, as well as narrative sections. These sections present observations of how Brazillian men communicate with women.
Example: men in tribes hunting the girls as well as showing off and competing with each other.
Structure: The piece is constructed of 7 sections, made up of large ensemble sections and interspersed with scenes that have more of a sense of narrative and character. The narrative sections do not feature the grid lighting effect and in these sections is where Galili explores the competitive nature of males and their relationship to the women. The diagram shows the pace of the piece, the section at the bottom of the curve (2) is Adage Septet - mysterious and slow.