Dates / Schedules
Monday to Sunday, 29 June to 14 July, 2024 at the CCB Plaza
Opening: 29 June, at 6:00 pm
An interactive installation for bicycles.
In Rio de Janeiro in the 1960s, the choreographer João Saldanha experienced in his childhood the dream of Brazilian modernist architecture to plastically and sophisticatedly unite the indomitable nature of Brazil in the abstractions of the planned modern city. In it, the permeability for pedestrians, the varied relationship with solar incidence, the vernacular fruition of local materials and resources, architecture as a meeting of the people, come together in the utopian desire for a new world made into a living space by architects such as Lúcio Costa, Oscar Niemeyer and Lina Bo Bardi. In his afternoons in the Rio neighborhood of Leblon, João would venture out on his bicycle to a whole series of buildings built under this influence, long before most of these residential areas were gridded due to growing urban violence. The ramps, pilotis, winding gardens, free access and suspended planes were his childhood territories of discovery and experimentation, where volume, speed, flow, distances and framings were accessed by his body in education of the senses.
Modern Promenade recaptures the rich kinetic experience that informs the spatial poetics of Brazilian choreographer João Saldanha and his encounter with Brazilian modernist architecture in 1960s Rio de Janeiro. In this interactive outdoor installation created by the collaboration between Brazilian choreographer Gustavo Ciríaco and Portuguese architect João Gonçalo Lopes, the simplicity of the structural elements and the volumes and textures of Brazilian modernist architecture present in the different layers of Saldanha’s embodied experience reappear transfigured in the constructed landscape of this bicycle circuit.
Conceived by Brazilian choreographer Gustavo Ciríaco, the Covered by Sky collection inaugurates a series of interactive installations and performances inspired by poignant landscape experiences lived by South American and Portuguese artists. Driven by curiosity about how artists perceive and express the world through space, as well as about the intersection between art, space and poetic signature, Ciríaco embarks on a journey of discovery through the spatial poetics of these creators and their unique ways of being mirrors of the world.
Modern Promenade is the fourth work in the collection Covered by Sky.
Bios
Gustavo Ciríaco is a Brazilian choreographer and transdisciplinary artist who moves between dance and the visual arts, through exhibition projects and urban interventions where experience is the driving force behind sharing with the public. With a strong site-specific trait, his works foster the dialog between context and architecture, geography and dwelling, reality and fiction, in a continuous research into the extensive fields of the art of making dances. His work has been presented nationally and internationally in Europe, the Americas, Asia and the Middle East. His projects include the exhibition A room of wonder and the pieces Gentleness of a Giant and Here whilst we walk. Since 2018, he has been an artist-researcher associated with the THIRD program – DAS Research – Amsterdam University of the Arts. www.gustavociria.co
João Gonçalo Lopes has a degree in Architecture and works at the intersection of art, design and education. With an approach based on specific contexts, on scales ranging from the territory to furniture design, his practice investigates spaces and materialities as mediators of the different dimensions of reality, be they physical, social, political or affective. He has worked in renowned architecture studios in Tokyo, Shanghai and London. In 2015, he co-created the Til collective, where he develops various exploratory material processes and interventions with different communities, which question the notions of mediation, power and participation in public space. Since 2020 he has collaborated regularly with choreographer Gustavo Ciríaco on artistic projects in various formats such as scenography, artistic installation and performance. He is currently developing projects and collaborations with other artists such as João Fiadeiro and Márcia Lança. www.joaogoncalolopes.pt
João Saldanha is a Brazilian choreographer who founded Atelier de Coreografia in the late 1980s, a company whose history is intertwined with the history of contemporary dance in Rio de Janeiro and Brazil. His work is characterized by fluidity of movement. His choreographies are reminiscent of an eternal kinetic walk, influenced by the rich spatial composition left over from the lines and tensions of Oscar Niemeyer’s architecture, in dialogue with the irregularity and abrupt patterns of the geography of Rio de Janeiro, his hometown.
Data sheet
Conception and artistic direction Gustavo Ciríaco
Guest artist João Saldanha
Architectural design and artistic collaboration João Gonçalo Lopes
Construction and assembly design Patrick Hubmann and João Gonçalo Lopes
Construction support Miguel Justino and Luísa Capalbo
Photography João Peixoto, Gustavo Ciríaco
Press office Mafalda Simões
Administration and financial management Missanga Antunes / Efémera Colecção
Production manager Carolina Gameiro
Co-production Teatro Municipal do Porto / DDD – Festival Dias da Dança
Institutional support THIRD – Das Research – Dance and Theatre Academy – Amsterdam University of the Arts
Residencies DEVIR support Centro de Artes Performativas do Algarve (Faro/Pt), Pico do Refúgio (Rabo de Peixe/Pt), Arquipélago – Centro de Artes Contemporâneas (Ribeira Grande/Pt), 23 Milhas/Fábrica de Ideias (Gafanha de Nazaré/Pt) and Espaço Novo Negócio/ZDB (Lisboa/Pt)
Financial support República Portuguesa – Cultura / Direção-Geral das Artes e Comissão Comemorativa 50 anos 25 de Abril