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Holland Festival: The Divine Cypher

Ana Pi (BR)
Tue 18 Jun ’24 and Wed 19 Jun ’24
What happens when you combine voodoo, experimental film and urban dance styles? Ana Pi has a dialogue with the legacy of filmmaker Maya Deren.
Tue 18 Jun ’24
and
Wed 19 Jun ’24

How can the legacy of voodoo, urban dances and experimental film affect a performative process? The Afro-Brazilian choreographer, dancer and visual artist Ana Pi will have a dialogue with 20th century avant-garde filmmaker Maya Deren.

Deren did seven years of research into voodoo rituals and dance in Haiti, which she took part in herself and recorded hours of footage. Her time there resulted in a series of articles, a book and a film.

In The Divine Cypher, in a dreamed and danced conversation with Deren, Pi looks at how these sources resonate today and what remains of these holy ritual dances. Which movements survived as elements of current dances? The circular Haitian dances are echoed in the cyphers, the battleground inside a circle, of urban dance. In this exquisite solo, Ana Pi interweaves the sacred and the everyday, tradition and the present, collective and individual memory.

  • Duration: 60 min. 
Part of

Credits

choreographic and scenographic concept Ana Pi video Ana Pi research and interpretation Ana Pi light creation Bia Kaysel light reinterpretation Jean-Marc Ségalen stage management Bia Kaysel, Jean-Marc Ségalen music and sonorities Jideh HIGH ELEMENTS, Emy de Pradines, Auguste de Pradines, Ezili Nenenn Ô, Julien Creuzet, Maya Deren real memories, dreamed dialogues and/or multiple collaborations Katherine Dunham, Maya Deren, Emy de Pradines, Lumane Casimir, Martha Jean-Claude, Toto Bissainthe, Marie-Ange Aurilin, Ginite Popote, Tara El, Wendy Désert, Gerda Boisguené, Murielle Jassinthe, TRVANIA, Jenny Mezile semiotic advice Profe. Dre. Cida Moura philosophical advice Profe. Dre. Maria Fernanda Novo plastic consultancy Julien Creuzet filter design Emilien Colombier costumes Carla de Lá, Miliane Rodsil, Isabella Rodsil contributions scenographic realisation Studio Julien Creuzet, Garance Cabrit, Louis Somveille production and distribution NA MATA LAB, Hanna Mauvieux co-production The Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Research Institute, Museum of Modern Art, Terra Batida, Be My Guest — Réseau international pour les pratiques émergentes, La Briqueterie CDCN du Val-de-Marne, CNDC, Angers, Kunstencentrum Vooruit Gent part of the collaboration programme Hauts-de-France / Vlaanderen co-production film with the participation of Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain Soirées Nomades with support by SPEDIDAM, Région Île-de-France, DRAC Ile-de-France

About the maker

Ana Pi (Brazil/France, 1986) is a choreographer and visual artist, researcher in urban dance, contemporary dancer and teacher. Her work is connected with travel and revolves around notions of transit, displacement, belonging, overlapping, memory, colour and everyday gestures. In 2020, she created the structure NA MATA LAB.

NoirBLUE—les déplacements d’une danse (2018 – 27 min) was her first documentary, and VÓS (2011 – 5 min 30 sec) was her first video essay. In her pieces O BΔNQUETE, COROA, NoirBLUE, DRW2 and Le Tour du Monde des Danses Urbaines en 10 villes, she interweaves choreography, speech and installation. She has given dance workshops under the name CORPO FIRME; danças periféricas, gestos sagrados since 2010.

The Divine Cypher is a project which she created in Haiti and for which she received an arts fellowship in Latin America from the MoMA (New York) and Cisneros Institute. She is also an associated choreographer with the Dancing Museums project in France, and an associated artist with the Latitudes Contemporaines production office.

She is developing the choreographic exhibition WOMEN PART 3 in collaboration with Ghyslaine Gau and Annabel Guérédrat, and the installation Rádio Concha with philosopher Maria Fernanda Novo. Lastly, for RACE, her latest essay combining dance and image, she is working with @FavelinhaDance and Chassol.

Holland Festival 2024