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Between Centuries
Things measured in one hundred: 100 degrees Celsius (the boiling point of water), 100 yards (the length of a football field minus the end zones). Centuries and centenarians are calculated in one hundred years. Colombian novelist, Gabriel García Marquez, chose to measure out his treatise on love, sex, and loss, in one hundred solitary years. And who can forget the feverishly dissected first hundred days of Barack Obama’s presidency?
Something feels important, yet also quantifiable, about the number 100. Perhaps deceptively so. In her new dance piece 100 (First Draft), writer and choreographer Letty Bassart resumes a long-held fascination with the delineation and exploration of time and space. In an event billed as Dois Mundos or Two Worlds, Bassart presents 100 and an excerpt from her 2008 piece, Salt, at Miami Beach’s Byron Carlyle this Friday and Saturday alongside the work of Miami-based, Brazilian choreographer Augusto Soledade.
Bassart calls 100 a “Googlesque exploration of beginnings.” As the Miami native explains, “100 actually started when I was thinking about how each beginning involves stepping into the unknown.” One unknown that intrigues Bassart is the 21st century. Whereas Salt utilized heavy physical movements and the utterance of poetic lines laced with despair, 100 skips, pulsates, and spins into the unknown of a new century. As the Miami-native affirms: “We are still speculating on what the 21st century is going to be about. It is a straddling of nostalgia and speculation. I think this is what happens when centuries turn the dial.”
Two Worlds is the fruit of numerous conversations between Bassart and Soledade who both feel the idea of local choreographers sharing a stage should not be a rarified event: “We think this kind of exchange should be going on throughout the dance community,” explains Soledade, artistic director of Brazz Dance Theater, “We all have a great passion for dance even if we have different ways of interpreting movement.”
Soledade will showcase work from his company’s repertoire, including the widely praised, Diaries of an Outlaw, which follows the life of Brazilian renegade, Maria Bonita. “This is a piece about relationships,” explains Soledade. “It’s about always having to be on the run.”
In addition to other signature pieces, Inspiraciones Melancolicas and A Foot for Samba, Soledade will give audiences a ten-minute peek at his latest project, Cordel, which incorporates Argentine tango, hip-hop, and the poetic structure of Cordel, a literary tradition from the northeast of Brazil. What do these seemingly different forms have in common? “I’m interested in hip hop and tango,” says Soledade, “and how movement becomes a very important way of expressing a story and history.”
As Bassart explains, she and Soledade are very different choreographers: “Augusto’s work is grounded in African roots, although it has contemporary thought, and mine is grounded in visual concepts and writing.” Two Worlds offers audiences a unique opportunity to witness distinct aesthetics and complimentary passions.
If you go:
What: Dois Mundos/Two Worlds, choreography by Augusto Soledade and Letty Bassart
When: Friday and Saturday, June 5 and 6 at 8:30 pm
Where: Byron Carlyle Theater, 500 71st Street, Miami Beach
Admission: $20 (General) $10 (Students and Seniors)
Information: www.ticketmaster.com or call the Byron Carlyle Box office at 305 358 5885 www.brazzdance.com and www.lettybassart.com
Something feels important, yet also quantifiable, about the number 100. Perhaps deceptively so. In her new dance piece 100 (First Draft), writer and choreographer Letty Bassart resumes a long-held fascination with the delineation and exploration of time and space. In an event billed as Dois Mundos or Two Worlds, Bassart presents 100 and an excerpt from her 2008 piece, Salt, at Miami Beach’s Byron Carlyle this Friday and Saturday alongside the work of Miami-based, Brazilian choreographer Augusto Soledade.
Bassart calls 100 a “Googlesque exploration of beginnings.” As the Miami native explains, “100 actually started when I was thinking about how each beginning involves stepping into the unknown.” One unknown that intrigues Bassart is the 21st century. Whereas Salt utilized heavy physical movements and the utterance of poetic lines laced with despair, 100 skips, pulsates, and spins into the unknown of a new century. As the Miami-native affirms: “We are still speculating on what the 21st century is going to be about. It is a straddling of nostalgia and speculation. I think this is what happens when centuries turn the dial.”
Two Worlds is the fruit of numerous conversations between Bassart and Soledade who both feel the idea of local choreographers sharing a stage should not be a rarified event: “We think this kind of exchange should be going on throughout the dance community,” explains Soledade, artistic director of Brazz Dance Theater, “We all have a great passion for dance even if we have different ways of interpreting movement.”
Soledade will showcase work from his company’s repertoire, including the widely praised, Diaries of an Outlaw, which follows the life of Brazilian renegade, Maria Bonita. “This is a piece about relationships,” explains Soledade. “It’s about always having to be on the run.”
In addition to other signature pieces, Inspiraciones Melancolicas and A Foot for Samba, Soledade will give audiences a ten-minute peek at his latest project, Cordel, which incorporates Argentine tango, hip-hop, and the poetic structure of Cordel, a literary tradition from the northeast of Brazil. What do these seemingly different forms have in common? “I’m interested in hip hop and tango,” says Soledade, “and how movement becomes a very important way of expressing a story and history.”
As Bassart explains, she and Soledade are very different choreographers: “Augusto’s work is grounded in African roots, although it has contemporary thought, and mine is grounded in visual concepts and writing.” Two Worlds offers audiences a unique opportunity to witness distinct aesthetics and complimentary passions.
If you go:
What: Dois Mundos/Two Worlds, choreography by Augusto Soledade and Letty Bassart
When: Friday and Saturday, June 5 and 6 at 8:30 pm
Where: Byron Carlyle Theater, 500 71st Street, Miami Beach
Admission: $20 (General) $10 (Students and Seniors)
Information: www.ticketmaster.com or call the Byron Carlyle Box office at 305 358 5885 www.brazzdance.com and www.lettybassart.com