This is not a small news: Andrea Peña and his artists will present Bogotaa brand new and large-scale creation by the Colombian-Canadian-Quebec choreographer, at 17e Venice Biennale International Contemporary Dance Festival in July. A big scenography with scaffolds and nine dancers to carry a very embodied universe, inspired by Latin American baroque, magical realism and recrossed by queer questions. Glance.
The Venice Biennale has until now reserved this springboard for Italian choreographers under the age of 35. Andrea Peña is the first international artist to sign a creation there. ” It really is cool to feel the dance community that is behind us, that says: “You go, girl ! Go ahead !” “, underlined the choreographer, in an interview at the Duty.
While the roads of the dance tour are still dented by the impacts of the pandemic and the European stages have turned towards local creation, this openness to Quebec dance on a major international stage is once again becoming symbolic.
“Being a choreographer can also be very lonely. There, I feel that something is changing in the spirit of the community, in the way we think together. “It must be said that Mme Peña has invested over time in discussions between creators. Co-curator at Tangente, she has been part of many think tanks looking for ways to share power, structures, ideas and decisions.
I try to think of new choreographic models, new postures.
As an artist, she “also seeks to work differently, to do choreography differently”. Her dancers, who have worked with her for seven years, she sees them as collaborators, co-artists: François Richard, Jean-Benoit Labrecque, Frédérique Rodier, Erin O’Loughlin, Charlie Prince, Nicholas Bellefleur, Jontae McCrory, Chi Long, Jo Lainy Trozzo-Mounet.
“I try to think of new choreographic models, new postures,” says the choreographer. “I come from industrial design”, says the one who did artistic direction for Rudsak clothing, “and I have this desire to link the dialogue between body and design even more deeply through Bogota “.
Frontal culture
“All my works carry my Colombian culture, in a nuanced way, for example through rhythm. With Bogota, I really wanted to bring my culture back head-on, for the first time in one of my creations. »
For the piece, the artists immersed themselves in the aesthetics of European Baroque, with its visual representations of death. “And that brought me back to the notion of Latin American baroque, andean baroque, its recovery, its hybridization with indigenous, artisanal, Colombian practices. It is full interesting,” says M.me Pena.
“With the war that marked Colombia for so many years, I also wanted to delve into the ways in which this culture transforms the ideas of death, transformation and resurrection towards celebration, resilience, joy; and bringing it back to today. »
In the studio, “we took baroque images, which we physically explored through queer questions. What does it mean to “queer” these images? We meet again, it’s a raw example, with a scene we call between us Double Gay Jesus : two men one on top of the other making an image of Jesus being transformed. »
“We ask ourselves: ‘If we take a different body, gendered, not gendered, binary, not binary, how does that question the Baroque image? Archetypes? »
A big industrial scenography is added. “We have scaffolding of three ladders, eight speakers on stage, huge filled industrial bins. “A setting of this magnitude, rare in dance in Quebec, “comes with the opportunity” to be at the Biennale, confirms Mme Pena.
“We take advantage of it. La Biennale is also the co-producer of the play, they invest financially, and that gives us a wider playing field than if we did that just in Montreal. We also designed the scenography based on rentals; we didn’t buy anything — also because we wanted to be able to travel without sending containers. After the play, each of the objects will return to its usefulness. »
The premiere is held in Venice on July 13, 2023. If forecasts hold, Bogota will be presented in Montreal in 2024