Offering for a Monster
Dance students of the Academy of Theatre and Dance free themselves from their inner monster in an unparalleled improvisation project
The spectacular improvised performances by renowned Uruguayan choreographer and video artist Tamara Cubas focus on encounters between people from different social and cultural backgrounds. In Offering for a Monster, she works with a large group of dance students to free them from their fears and blockades.
Julidans Extended
Run time 135 minutes
Location De Sloot
Being young, Cubas believes, is a kind of clash between past, present, and future. As a result of that clash, an enormous amount of energy is released – ‘the monster’. In fact, ‘the monster’ can be anything that the participants are afraid of. To surrender to the monster is to open oneself to the abyss of the unknown. What she is trying to bring about is a change in mindset: how can the participants deal with each other in a loving way, looking for connection while maintaining their individuality?
It is an intensive project lasting no less than eight days – eight hours a day – with a group of 50 to 55 young people who are studying Dance at the Academy for Theatre and Dance in Amsterdam.
-|-In 2016, her performance Multitud was one of the highlights of Julidans 2016. Sixty to eighty dancers, actors, circus artists and other professional and amateur performers from Amsterdam and the surrounding area put on a compelling physical spectacle. During rehearsals, Cubas lays down some broad outlines, but the participants have to find out for themselves how to get there every performance. Every time, this results in a new, dynamic group choreography, driven by the choices each performer makes on the spot.
It is a very organic way of working in which the individual rather than the collective or the choreographer is the determining factor: an essentially new form of making theatre. In the cities where she has performed so far – including Montevideo, Barcelona and Mexico City – she has always brought together a crowd (a ‘multitud’) of people who took on the adventure with her.
-|-Tamara Cubas does not confine herself to one art form; she combines video, photography, choreography, and theatre. Her autonomous work is mainly about the power of Latin American bodies, which are stuffed with memories, history, specific experiences, and their constant quest for decolonisation (Cannibal Series (2019) and Anthropophagic Trilogy (2017)). Projects with amateurs on themes close to her heart are increasingly important to her.
The project Offer for a monster is supported by the Artist in Residence program of the Amsterdam University of the Arts.
Credits
Choreografie & concept Tamara Cubas
Producer Alicia Laguna
'Offering for a monster' was created with students from the PARTS GXIII training program in Brussel: Adem Ouhaibia, Birit Haarla, Ching-Shu Huang, Eleni Roberts, Elsa Tagawa, Jean Pierre Buré, Marita Sinikka Schwanke, Marlla Araújo, Mate Jonjić, Per Anders Solli, Philomene Jander, Rania Barhoumi, Selby Jenkins, Vladimir Babinchuk Outerelo
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Fotografie Olympe Tits
Dansers Amsterdam Pedro Machado, Ugne Laurinavičiūtė, Jimi Dormans, Bryan Nurhakim, Ina Wojdyla, Ryan Le-Nguyen, Rowan Sen, Marilou Fortuné, Dicko Din, Layla Miño, Dengling Levine, Ana Margarida Tasso de Sousa, Hannah Fernandes Badura, Eivinas Dziena, Elias Klark, Wan Yun Chen, Swali Mazzaggio, Johan Högsten, Elisha Mercelina, Simon Leliévre, Gaspard Schmitt, Nina Pushkareva, Oscar Valenza, Bjorn Bakker, Jieon Ko (Rosie), Laura Mouro Costa, Liah Frank, Alberto Quirico, Maira Darja Horvath, Ida Vu
