EL NUEVO DIARIO, QUITO.- “The space in me” is a proposal of the Dance Laboratory of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Cuenca (Ecuador), elaborated as a nostalgic gesture in virtual video format, which seeks to erase the impact of a pandemic that disturbed the contact of the bodies.
Each of the dancers who perform in the play, in their respective spaces, managed to circumvent the forced isolation and dance in harmony through a video format that allowed that virtual reunion, explained to Efe the choreographer Ernesto Ortiz, director of the Laboratory of Dance of Cuenca.
This work, which also includes a digital book entitled “User Manual”, will be exhibited by its authors next Saturday in a virtual ceremony, in which Carin Louro, from the University of Rio de Janeiro, and Consuelo Maldonado, from the University of Rio de Janeiro will participate. University of Lisbon.
“This time of confinement and distance has taught us to diversify languages” and, therefore, the staging of a video dance is accompanied by a book, also digital, that combines reality and space, explained Ortiz.
The project took ten months of research and in its preparation the dancers found the space in their homes and in their respective cities to assemble the proposal, added the director.
They also prepared the texts of the “User Manual”, a record or log about each of the actors on the scene, all of them members of the Laboratory but who, due to the pandemic, remained far away in cities such as the Andean cities of Ambato, Loja and Cuenca. as well as in the German of Cologne.
This has been “a condensation process of ten months of research” that has been embodied in a “video dance and virtual book” described with bodies and that seeks to generate a process of “action and reflection,” said Ortiz.
The “User’s Manual” is also a virtual edition of images, texts and sounds, with which the visions of all those involved in the dance story dialogue, added the director.
For Ortiz, his proposal also seeks to reflect that reality caused by the coronavirus pandemic, which disrupted the lives of many, but could not avoid the presence of dance.
“For us, this is a nostalgic gesture, because in the arts the important thing is to live together, to be in the same space, in the same place and at the same time”, but since that has not been possible due to the pandemic , “So we had to do it like this”, in a video format, he added.
Ortiz said he was aware of the moment humanity is living, with the pandemic on its back and that it will still take time to heal, but he also did not hesitate to send a message to this disease.
“What I say to the pandemic is: Get out of here, we need to get together.”
