Rui Horta (P): Setup

At the beginning of his career Horta became famous by his visually very strong performances; in our days he’s investing his talent to the query of the meaning and the position of the space. With his profoundly sensible dancers he develops the new ways of scenic expression.

In his newest work, in Set up, he aims to upgrade the hesitation of the public. With the total usage of the scenic technology he is breaking the inner layers of poetic meanings and tries to sliding them together. Suddenly opening and falling down curtains, changing situations and spaces, actors dancing among the public, or public sitting on the stage – he dissolves the signification of distance, proportions and volume. “This is the space, where anything could happen sine warning. That site is based on our presence, our habits relations and reactions. The hall is cold, sterilized, like an operating theatre before the intervention. In a minimalist, standing off, technology dominated space even the passing of the time is miraculous; but even sinister: in the observatory of the sensations the perception is based only in the sound – mediated by the body of the dancers.“ – Rui Horta

Because we can not consider the dance in itself, focusing only to the body forgetting the space created by his movements; inasmuch as that is the unique medium which justifies his present.

The chair is broken, but you can still sit on it.
To see is to be seen, and almost nothing separates us from what observes us, nevertheless this game of proximities also leads us to a critical distance, to territories where the boundaries raise once more. SET UP speaks about communication. “If you tell me who you are, I will tell you a story”, or still, “tell me who you are, I will tell who am I”. In SET UP what is spoken is irrelevant; communication is made through the body. The text is the body. The context is equally the same body. Communication exists, but the maneuver space is becoming more limited – time, has run out long time ago. Rui Horta