ART AND RESEARCH BOOK LAUNCH " Escape to Present Time - The Light Power of the Moon Burns Only the Eyes”

Serralves hosts the launch of the Art and Research Book of the creation “Escape to Present Time – The Light Power of the Moon Burns Only the Eyes” by Joana von Mayer Trindade & Hugo Calhim Cristóvão, published by the Instituto de Filosofia da Universidade do Porto: Grupo de Investigação "Raízes e Horizontes da Filosofia e da Cultura em Portugal" and by Nuisis Zobop - Ass. Cultural de Criação, Investigação e Formação no Domínio das Artes Performativas, within the framework of the project Dança e Filosofia, Raízes e Horizontes do Presente Frágil.

The invited choreographers and authors will present a brief introduction to the themes and creative processes, followed by a conversation with guest specialists: Afonso Becerra, Armando Nascimento Rosa, Celeste Natário, Mário Correia and Rui Lopo.

The session is co-organised by Nuisis Zobop - Associação Cultural de Criação, Investigação e Formação no Domínio das Artes Performativas and RG “Raízes e Horizontes da Filosofia e da Cultura em Portugal” – Instituto de Filosofia da Universidade do Porto and Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), in collaboration with Serralves Bookshop.

The Art and Research Book comprises 488 pages. It includes photographic interventions by Leonel de Castro, Alípio Padilha, João Octávio Peixoto, Luís Ferreirinha and Carlos Gomes, as well as contributions by Hugo Calhim Cristóvão, Afonso Becerra, Armando Nascimento Rosa, Carlos Pimenta, Chris Page, Claudia Marisa, Cristina Aguiar, Ezequiel Santos, Elter Manuel Carlos, Gustavo Pimenta, Joana von Mayer Trindade, Luis Ramos, Mário Correia, Nuno Matos Duarte, Paula Cepeda, Rui Lopo, Sara Miguelote, Nuno Meireles, Sofia Vilar, Joana Cardinal and Tiago Silva. Graphic design by Matilde Santiago.

Synopsis:

“The creation “Escape to Present Time - The Light Power of the Moon Burns Only the Eyes” envisions Dance as ethos and impermanence, a vertigo in the now, the finitude of precipitated beings, fragile presence, and the metamorphosis of the momentary—an attentive blade where The Knife Does Not Cut the Fire, yet fire tears through times of unrepeatable occurrences. It is a mythical experience of dancing with both delirium and ethical rigor, embodying an intimate feeling as a fact—centering the "fingerprint for eternity" against disappearance, as geopolitics bears witness by annihilating the present, enacting horror, and demanding responses of otherness that, artistically centered in the heart of Dance, de-banalize the present amidst the revulsion of the monstrous. This work confronts the conflict between Instant and Eternity, Permanence and Impermanence, Ethos-Pathos-Logos, through movements that occupy the instant, seeking relevance in the fragile present—a crucial path of resilience that disassembles identity across all (im)possible beings in the fragility of the now. It is a Flight to the Present, vibrating in eyes burned by the re-contemplation of suffering so that, from impermanence of action to impermanence of action, resilience does not lose its life in the fragile present.”  Hugo Calhim Cristóvão and Joana von Mayer Trindade