The endlessly repeated risings and fallings of desire
Bendik Giske moves his fingers firmly and delicately across the thresholds of the music; Romeu Runa lets himself be invaded and taken over by the dance until his body experiences wear and tear. Surrendered to the obsessive desire to wander, in a hypnotizing trance, the Norwegian saxophonist and the Portuguese dancer and actor meet at the National Pantheon, in Lisbon, for a unique event. In this BoCA commission, the artists reflect on time and movement from the oscillating and infinite repetitions of desire – also responsible for forming and perfecting their own voices and natural states of expression.
Evoking the memory and autobiography of the writer Samuel Delany, who’s oeuvre contains the imaginings of queer futures through the lens of science fiction afrofuturism, Bendik Giske and Romeu Runa create a meditative atmosphere that leads us to ecstasy by the recurrence of “elements that are repeated throughout any day, any life, incidents that constitute at once the basal and quotidian – waking up, breakfast, lunch, dinner, washing, elimination, driving off to sleep – as well as the endlessly repeated risings and fallings of desire” (The Motion of Light in Water: Sex and Science Fiction Writing in the East Village, 1988).
Commission and production: BoCA – Biennial of Contemporary Arts
Support: DGPC / Panteão Nacional