“A dancer who could not dance, a singer who could not sing, an actor who could not act, a writer who could not write, a painter who could not paint. A dancer who sang, a writer who painted, an actor who wrote. One had to know how to do in order to know how to be. While the fine lines that separate being from doing, the self from action, the thing from the subject are blurred, there is something that remains inept and dysfunctional. A monster that fails to fulfil its function.”

João dos Santos Martins

“Está visto” (Lyrical interlude, 2023) is the title of the new solo piece by João dos Santos Martins in collaboration with pianist and composer Joana Sá and visual artist Ana Jotta. Based on the song cycle “Dichterliebe” [Poet’s Love(s)], composed by Robert Schumann in 1840, the piece is presented in recital format, seeking to make the practices of singing, piano and dance interact and overflow into each other. The romantic-style songs, with poetry by Heinrich Heine, speak of unrequited love. This lack of reciprocity is reproduced in choreographic ideas that disarticulate the language, fractioning the gesture with the lyrics of the songs, the sound and the listening in a body in movement and crossing.