Camille Claudel and the Shoegaze ballet from Brazil
Camille Claudel is a fantastic Shoegaze band from Brazil. The first time I heard their CD I was amazed at the quality of the music, the maturity, the sound.
The collaboration to present their music has begun and will be shared soon on the blog. Frederico Griman, Camille Claudel's singer, do not hesitate to venture on unknown grounds. He was kind enough to share a link of a project he did with Daniela Magalhaes Carvalho, a professional choreographer, and Camille Claudel's drummer, he worked with on a very interesting project: A shoegazing ballet.
I was amazed at the result, both the music and the dancing. I find it beautiful. There is grace in the movement designed by Daniela, and beauty in Frederico's guitar playing.
The video below was taken live in one of Rio's outdoor parks. It is so good that we wanted to discover more and asked Daniela and Frederico their take on the ballet.
Firstly, Daniela's side of things:
First of all, I am very happy that you got interested in this project, is a really important project for me, and I love talking about the process, so is nice to have an interested ear... hehe
The whole thing started as a research project for the conclusion of my specialization in a type of movement analysis system, called Laban/Bartenief.
At the time I was working as a contemporary dance teacher and choreographer in a dance school, Escola de Danca Fundação Porto Real, so I decided to make this research with a group of students. It was an amazing experience. The research was to explore the poetic language in dance, and I chose a poem by Manoel de Barros, called The Photographer to do it (NA: see below).
So, I and these students (all teenagers, from 13 to 18 years old) would work all in this laboratory to transform this poetry in dance. At some point, we decided to make a full dance piece out of it, and that´s when Fred got involved. In the poem, Manoel starts in an attempt to photograph the silence, among other things, and he finds out that the silence is a carrier. I called Fred to make the music that would be the carrier of the dance.
The music of the silence (Could it be more shoegaze? hehe)! He picked up a guitar and some pedals that would do the job, and developed a pattern while accompanying the rehearsals. He would improvise, reacting to the dancers and the choreography.
The video you saw was part of this piece, rearranged especially for performing in an open venue, with only 3 dancers (the original piece had 10 dancers) and regarding the part of the poem that speaks about the Cloud in Trousers. And the result was what you saw.
That´s the resume of it.
And now Frederico's story:
I'll talk about my composition. Daniela, who is a professional a contemporary dance choreographer adn teacher, and I did some rehearsals on a small melodic line, leaving a free space so I could improvise freely on the steps of the dancers.
I used a simple distortion, associated with a reverb shimmer and with the use of e-bow I managed to create a broad musical ambiance, ranging from a more structured melody to almost the cacophony of feedbacks and microphones.
In the video, we played outdoors, so I could use a very high volume, which maximized the power of the sound and its symbiosis with the piece of ballet.
If you want, this is the poem that the piece was inspired by, in a translation from Portuguese made with a free translator.
The Photographer (Manoel de Barros)
Hard to photograph the silence.
However, I tried. I tell you:
Dawn, my village was dead.
Couldn´t see or hear a noise, nobody went by the houses.
I was leaving a party.
It was almost four in the morning.
There was Silence along the street carrying a drunk man.
I prepared my machine.
Was the Silence a carrier?
Was carrying the drunk man.
I photographed this carrier.
I had other visions during that dawn.
Prepared my machine again.
There was a jasmine perfume on the leave of a townhouse.
I photographed the perfume.
I saw a slug preached on existence more than on the rock.
Photographed its existence.
I even saw a pardon-blue in the eye of a beggar.
I photographed the pardon.
I Looked at an old landscape toppling over one house.
I photographed the other side.
It was hard to photograph the over.
Lastly, I saw the cloud in trousers.
Represented to me that she was walking in the village of arms with Maiakovski – her creator.
I photographed the cloud in trousers and the poet.
No other poet in the world would make a fitter outfit to cover his fiancé. The picture came out nice.
Thanks to
Eric Figueredo and Victor Messias that dance with Daniela on the video.
Pete Linforth's photo
