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Incantation of the Human Body
Puro Deseo at the Kitchen
Luciana Achugar (Photo: Angela Jimenez)
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Luciana Achugar, a Uruguayan choreographer and Cal Arts graduate based in Brooklyn, will present Puro Deseo, dance collaboration with Michael Mahalchick, at The Kitchen. The piece maintains the primal aesthetic that has characterized Achugar’s past work while specifically drawing inspiration from, as she puts it, “paranormal phenomena, the occult and monsters in Gothic film and literature.” Puro utilizes the dark container of a black-box environment to complement the subject matter, with lighting design by Madeline Best and costumes by Walter Dundervill. Achugar’s innovative pieces have breached the boundaries of archetypal impressions of aesthetic beauty by embracing the primitive, sensual and unrefined elements of human nature while still letting a foot remain grounded in classical forms. Achugar’s sense of vision was intricately conveyed when Encore interviewed her to get a sense of the upcoming performance.
Your choreography seems to harbor prevalent themes of the visceral and primal aspects of humanity. Is there a specific intention behind this decision?
This decision is very deliberate. It goes back to my thoughts on colonization and its repercussions, and about how there seems to be a connection between who’s in power and who is considered less “civilized” or “developed.” It is my way of rebelling or wanting to subvert where the power is in our society. Throughout my work I have been trying to become more “primal” in part to rebel against the Cartesian prevalent philosophy in western society, and in part because of my constantly questioning my own need to make dances and not anything other than dances. After that questioning, I always go back to my interest in being more and more “in my body” and less “in my head.” I am always searching for an ideal state of connection to the body that does not separate the mind, emotions and spirit from the carnal, but that it lives through it. I am drawn to movement that feels connected to the organs or a more unconscious part of our body intelligence and not so concerned with making shapes in space. I think this natural tendency and aesthetic came first, and then I started to find the conceptual connections between this preference and what I believe the mission of dance to be.
What is the concept behind Puro Deseo and what do you hope to convey to audiences through the piece?
The concept is to make a performance as an incantation. It is playing up to all the secret desires I believe I have as a choreographer: to put a spell on the audience, to transform myself and the other performers through the experience of performing the work, to create a new body through the creation of movement that has a “new aesthetic,” to honor the wisdom of modern dance choreographers such as Martha Graham and post moderns such as Trisha Brown by finding my own philosophy of being in the body. I hope to convey a sense of mystery during the moment of the performance that will make them aware of their expectations as a viewer, but that will also deliver a questioning of what is a mystery in their own experience of life through their bodies. I hope to make them feel transformed in some way in their guts and in their thinking, and in how those relate.
Your works often involve a considerable amount of intimacy with the audience. What purpose does this proximity serve?
It serves the simple desire to feel closer to the other, to reach out and make them part of my experience, to make sure they’re still there and did not become passive viewers. It also comes from a desire to be generous towards the audience, to give them more, to make them feel a part of my community, and that to make a performance is not unlike a ritual that we are both creating as we are there together in the present moment.
In my last work, The Sublime is Us, there was a mirror in front of the audience, which, besides all of the reasons I just spoke about, was there to simply ask the audience to look at themselves; somewhat like that part in the New Testament of the Bible when Jesus asks for whoever is without sin to throw the first stone to the prostitute.In this new piece, I am not reaching out in such a literal way to the audience, but I am staging the piece as if it were a true ritualistic experience that I am conjuring up for all of us in the room.
Briefly illuminate your creative process when taking an idea and manifesting a cohesive piece.
My process starts by reacting to what my last show was. I usually have an idea of the staging of the work pretty early in the process and I start to imagine the staging and try to listen to the ideas and overall mood of the improvisations. Then, as I continue to improvise, I attempt to find a method that will help me find the structure of the piece or that will force me to be more specific about what kind of material to choose during the improvisational process. This almost always fails me and I just end up coming up with impossible tasks and I end up rebelling against myself during the process. For example, in this current process, I set myself the challenge to make something where I would only stick to original impulses and not try to design them, to try to make a piece that could reflect the initial desire to create in the state before the mind started to shape it. Of course, that is pretty much impossible, but somehow from that came this work. And as the material starts to come out, I instinctually begin to make decisions that feel right…. At the end, those seem to align themselves with all those concepts and ideologies that I was thinking about during the process.
Puro Deseo will run April 29 – May 2 at The Kitchen. For more information or to purchase tickets, please visit www.thekitchen.org.