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Idiom collectors and bar culture philosophers stubbornly maintain that a real language has at least one untranslatable word that keeps popping up in many adjoining languages: duende, apartheid, hippie, blase, gezellig, blues, Weltschmerz, mafia, hubris, fair play. Thus, the dancer Angels Margarit, set herself the nigh on impossible task of interpreting into movement the feelings that arise when listening to the songs of Amalia Rodrigues. The experiment took place in a hotel room in Montreal. After getting to know the surroundings, a bouquet in a vase, snow on the TV screen, a nondescript cupboard, a poster on the wall, we concentrate on the rich, compelling music. In extreme close-ups, the camera attempts to follow a spinning head until the dancer, battle weary, collapses onto the bed. Then, after a period of composure, she glides gracefully and languidly to the floor, onto a green wall-to-wall carpet. She twists, draws up her knees, rolls to the skirting board, pulls herself up and spins like a top until she bumps into the wall. Her abandonment to her own moving body is so intense that we can almost see the contours of her body in various parts of the room, as if, like a cartoon artist, she has etched the illusion of an explosive discharge of energy onto our retinas. Panting, she prepares herself for the next musical pinnacle, a physical staccato pizzicato. Now and then we are reminded of the existence of an outside world; in blue, cold light, the camera's eye sweeps across the flats on the other side of the street. The dancer then closes the curtains and dives into bed. There, shiveringly exhausted, dully despondent, transparently calm, in grievous loneliness, but kept an eye on fondly by an understanding observer, you perhaps have to listen once more to Amalia Rodrigues' fado.
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Erik Daams
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Camera: Anne Quirynen, Music: Joan Saura, Argentina Santos, Choreography, dance: Angels Margarit, In charge of production: Teresa Carranza, Make-up: Amalia Rodrigues, Carlos Conçalves, With thanks to: Ann Olaerts, Anke Pesch, Chantal Pontbriand, John van Heddegem Prim Vidéo Montréal, Production: Mudances/Walter Verdin, AV-dienst K.U. Leuven, Festival International de Nouvelle Danse Montréal
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