Press & Reviews (selected)

Under the sky of Gustavo Ciríaco, during Dias da Dança

 Gustavo Ciriaco is a collector. The Brazilian artist grounds on the work of others and collectively recreates new possibilities. “Landscape in a Line” is a work by him in collaboration with the Brazilian choreographer Luciana Lara, which takes over the atrium of the Serralves Museum this Sunday.

Diário de Notícias. Porto, April 2022.

Walk&Talk 10, São Miguel

Gustavo Círiaco’s “LAWAL / Covered by the Sky”, which he describes as a “tour-installation,” took place on the property of Pico de Refúgio, a site that dates to the seventeenth century and has served as a military fortress, orange tree plantation, tea factory, and artist residence. Devised in collaboration with the architect Gonçalo Lopes and the choreographer Javiera Peon-Veiga, the work consisted of a walk through paths mowed into the grounds’ rolling hills and punctuated by text panels and in-situ sculptures; an experience that cited the land art parcours of Richard Long and Robert Smithson’s site-based poetics while also reconsidering what “choreography” might mean in a relational experience with the natural world.

WhiteHot Magazine, by Brian Wallace. New York, July 2021

The excursion conceived by the artist and choreographer Gustavo Ciríaco led us to a territory modified by his stories and visions, a land art work of great poetic and landscape appeal.
Exibart, by Lorenza Pignatti. Milan, July 2021
Observador, by Bruno Horta. Lisbon, August 2021.

Coffeepaste – interview (in Portuguese)

Interview by Pedro Mendes. Lisbon, October 2021.

Walk&Talk 10 — Para um «lugar (em) comum» algures nesta ilha

In collaboration with Javiera Peón-Veiga and Gonçalo Lopes, Gustavo Ciríaco tore a path through a rural  property, inviting us to  wander through it — this way, covered by the sky — in a walk of around 45 minutes.

Umbigo Magazine. Lisbon, August 2021.

Cubiertos por el cielo: con doble función brasileño Gustavo Ciriaco concluye proyecto en Centro NAVE

Bio Chile, Santiago, December 2021.

“Cubiertos por el cielo – paseo infinito” se presentará en el Centro Nave 

Diário Usach Chile, Santiago, December 2021.

Artista brasileño Gustavo Ciriaco en NAVE

El Mostrador, Santiago, December 2021.

Centro NAVE recibe al artista brasileño Gustavo Ciriaco con doble función

Radio U Chile, Santiago December 2021.

The charming performance Cut by all sides, open by all corners (2018) by artist Gustavo Ciríaco at the Teatro Micaelense in the Azorean capital Ponta Delgada, invites viewers not only to participate – my group blew balloons and released them as ‘birds’ above other groups who performed as a volcano and ocean – but also to roam through the theatre’s backstage, office and dressing rooms. Ciríaco describes his piece as ‘rhapsodic’, and it is. Like good masseuses, performers softly take care of the transitions between the acts by calling the audience and directing it to follow through the movements of their hands on the walls. The work includes dance, music and singing, and poetic tableaux vivants visible from the stairway or the rooftop.
Frieze Magazine. By Cristina Sanchez-Kozyreva, London & New York, August 2018.

“Cut, open, explore: voyage to the center of the theater by the hands of Gustavo Ciríaco”

“Here the stage is the theater Dona Maria II so are its corridors, lodges, office and rehearsal rooms. The stage is where the actors are so far as we follow them, without interruptions, with no assigned seat, in this inside out discovery odyssey through theater til its seams, as it were a sculpture”

Revista Visão, Lisbon, May 2018.

Alkantara through an itinerancy by all the corners of the National Theatre 

Gustavo Ciríaco proposes a voyage through the Teatro D. Maria II, looking at the building as if it were a sculpture.

Diário de Notícias. Lisbon, May 2018.

The theatre as a sculpture

Unexpected, always, sometimes contemplative, other times claustrophobic, interventional, with the space, with the public, in a series of episodes, moments, walking through corridors, rooms, open or closed spaces. A place to dance, watch dance, sing, listen to Carla Gomes or even have to sing – like on a birthday. Whether at the beginning or end of the party, it will depend on the perspective. Fulfilled will be the initial promise that there will be theater, there will be actors and that, around the corner, waiting there will be a new scene. It’s listening to Carla Gomes, right at the beginning, sing “soon it will be over, let’s gonna make it worth”. And go.

Jornal i, Lisbon, May 2018.

If my memory was a theatre, would you promise to walk through it?

In a row, transformed into figures, passing the aisles of this theatre. Every movement could be fixed, like a photograph. Because the images, so simple, become strong.

“Cut by all sides, open by all corners” has a unique strength. It manages to make a crowd of almost 90 people naturally bend down to silently listen to a piano play. Or, in the dressing room that archives the costumes of that theatre, make them watch the actors dance and then solidify, transforming themselves into living sculptures.

It’s such a beautiful party, the kind that make us not want to give up. Because we feel part, no matter the fact that we are just passing by.

Jornal de Negócios. Lisbon, May 2018.

There is surprise and mystery in all the corners of Dona Maria II National Theatre

“Cut by all sides, open by all corners” proposes a journey of discovery behind the scenes of the Lisbon theatre.

O Observador. Lisbon, May 2018.

 The Walk & Talk Festival will continue to stretch the limits of the Azores 

Ípsilon – Público, May 2018.

The spectator is then invited to move around the structure and observe it from different angles and perspectives. The actors break the division between what it means to be “on stage” and “off stage” through choreographies that culminate in strong images (especially those that take place in the scenography room) and that trigger the public’s private and collective memory. Interaction with the visitors, whether direct with the represented action or indirect _through the individual body position of each spectator in relation to the artistic object_ is therefore encouraged and necessary to enjoy the piece. We are involved in creation in the form of various performed actions. Although at times the scenes might seem fragmented, the objective is not, however, to achieve the unity of the narrative, but rather the unity of space. Theatricality goes beyond the stage or theater curtains and sculpture, as well as architecture, and their functionality is expanded and brought to the field of performance in a game of transposition of time to something fixed: space. The moment and its experience are reconsidered  in “Cut by all sides, open by all corners” and the interpersonal relationship and everyday world are brought to a theater that focuses on people and on the sharing of action and place.
Magazine HD, May 2018.

Dona Maria II National Theatre cut by all sides, open by all corners

Gustavo Ciríaco allows us to discover Dona Maria II National Theatre, cut by all sides, open by all corners, leading us to explore its hidden paths and to demystify the normally rigid boundaries between architecture, theatre and city.

Umbigo Magazine, Lisbon, May 2018.

Cut by all sides, open by all corners by Gustavo Ciríaco 

With Gustavo we are invited to break standards: We enter the ticket office, create a human clearing and wait… We are so used to being “sheep” in the crowd that anything that goes out of the ordinary becomes strange, unexpected. We leave the theatre, the theatre opens up to the people – curious tourists stop to see what’s going on. We follow the artists and the immersion in the magical space begins.

Contracenas, Lisbon, May 2018.

Gentleness of a Giant & Voyage to a wrinkled plain

Ciríaco continues to draw the surroundings, to think about the individual, the act of living, of living together, the other, but now he expands this perception to the whole, to the world, to stories, to urgencies. He’s another artist, still being himself. Or maybe this is just a second installment of him. His continuation. Being himself and anew whilst continuing. There is no doubt that this diptych is one of the most interesting spectacles in this Biennial, due to how the artist reinvents himself and the dilemmas he points to the human without having to transforming it into smaller opportune speeches. His poetry overcomes the need for speeches. Art is made.

Revista Antropositivo, by Rui Filho. São Paulo, 2017.

Gentleness of a Giant

A piece of overwhelming beauty and desolation. ‘Gentleness’ and ‘Giant’ are ironies full of ambiguities. Here he plays with the fragile, but also the strong impact that each person has on Nature, the horror and the sublime.

O Expresso, by Cláudia Galhós. Lisbon. March 2016.

Or that which we call nature, actually, more and more a fiction.

Jornal i, Lisbon. March 2016.

Danseurs hors cadre – Here whilst we walk in Crossing the Line Festival, in New York

What border does this white ribbon, which both separates and unites, draw? Outside, inside, free show for all. The day before, the group of participants was attacked by a “Screw the whites!”. As impressive as this quiet and peaceful stroll through this gentrifying neighborhood is, it’s walking on a tightrope.

LE MONDE, Paris, September 2015.

Crossing the Line Festival announces its line up 2015, New York Times, New York, June 2015.

With a calm new perspective, we experience the tortuous and lonely spaces on the edge of a city and also the small theatre of reality imagined or which is spontaneously happening.

By Hung-Hung, Taipei, December 2012.

Still – under the state of things

Operating in a similar vein, between a singular installation and an imaginary conference, the Brazilian Gustavo Ciríaco explores, throughout Still, the distance that separates presence from absence – but also the present from the past – and composes, from his three partners, a succession of vivid scenes. Filled with ideas and discoveries, this subtly quirky piece – whose mischievous intelligence is quite similar to that which the French group Le Grand Magasin manages to establish – manages to be both conceptual and spiritual, flirting with abstraction without losing anything in incarnation.

Les inrockuptibles, by Jerôme Provençal, Paris. 2008.

Un Poema Poétic, Time Out Barcelona, by Barbara Raubert. Where the horizon moves at Mercat de Flors. Barcelona, March 2015.

Still proposes a curious game with the real time, Jornal Estadão, by Helena Katz,São Paulo. February, 2007.

Here whilst we walk – a Walking Event, Süddeutsche Zeitung, by Anne Fritsch, Munich. September 2006.

 

Interviews (in Portuguese)

 

Articles & Publications 

The Politics of Speculative Imagination in Contemporary Choreography, by André Lepecki. Edited by Rebekah J. Kowal, Gerald Siegmund, and Randy Martin. London. March 2017. The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Politics.

Iconofly, Paris| New York. September 2015.

Dancing bodies in (Brazilian) public space, Archipelago | The Podcast Platform of the Funambulist, by Léopold Lambert, September 2014.

Dance and the Museum: Gustavo Ciríaco responds to Critical Correspondence, Movement Research, New York, 2014.

Walking and mapping – artists as cartographers, by Karen O’Rourke, MIT Press, London.

MOVE: coreographing you. Art and Dance since the 1960’s, Hayward Gallery, Corner House, London.

Doblando a si mismo, by Isabel de Naverán, Revista Cairón, Madrid.

Walking through invisible architectures. Commentary on Here whilst we walk by Gustavo Ciríaco and Andrea Sonnberger, by Victoria Pérez Royo, Europa-Universitat Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder) and Revista Cairón, Madrid.

La danse du spectateur, by Katja Montagnac, Jeu: Revue de Théatre, Montreal. 2008.
TV
Studio Móvel – TVE, interview, Rio de Janeiro. February 2015.(Portuguese)
CURTA! DANÇA, interview, Rio de Janeiro. October 2015. (Portuguese)
RADIO
Programa Todo o Público, Radio Antena 1 – Açores, com Elsa M. Soares. June 2016. (Portuguese)
Discoreografia, Itaú Cultural. Campinas. September 2015. (Portuguese)
Carnets de la création, Radio France. March 2015. (French)
In-Presentables, Radio de la Casa, Casa Encendida, Madrid. June 2006. (Spanish)

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