Friction generates unexpected feelings. Whoever claims it doesn’t, is lying. The interaction between two bodies sometimes lead to situations we had never thought possible. “By friction”, the latest world premier by the Cuban contemporary dance company Endedans deals with such feelings.
The piece doesn’t tell a story in particular; instead, it suggests possible situations resulting from the interaction of two bodies. It makes no contributions to the language of dance but it allows this company from the central province of Camaguey to display its versatility, youth, vigor and huge desire of enjoying dance.
For the company’s director, Tania Vergara, the creation by Danish Jens Bjerregaard holds tight to a very European style, almost inexpressive faces and supported in the natural instinct of dancers.
Cubans are used to a more academic way of dancing with intertwined steps for the sake of requirements that become the means for virtuosity. Besides, we are used to externalize reactions with the whole body, including the movement of the eyes, the eyebrows, the mouth, the hands, the hips and the shoulders. Thus, it is difficult for the dancers and the audience to assimilate any expressive proposal less extrovert. Nonetheless, Endedans’s dancers made it; the energy of the company is ideal for this and other similar pieces.
Nothing happens by chance, the direction has allowed them to prepare for the diversity of forms.
“During its first ten years, 98 percent of the choreographies by the company were by Tania Vergara. Then, we started to open up to other trends, share efforts and explore the body with different creators, without losing our aesthetics and our approach of theater”, said the director, who received an Ibero-American Choreography Award in 2008.
Vergara founded Endedans in May, 2002, with an aesthetics, a concept of movement, and a passion that have preserved till today. The company was able to embrace the opening and welcome successfully other ways of creation thanks to her work, her choreographic and artistic demands of this woman who is always focused on combining techniques, drama and good energy.
The conceptual depth on Tania’s pieces, such as “La muerte del Hombre”, “Las manos que nunca me tocaron”, “El drama de la memoria”, “Las Bernaldas” and “La Carmen”, among others, have improved and developed this team and many of its dancers individually as artists. The audience doesn’t suspect that some dancers come from the school of art instructors and had to triple their efforts to be up to par; it can’t even imagine that the winner of the Male’s Interpretation Award for 2013 in Cuba, Jesus Arias, used to work on the fields with his father to help his family while he was studying a major.
Endedans’ organization puts some makeup on the efforts of its members, includingPR assistant Julio Cesar Delgado, lighting technician Dunieski Eng, dress designer Monica Pico, sound technician Juan Carlos Ruiz, and producer Dany Rodriguez. Magic comes out when so much people come together and share their knowledge and hearts as a team and that’s Endedans beauty.
Vergara’s pieces and her way of creation set the foundations and developed fit dancers to face challenges. Some pieces by foreign creators, despite not being extraordinary, look beautiful and the audience enjoys them for being well staged by the company as Tania would say with her glamorous spirit of a warrior.
“By Friction” lacks lighting and falls into unnecessary repetitions of lifts and just makes use of the fourth part of its dancers’ techniques.
The audience of the performances last May 24 and 25 at the Principal Theater of Camaguey was able to check that Endedans is distinguished by the fact that its dancers are not machines carrying out instructions. If the Danish choreographer set the goal of being inexpressive, he didn’t make it entirely. In an act of clarity, he added the piece a moment in which two beautiful women exchange looks among the audience while the rest of the dancers say: “Look at me” “Pay me attention” “Hey!” Endedans definitely deserve more attention.
