My work starts with a fascination for movement. Animating space and time. I believe our body is more than a combination of cells and atoms; they are filled with memories. We are full of stories. Our body is a vehicle, a barrel full of memories waiting to be told. Some of those stories are unconsciously anchored in us. They only come out when the body starts to move. For the most part, we communicate via the physical expression possibilities.
I see our body as a blueprint of what is happening within us: mythical and archetypal figures or, on the contrary, imaginative, wonderful creatures populate the stories stored in our cells. How do you get access to the memories that lie within us? That intrigues me. The body as a source of unlimited knowledge and history. In my work I ask myself how, with the help of moving bodies, I can make clear what it means to be human. Who are we in the depths of our being?
My sculptures play an important role in this. Their flexible forms show the external characteristics of the human body and transcend them at the same time. They are naturally neutral beings that I fill with stories of humanity. As soon as a pop enters the stage, she immediately catches the attention of the audience. And: she can make anything. After all, nobody condemns a doll when it deviates from the norm. A puppet has no ego. She is. We watch her and hear her story. Without prejudices. A puppet is gender / culture / religion / sexual preference-neutral. A quality that makes it possible to discuss taboos in a light-hearted way.
My history with puppets began when I was working on a choreography for dancers and puppets at the invitation of Itzik Galili. I danced with Porshia and it was love at first sight. As a modern dancer, I missed the connection with the audience. That was in the dark looking at the story I told with my body. But no dialogue started. Until I entered the stage with Porshia. The wall that separated me and the audience naturally fell away.
The program with Galili was canceled shortly before the premiere, but my own career took a rigorous turn. From that moment on I started to develop choreographic dialogues between puppet, puppeteer and audience. Over the past fifteen years, I formed my own company and developed an original, artistic signature that I have called The Object Score; the choreography of two (or more) bodies driven by one brain.
Duda Paiva