conversations in ten questions 46 : Joisy Amorim

In this series of interviews we try to get to know the artists who will perform in Fringe Festival Istanbul 2022. Our fifth guest is Joisy Amorim from Giro 8 Cia. de Dança.

Ayse Draz, Art Unlimited Performing Arts Editor & Mehmet Kerem Ozel, Writer

What is the essence of performance in your opinion?

The performance brings the representation of reality to the stage, recreating it and leading the audience to appreciate life itself, as well as existence itself. Dancing through its art helps to establish a man's connection with his most intimate desires and dreams. In addition, it causes a feeling of happiness and fulfillment, making the desire for change grow, allied to the belief in a better future. 

Do you believe in the transformative power of art? How?

Yes. I believe that art promotes reflections and allows new meanings to life's actions. Art is intrinsic to the processes of living. Through it, we can transform ideas and, consequently, people and society as a whole.

When you are working on a piece, what sources inspire you? Do dreams play a role in your pieces?My dreams fuel my work. Dance for me is a tool through which I can aim for a better world, using my body. I feel that life is what inspires me the most in my creative processes. The transformations, impositions and challenges faced by contemporary society directly affect my research processes. Thus, developing body works allied to my memories and connected with the time and space in which I find myself, brings to my works a “resistance body”, a body that insists on being full of intention with the desire to develop new meanings and cultural senses. the specific context of each show. Therefore, for me to dream of dance is to develop a language that is apprehensible, sensitive, intelligible and shareable with the public.

When do you decide to give a title to a piece you are working on if it already does not have one?

Usually, at the beginning of the work, I have a name proposal, but during the process, I end up getting lost and connecting with the creation. While I have everything defined, other situations affect me and other names cross my mind. In general, I can only name at the end of the creative process, that is, the moment when, for me, the work begins to have a structure.

Are there any artist or person whom you think influenced your art most? And if there is such an artist or person, who?

Yes, several artists influenced my artistic work. Initially, my teachers as a child until my professional training. Later, two choreographers that I studied a lot influence and inspire me daily: Pina Bausch with Dance Theater, where I see the magnitude of dance as a language and Ohad Naharin who directly influences my body research.

When you consider the current state of the world in every sense, what is the most important and urgent issue for you as an artist?

Currently, we are going through a moment never experienced before in our entire history. We find a man who is increasingly fragmented, individualized, who has lost the essence of collective experiences, as well as the strength of experiences with nature, and has alienated himself. The individual experience, especially now virtual, which becomes more unique every day, shows gradually conditioned and hypnotizing. The individual is faced with an immensity of mainly virtual stimuli to compose the construction of his subjectivity, however he finds himself progressively more alone and depending on himself to support his human formation and to build himself. Their socialization and subjectivity are increasingly left to their own devices; while at the same time, there is a growing need to remain within the social world, through the virtual world, which has been freezing and annihilating face-to-face human relationships. Responses in applications, emails and social networks need to happen in real time, not just at the time that was established for work; vacations, nights, lunch hours are over... The cell phone sleeps next to the pillow. With this, it is urgent to run more and more, so as not to be overtaken. The competition and exposure of constant happiness in the Menus of applications on social networks, sell a fabricated image, which in most cases is not the reality experienced by each individual. Everything that is most beautiful is photographed, from waking up to going to bed, leaving no time to look at yourself. At the same time, we are experiencing a shortage of educational and cultural public policies in our country, which makes it impossible for the general audience to meet with the arts in the common spaces inhabited by them. The marketing art, this one, which has its importance, but is not always committed to its function, limits the experiences and helps to keep the population dumb, is increasingly being offered to the people with great ease. There is one of the most provocative challenges, to be able to create shows that make the public want to go back to theaters in person or even virtual rooms. Remembering that today's audience, extremely marked by the changes provided by the speed of advances brought by the internet, has become an audience that is usually not fully present in what they do...

What does ‘Fringe’ signify for you?

Joy, conquest and recognition, were the feelings that took me when we received the e-mail officializing our participation. At the same time, I felt a responsibility to participate in such an important festival for the art world. It is an opportunity to take the work of Giro8 Companhia de Dança and my work as a choreographer to other stages, in addition to providing moments of learning and exchange of experiences. Dancing in yet another country and being able to have our work appreciated by other audiences is a joy that makes me fulfilled.

Why did you decide to participate in the Istanbul Fringe Festival particularly with ‘Sr. Will’?

The “Mr. Will” is a show that brings provocative challenges of our present time. Based on the experiences we have already had with this work, he takes the public to experience different sensations, producing different perceptions. Very well accepted wherever he went, he has been enchanting the audiences where he has performed. For me, this show is the purest impulse of desire, where the present/future time becomes one.

How did the idea for this piece come about, how did the creating process develop?

This performance was motivated to raise discussions about how human beings relate to technologies. How to give voice to the purest human desires, without strings, free from prejudice. It's like keeping that freedom within the technological world we live in, where technology serves us but also limits us at the same time. From experimentation, thinking about simple and routine situations in life such as eating, sleeping, feeling, playing, dancing, being born, growing up, we developed situations that during the creative process became scenes and, later, were choreographed. During the creation process, we understood the different situations that we created and we came to the conclusion that a remote control car would represent well the technology that is so present in our lives. Through the cart's simplicity, we were able to use it as a guiding thread that affects all the actions that are developed throughout the show. The idea was to show how technology helps us and how it can also hinder us. But we, as creators of technology, can turn it off whenever we want to meet our deepest being.

Is there anything particular you would like to tell the Istanbul audience before they experience your piece?

Just sit back, relax, breathe and soak in Mr. Will.

[The Turkish version of this interview was published in unlimited.]