La Jornada: Shanghai Moon, choreography that invites you to look at it and observe calmly

The teacher, choreographer and dancer Lidya Romero begins the celebration of two milestones: 50 years of artistic career and 44 years at the head of her company, El Cuerpo Mutable Teatro de Movimiento.

The celebration will take place in the Miguel Covarrubias room on June 13 and 14, with the presentation of Shanghai Moon, first of a trilogy of choreographies that explores the cultures of the East as imaginary geography.

For Romero, that region of the world has always been “otherness, the other side,” an idea that generates curiosity beyond exoticism. “One imagines and it also has many elements: Chinatown, movies, literature… there are a series of elements that come together as a context to finally talk about the human condition.”

In an interview, the teacher comments that Shanghai Moon It is not intended to be a scientific study of the Far East, but rather a covering of dreaminess, mystery and imagination to address what is essential: the drives of the human being, fears, death, loneliness, illness, eroticism, the awakening of sexuality in adolescence and how personality is shaped.

The structure of the work is cinematic: there is no linear story, but “flashes, images that suddenly flood the atmosphere within an apparent calm.”

Romero described a scene of fish in a pond, “in their calm, calm, peaceful state,” which suddenly breaks; then a teenager in a cherry forest enjoying the color and sensation around her and, suddenly, “everything becomes a mob rape.” That ambiguity of events is what interests him. “Suddenly everything is very calm, calm, and suddenly there is an element that detonates and becomes something terrible.”

Among the references that nourish the piece are cinema, literature and philosophy. Accompanying Romero are Akira Kurosawa – “the aesthetics of his landscapes and the treatment of his characters fascinate me” –, Wong Kar-wai, Mishima, the butoh dance, the tea ceremony and the kintsugi technique: “this idea of ​​something that breaks and is not discarded, but is put back together with gold glue and acquires extra value.” She is attracted to the Eastern vision of permanence and impermanence, as opposed to the Western drive for “the new, the shiny, the thing we just bought.” There appears a reflection on recovery: “how people suddenly break down or have an accident and you have to recover them.”

The 50 years of career and 44 years of the creation of El Cuerpo Mutable Teatro de Movimiento mean for Romero a deepening of the craft. “The daily practice of the dancer, the performer, the choreographer, the researcher of the body that makes you grow, mature, specialize. For me, more than a profession it is a craft that you refine, decant.” Recognize how the body changes: “when you are young you have physical and energetic faculties, and then that transforms.”

Today he enjoys “the tranquility of creation” in the face of the pressure of previous years. “Over time you learn to enjoy the calm, make it a joyful process.”

He thanked the members of the company, because dance and choreography is a team effort. “I really appreciate how the performers stay around a project like The Mutable Body Theater of Movement, because that allows us all to grow.”

Faced with this posture of tranquility, the creator cites Byung-Chul Han and his theory of the society of fatigue to vindicate the need to “navigate against this exhausting demand” of big cities. Share: “Shanghai Moon” It invites you to look at it and calmly observe the falling of the flowers, the falling of the leaves. You don’t have to understand, but rather feel and enjoy. Time, calm and observation.”

Romero maintains that the work is a collective creation, where everyone collaborates with their personal history and their sensations, and that embroiders the wonderful fabric that is the choreography.

The work Shanghai Moon It is the first part of the trilogy Chinoiserie, which will continue in October with Koan, paradoxical questions, which will be presented at the Black Box Experimental Forum, and will close with Opium. Romero indicated that koans are Zen questions that “more than having answers, they invite you to a meditative state.”

The choreographer proposes her personal view in her work. “It has a lot of imagination; of course, it has elements from literature, cinema, and music from the East, but it is still a very personal look.” He adds: “Art is that other window towards the human being, towards the capacity of imagination, of how we can live parallel to other worlds that are not so terrible.”

The piece has original music and sound scenery by Mauro Gómez, and lighting by Hugo Heredia.

Shanghai Moon It will be presented on June 13 and 14 at 7 and 6 p.m., respectively, in the Miguel Covarrubias room of the University Cultural Center (Insurgentes Sur 3000, Ciudad Universitaria).