“I find the process of cheating history and recovering memory very interesting,” says Argentinian-born choreographer Constanza Macras, who is here in the city to showcase her latest production, ‘The Past’, a dance performance that explores the way memory manifests itself once the physical place that held it changes. “In ancient Greece, people used a mnemonic technique called ‘The Art of Memory’, in which buildings are used to remember things. In this specific piece, there are many ideas and concepts that come together in memory and architecture,” she says.
The dance performance, which will take place on February 12 at the Sir Mutha Venkatasubba Rao Concert Hall will see the performers integrate dance, music and script seamlessly. Also, the piece which was first performed in Dresden and then Berlin, has been modified to appeal to an Indian audience. “There are some specific things in the production that are meaningful only in Europe which wouldn’t work here. So I interviewed people from Chennai and Bangalore and included moments culled from those interviews in my production,” says the Argentinian-born choreographer, who has studied and worked in Amsterdam and New York before moving to Berlin, where she has lived for the last 20 years.
She founded her dance company there, “It was first called Lonely Tamagotchi — there was a time in the 90s when they were in rage and I really liked them. Then it became Tamagotchi Y2K because there was the Y2K panic,” she laughs adding that now it is called Constanza Macras/Dorky Park.
And like the nomenclature, the work the company creates has changed too. “The company has been changing: when I started, since I came from such a technical background, I rebelled against it and didn’t do things that were formal and pretty. The people I work with are not highly technical dancers. They are very real, have not always been popular, even a little nerdy. Dancing wasn’t important at first,” she says adding that “I work with a lot of high impact things that aren’t necessarily aesthetic. However, the technical level of company has gone up so it automatically becomes beautiful,” she says.
