Alla Prima: o corpo agora

Abstract

This article analyzes the performance Alla Prima, by Tiago Cadete, a Portuguese artist residing between Portugal and Brazil. The work was presented at the Sesc Biennial of Dance 2017 in Campinas. “Alla Prima” is an Italian expression that could be translated as “à la primera”, or “de primera”. It is used to designate a technique or style of painting in which the paint is applied directly to the base cho‑ sen, without studies or preparation, and the final result is reached after a single application, without touching the artist. The performance shows a dance from the dismantling of a body already given, printed in the collective memory in images documented on screens and authorized over time. These images were curiously presented by history as documents, records of the colonial period. Performance, however, diverts our gaze from the whole to the parts, to certain details of these images, to the way they are constructed from each artist’s point of view – and in this deviation lies their strength. We see the deconstruction of an idea of Brazil in a body. Is Brazil a country, or the built image of a country? Is the Brazilian body a pictorial, textual, sound invention?