How can we be in the world and coexist in ways that are not rooted in extractivism and exploitation? Inspired by non-Eurocentric cosmologies on climate change and deriving from her experience of motherhood, Michelle Moura advocates for ways of relating that are built upon reciprocity. In an ecstatic ritual of circle dances, twirls, and songs, beings with fantastical bodies explore the potential for transformation. “BOCA COVA“ investigates the insatiability of our mouths, our bodies, and the unreal logics of capitalism – and attempts to re-direct this hunger towards the creation of a more sustainable relation with life.

Artist’s Note by Michelle Moura
A few years ago, I came across this phrase: “Insatiability that torments”.
An endless hole, growing within each of us. The ever-present lack.
The colonial capitalist system as an unstoppable devourer, extracting the life force from all things and beings: turning the world into a product to be outdone. A system incapable of creating other realities, everything it consumes has the same insipid taste. Nothing satisfies it.
Is lack something inherent to the human condition, or is it produced and stimulated by capitalism? How do I disinfect myself from this insatiable system?
What is the difference between desiring and cultivating?
This work begins with the mouth: how to move and think from it. What is it capable of consuming and also creating? The opening and closing, the sounds, the expressions and sensations it activates. By looking more closely at this hole in the middle of the face, I began to recognize the act of eating as something complex, containing multiple relationships: nutrition and support; encounter with other beings and substances; metamorphosis, destruction, pleasure. The mouth as an alchemical portal of transformation.
And what does this mouth pursue? Is there something capable of fully satisfying it?
A dance produced from the connection with the digestive tract, movements of expelling and swallowing. A mouth in connection with the ground we tread. Feeling the world as this mouth that chews and swallows different materials, subjects, and beings. At this very moment, we are being digested: under the pressure of gravity, slowly cooked by time in the broth of elements.
This piece is a digestive tract that contracts in an attempt to expel another world, from the remnants of what is left.
Michelle Moura

Michelle Moura currently lives in Berlin. In minimalist works, she has spent several years researching the strategies that can be used to create psychological and physical changes. Today she is interested in the artificiality and dissociation of elements and manipulates movement, expression, sound and language. Her creations have been presented at international dance and performance festivals such as Impulstanz (AU), Panorama (BR), and La Biennale di Venezia (IT). As a dancer, she has worked with Lea Moro (CH/DE), Wilhelm Groener (DE) and Vincent Dupont (FR), among others. Together with seven other Brazilian artists, Michelle Moura was a co-founder and member of the Caulifower Miniglobal Artistic Community (2005–2012). Her performance “Overtongue”, which was created as part of Tanztage Berlin 2021, was one of 13 productions invited to Tanzplattform Deutschland 2022.
www.michellemoura.com

[Source: tanzimaugust.de]

TFB Nr. 1908