«Sonhos Comuns (“Common Dreams”, working title) is an interdisciplinary piece resulting from a reflection about dreams. A dream—such a unique matter for each person, yet so enigmatic for themself. I was interested in finding out whether there are recurring dreams for a great number of people. Who hasn’t dreamt of a fall into the void? Who hasn’t dreamt of flying? Who hasn’t dreamt of being chased? Do you remember your dreams? Have you ever realized you were dreaming in the midst of a dream? Can a dream solve problems? Can we communicate with animals or with our ancestors while dreaming? Can a dream predict the future? Can we dream the same dream?
At first glance, the piece Sonhos Comuns is a performance for the senses, with compositions and a sound environment by João Polido, the vocal trio Guarda-Rios (João Neves, Mariana Camanho and Susana Nunes), and two dancers (myself, Ana Rita Teodoro, and Joana Gomes). The two dancers are accompanied by a group of ten dancers (both professional and amateur), who make circular and serpentine shapes in a spatial choreography. The two dancers’ task is to stand out from the “serpentine” choreography to develop unique dances, full of detail. The vocal trio and the sound environment support a weave of images that brings together these dances and the choreography in the same poetic, non-linear meaning, based on dream elements that are perhaps common to a larger number of people.
The project unfolds from an interest of mine in translating dance into words and in finding ways to communicate dance or to compose dance through words. This interest has led me to work in dance audio description (AD). This piece aims to be inclusive for blind or low-vision audiences—not through an after-the-fact oral description of events, as AD proposes, but by being conceived as an inherently inclusive performance, in its very idea. Through her own experience, blind dancer Joana Gomes will contribute to this goal.
Believing that describing a dance is somewhat similar to describing a dream, as both involve mental and sensory imagery that resists translation into words, the proposal is to displace the visual from its privileged place among the senses, defying its understanding as proof of what is real, and to create a poetic and sensory weave, accessible and concrete within the imaginary space of dreams, and to which every one may relate.»
— Ana Rita Teodoro