‘Norma’: The good, the ugly, the bad. DANCE AGAINST THE NORMATIVE | Culture

In the first minutes of Normathe new work of the choreographer Antonio Ruz (Córdoba, 49 years old), presented this Friday at the Madrid festival in dance after passing through Córdoba, there are also the first keys to the matrix and axis of this piece, in a subtle way, almost like a muscular caress. Still dark, sounds Diva Castathe Aria de Bellini. And that auditory gesture throws two crucial references. On the one hand, the word norm, which is the title of the opera to which the musical fragment that is playing and that of this show belongs; On the other hand, the image of all these fabulous models of perfect bodies that come to mind when it sounds Diva Casta, Soundtrack of the famous advertisement of a renowned perfume. Manuel Martín, one of the dancers, who could have left that announcement well, is already on stage dressed in a rigid corset and pants, looking at the public. It is then when we begin to tell us, almost without realizing it, the combat of how normative it is Norma. The symbology is served.

The five dancers who hold the show appear and with them the concept of body diversity. A challenging idea inside and outside the scene, but especially in dance, which holds the speech. They walk almost introducing themselves and look at us as warning: “This also goes with you.” Highlighting the identity of each of them, as individuals and collective, is rapidly launched as a purpose. How to attend a gallery of possibilities in a wall of any social network. It highlights, in this sense, the interpretive abilities of each of them to sustain their role with a dance that although it wants to escape the normative, it is still demanding and clean in what is pursued. Of all of them, three are usual collaborators of Ruz. Alicia Narejos, Begoña Quiñones and Manuel Martín. The dancer Carlos Carvento and actor Chelís Quinzá, who dances here like everyone else, are the new signings for Norma.

Carvento, a 30 -year -old young Cordoba, shines effortless queer and indomitable claim, which began to develop a few years ago. Classical and contemporary dance dancer, is also Drag and performerand all this gives you a significant profile that dazzles by its amplitude of interpretive, impeccable records, around the body.

While it is true that the work of Antonio Ruz, National Dance Award in 2018, is presented eclectic, varied, and passes by very different records, there is some sign that confers its creative identity since in 2009 he founded his own company. For example, the care you profess when conceiving a choreography as a show. That is, the importance of scenery, music and lighting, along with the movement, until they form only one thing. In Norma, All this assembly acquires new and powerful meanings. The lights of the renowned Olga García, with whom Ruz has been working for decades, adds again to the point of creating authentic narrative worlds of an overwhelming logic. And the scenery, this time also the choreographer, dancer and visual artist Roberto Martínez, grants to Norma an absolutely essential weight. Even more so when it is only a couple of elements (curtain and carpet) that not only provide the scene a great visual force, but they serve as a dramaturgy, also delimiting the narrative. As if those curtains mark the scenic and at the same time, the place of exhibition from which we show ourselves to the world through social networks. They and us.

The music of the Air DJ and the (brief) text of the writer Gregorio Apesteguía, extracted from his books Of the subject-world interaction y Manual for living beings, declared Without imposture (Although it is also true that he loses some of his strength, which is a lot, check it on his platform Analysis warehouse and his committee for the anonymous philosophical uprising), complete this challenging work that reflects on the regulations of the bodies, the exhibition of what fake and the normality of the diverse, from the scenic and the symbolic amplitude.