“When we look, what do we see?” asks Júlia Rocha, creator of the performance  Sumo, which experiences the relationships between image, word and movement. The work takes place in a room where the public can move freely. In it, bodies are covered. Gently, with each movement that takes place under the fabric, around it or through the transformation of light, new forms and meanings emerge. Little by little, the figures are revealed. It's a landscape, they're animals, some piece of a star. There is no way to know. The alternation between what is covered and what is revealed creates curves in the perception of space and time.

“When a body dies, the first gesture we make is to cover it. When a house is empty, we cover its furniture. Covering is an act that we relate to all the time. What is it like to cover dance?”, says the director, who developed the first version of the work in 2014.

Simultaneously with the unfolding of the dance, a text is spoken. Created by Rocha from a collage of writings by artists who have some relationship with Zen, such as John Cage (1912-1992), Laurie Anderson (1947), Leonard Cohen (1934-2016) and Yoko Ono (1933), she it also proposes a tour of several images. The idea is to highlight the uniqueness of people's imagination and allow them to experience getting lost without leaving their place.

Conception and voice: Júlia Rocha
Collaboration and dance: Isabel Ramos Monteiro, Joana Ferraz and Teresa Moura Neves
Music: Gustavo Galo
Light: Laura Salerno
 

Work performed at the Sesc 2019 Dance Biennial

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