In Panaibra´s new creation named Cheered Lies (Mentiras aplaudidas), three performers and two musicians take us on a journey through today´s current and urgent topics, through culture wars, ideologies, fears, and insecurities. Cheered Lies takes a look at today’s world in which fake news are on the daily agenda, catapulting the manipulative game between truth and lies to a next stage. Which side of history are we on? What kind of people have we become? Where do we come from? The performers in Cheered Lies look at history through the filter of their own biographies, thus working on a critical historiography. They invite us to consider learned knowledge from different perspectives. Cheered Lies aims to critically question historical narratives and to discuss notions of nationality, cultural affiliation, and identity.

Duration: aprox. 65 min.

In portuguese with german and english subtitles.

A production by Panaibra Gabriel Canda/CulturArte. In coproduction with euro- scene Leipzig, tanzhaus nrw Düsseldorf and Mercat de les Flors Barcelona. With the support of CRL-Central Elétrica/InResidence Porto (residency), Africa Moment Barcelona and Pumpenhaus Münster.

Inspired by the authors Janusz Korczak and Fernando Pessoa, Mozambican choreographer and dancer Panaibra Gabriel Canda deals with the different worlds and perceptions of adults and children and with lost or buried utopias.

There is a connection between me and the other me, like the wormhole that connects the Dragon´s triangle with the Bermuda Triangle. A connection between I, the eye of the camera and the projected image. It resembles our society in which there is a pressure between the I and the other´s expectations that sometimes imposes the projection of  another me. But what is this other me?

There is a misunderstanding between the rational thinking of mankind and his irrationality: a silent scream that appeals to the crowd, a blind look that sees a landscape, a mutilated movement that reaches into the void, an odorless smell that suffocates the environment, a tasteless taste that stings on the tongue; a mind that inhabits the subconscious of a consciousness which condones democratic dictatorships by inhabiting the inertia of the presumed freedom of a life dead in time!

This is the man from the sea, who did not see the whale pass by, did not hear the whale song, did not feel the salt of the water, let alone the movement of the wave. This man lives here, in this world where heroes turn into villains, liberators into exploiters, ideologies into faith, religion into politics, wars into business, governments into oppressors, boundaries into walls, securities into uncertainties. Yes, here is the man who contaminates the earth to live on the moon – without gravity or oxygen. Welcome! (Panaibra Gabriel Canda)

Duration: ca. 60 min.

A production by Panaibra Gabriel Canda/CulturArte.

This production is technically and artistically based on different video-and-dance-collaborations of Panaibra Canda/CulturArte and Walter Verdin/Videolepsia in Maputo and Brussels (2007-2018), supported by the Belgian Technical Cooperation and the Government of Flanders. Special thanks to the French Mozambican Cultural Center (CCFM)-Maputo, Kaaitheater-Brussels and Hellerau-Dresden.

Borderlines by Panaibra Gabriel Canda is inspired by 16 years of civil war history in Mozambique and by today’s world of ethnic and religious wars, regime changes and by the utopia of a new world order. Borderlines is a search around the behaviour of the human being and a look at the body as a territory to be occupied. Interpersonal relationships associated with concepts such as physicality and territorial integrity, desire and repulsion, freedom and imposition, superiority and domination that lead to conflict, questioning where differences can be placed in a relationship of co-habitation and interdependence. “The performers are part of a collective story, as well as myself,” says Panaibra. They explore the issue of boundaries, seeking balance in the relationship between the individual and the other. They tell a story of violence whose overcoming seems utopian. A man who needs crutches off the stage and three women, one of whom has her legs amputated, transform their painful experiences into powerful scenes. A captivating choreography full of gentle affection and relentless rejection. A dance of prejudice against origin and gender, faith and religion.

Duration: 60 min.

A production by Panaibra Gabriel  Canda/CulturArte.

Point of Intersection is the continuation of the tireless search of the Mozambican choreographer Panaibra Gabriel Canda for the postcolonial African body, freed from prefabricated body images and detached from stereotypes. In this piece he works with two different generations: older and younger dancers with very different aesthetic approaches. “They move between a modern and a traditional aesthetic. Point of Intersection is a clash of these two generations, their ideas and values. This “intersection” can also be understood as a place where a new language is being created,” says Panaibra. The performers create images of power, symbolized by chairs. They stand for grown structures, affiliation. For the old, the stuck. Around them, the performers develop with an existential urgency scenes of  sometimes playful struggles for a place in life and in history, and for the opportunity to break away from an old generation and its laws. Who owns power and how do you win or lose it? Maybe there is a space in which we can share power and coexistence? “Dance helps to understand that each step is our own and political – for our freedom,” so Panaibra’s credo.

Duration: 60 min.

A production by Panaibra Gabriel Canda/CulturArte (Maputo). In coproduction with HELLERAU – European Center for the Arts Dresden, Theater im Pumpenhaus Münster, Donko Seko Bamako, tanzhaus nrw Düsseldorf and Kampnagel Hamburg in the frame of Dance Dialogues Africa with the support of Bundeskulturstiftung and Goethe-Institut Johannesburg.