"Laura Lima. Literal Balé" at MACBA

The MACBA presents, from May 18 to September 25, Laura Lima. Literal Ballet, a tool of poetic resistance. Laura Lima. Balé Literal is a movement-rehearsal integrated by a varied repertoire of words, objects and works that continuously move through space, thanks to the activation of a group of people orchestrated by the Brazilian artist Laura Lima (Minas Gerais, Brazil, 1971).

Presented for the first time in a museum, Balé Literal puts into tension the static and contemplative forms with which museums display works and spectators observe them. Through the proposal of a dance exhibition, in which each essay is a new staging, Balé Literal articulates concepts that Laura Lima has developed over three decades and raises a critique of the format of the retrospective exhibition. The exhibition, curated by Elvira Dyangani Ose, has been configured as a transmedia choreography, a perpetual rehearsal with a daily assembly open to the public. The work has a soundtrack by Ana Frango Elétrico, lighting design by Andrea Capella and engineering by Yoann Saura, and has been made possible thanks to the collaboration of Hangar and Escola Massana.

The artist will be present throughout the first week of the exhibition directing the live essays that make up the activation process, which will continue to take on a life of its own after leaving Lima.

Balé Literal premiered in June 2019, at a crossroads in front of the A Gentil Carioca gallery, in Rio de Janeiro. On that occasion, the artefacts slid between the buildings and, during the journey, interacted with the public, who collectively participated in the event.

In the large room, two work teams are in charge of activating the mechanisms of the ballet and of hanging the objects from the threads. The mechanical force that moves the threads comes from the pedals of two bicycles, which evoke the operation of a loom. Ana Frango Elétrico's soundtrack, Andrea Capella's lighting design and Yoann Saura's re-engineering, together with Hangar's collaboration, complete this transmedia choreography, in which each rehearsal is a staging, and each performance is unrepeatable.

Balé Literal is a dance exhibition, a retrospective dance by Laura Lima. The bestiary of entities that make up the piece animates concepts that the artist has developed over the course of three decades. Paintings, canvases, masks, banners, poems, flying saucers, astronauts, umbrellas and other characters participate in this ritual dance that invites us to observe and move our bodies in new ways through the museum space. "If you move differently, you think differently", says Lima.