Grupo Corpo

Grupo Corpo is one of the best contemporary dance groups in Brazil. They do about 80 shows a year, travel all around the world, launch a new fantastic spectacle every couple of years and do unbelievable things with their bodies. Tonight, I had the opportunity to talk to Paulo Pederneiras, the production director and one of the founders of the group.

History
Started 33 years ago in the house of the founders, who convinced their parents to move out. Contributions for the first big success came from famous and unknown artists.

Principles
- one interferes and helps in everyone else's work
- doors are always open. In fact, there are no doors
- transparency and honesty
- commitment to do arts (and not with any particular cause)
- hard work
- great freedom AND responsibility

Evolution
After a big success, a need for self assurance and various experiments, an identity started to emerge.

Keeping humility
- "I don't know anything about contemporary arts. But I pay a lot of attention"
- "Our goal can't be success, because it attracts dishonesty"
- "I depend on other people's skills 100% of the time"

Plans
- "It doesn't matter much what has happened in the past, but what's in front of us"
- "I'd like Grupo Corpo to be something I don't know exactly what it is. I guess a space where everything is allowed"
- and asked about succession, Paulo said: "I don't intend to pass away any time soon..."

Designing the Ekoa Cafe

A few weekends ago, I had the pleasure of taking part in the designing process of a different cafe. Instead of offering coffee, food or a space for casual chats, the Ekoa Cafe intends to be a space for nurturing relationships.

In a very coherent move, Marisa Bussacos (the entrepreneur) invited two dozens of friends to design the space, so that it could be a good option for self reflection, for meeting new people and for bringing friends for meaningful conversations.

As a result, the idea of fostering inspirational conversations and putting different people together happened even before the Cafe started working!

For all readers, stay tunned! The Cafe will be up and running in a couple of months!

Cantinho Escondido (Hidden Corner)

Composed and beautifully sung by Marisa Monte

Dentro de cada pessoa
Tem um cantinho escondido
Decorado de saudade
Um lugar pro coração pousar
Um endereço que freqüente sem morar
Ali na esquina do sonho com a razão
No centro do peito, no largo da ilusão

[...]

Eu posso até mudar
Mas onde quer que eu vá
O meu cantinho há de ir

============================

Free translation

Within every person
There is a hidden corner
Decorated with nostalgia
A space for the heart to land
An address it visits, but where it doesn't live
Located in the corner between the dream and the reason
In the centre of the chest, in the illusion square

[...]

I can even move
But no matter where I go
My hidden corner goes with me

If you were paid, you can’t complain!

Last weekend, I went to the Museum of Contemporary Art – MCA in Sydney, to check the Latin American temporary exhibition. Amongst lots of amazing stuff reflecting the culture, strong sentiments and socio-political tensions in the region, one piece called me my attention. A Spanish artist, realising how little Mexican workers earned, paid 465 of them to crowd up an art gallery room and spend the day there. Unfamiliar with the environment, the workers first felt confused, but got increasingly comfortable in the place. The underlining message was: if you were paid to do something, you’re not supposed to discuss or complain – you were paid how much you’re worth for your time and that's it.

Seems an exaggeration?

During this week, I’ve been taking part on corporate workshops, facilitated by the consultancy I work for. Unfortunately, the Spanish artist was not amplifying the problem. Amongst almost 30 very smart people in the room, I couldn’t see one single individual with a strong purpose to be there. Conversations floated around processes, competitors, profitability and I’m pretty confident I wasn’t the only one bored. Can individuals change the whole idea of a corporation existence? Can the companies create systems which inspire people to give their bests for something worthwhile? The only thing clear to me at this point is that selling biscuits and poker machines doesn’t stimulate the best in people. (Once I read a very wise phrase, with which I couldn't agree more: money doesn't inspire the best people nor the best in people.)

But, in the end of the day, all of us were getting paid to be there. So perhaps we can’t complain...

How to be creative

So you want to be more creative, in art, in business, whatever. Here are some tips that have worked for me over the years:

1. Ignore everybody.

2. The idea doesn't have to be big. It just has to change the world.

3. Put the hours in.

4. If your biz plan depends on you suddenly being "discovered" by some big shot, your plan will probably fail.

5. You are responsible for your own experience.

6. Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten.

7. Keep your day job.

8. Companies that squelch creativity can no longer compete with companies that champion creativity.

9. Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.

10. The more talented somebody is, the less they need the props.

11. Don't try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether.

12. If you accept the pain, it cannot hurt you.

13. Never compare your inside with somebody else's outside.

14. Dying young is overrated.

15. The most important thing a creative person can learn professionally is where to draw the red line that separates what you are willing to do, and what you are not.

16. The world is changing.

17. Merit can be bought. Passion can't.

18. Avoid the Watercooler Gang.

19. Sing in your own voice.

20. The choice of media is irrelevant.

21. Selling out is harder than it looks.

22. Nobody cares. Do it for yourself.

23. Worrying about "Commercial vs. Artistic" is a complete waste of time.

24. Don't worry about finding inspiration. It comes eventually.

25. You have to find your own schtick.

26. Write from the heart.

27. The best way to get approval is not to need it.

28. Power is never given. Power is taken.

29. Whatever choice you make, The Devil gets his due eventually.

30. The hardest part of being creative is getting used to it.

31. Remain frugal.



Source: http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/000932.html

World Press Photo

Last weekend I went to the State Library to watch the World Press Photo prize winners.

World Press Photo is a non profit that organises the world's largest and most prestigious annual press photography contest. Prizewinning photographs are assembled into a traveling exhibition that is visited by over two million people in some 45 countries worldwide. The idea is to develop photojournalism and consequently enlarge people's conscience.

As you can imagine, the exhibition is impacting. Amongst all the very interesting facts and stories featuring news, contemporary dramas, sports, nature and people, one picture called a lot my attention. It was taken by Espen Rasmussen, from Norway, and shows over 3,000 people gather for Friday prayers facing icy winter conditions to pray at the ruins of the main mosque in Balakot, Pakistan, one of the towns worst hit by the Kashmir earthquake.

That picture transmitted a sense of wrong and injust; but also a strength coming from an incredible faith, that makes people pass through one more disaster, overcome another unfairness and pray for a better future. Better than what? Was this dream possible at any point of our history? How do out minds work so unreasonably?

See the picture here (can't publish it here because of the copyright).

Australia's most famous songwriter crazy about Rio

Peter Allen is a famous Australian songwriter and singer, creator of the unofficial Australian anthem "I still call Australia home" and inspiration for a musical based on his life called The Boy from Oz, the first Australian to be performed in Broadway.

Look at parts of one of his songs:

"When my baby
When my baby smiles at me I go to Rio
De Janeiro, my-oh-me-oh
I go wild and then I have to do the Samba
And La Bamba
Now I'm not the kind of person
With a passionate persuasion for dancin'
Or roma-ancin'
But I give in to the rhythm
And my feet follow the beatin' of my hear-eart

Woh-ho-oh-oh, when my baby
When my baby smiles at me I go to Rio
De Janeiro
I'm a Salsa fellow
When my baby smiles at me
The sun'll lightens up my li-ife
And I am free at last, what a blast"

Piano Bar and Aussie Songs

Last night, after a great dinner in MC house with shisha and Lucy’s presence after almost 4 months in Thailand, we went to a Piano Bar. I got to know a little more about the Aussie way of enjoying music and obviously learnt some new very Aussie-life-style-description songs. Check it out!

Among The Gum Tree's

I've been around the world a couple of times, or maybe more,
I've seen the sights, I've had delights on every foreign shore,
but when my mates all ask me the place that I adore,
I tell them right away.

Give me a home among the gum trees,
with lots of plum trees, a sheep or two, a ka-kangaroo.
A clothes line out the back, veranda out the front,
and an old rocking chair.

You can see me in the kitchen cooking up a roast,
or Vegemite on toast, just you and me, a cup of tea.
And later on we'll settle down and mull up on the porch,
and watch the possums play.

There's a Safeway up the corner, and a Woolys down the street,
a brand new place they’ve opened up where they regulate the heat,
but I'd trade them all tomorrow for a simple bush retreat
where the kookaburras call.

Some people like their houses with fences all around,
others live in mansions, and some beneath the ground.
But Me, I like the bush, you know with rabbits running 'round,
and a pumpkin vine out the back.

Arts and the new emerging paradigm

Some days ago I went to a beautiful, beautiful dance show, inserted into the Chinese New Year's celebrations and performed by awards winners chinese dancers.

As I was watching and sensing the show, I started connected it to what I've been studying recèntly. Many of the great authors I've been reading - Capra, Senge, Wheatly, etc - relate the newest organisational learning theories with science, especially biology, and nature, generally referring to the non-human aspects of it.

As I saw the chinese dance - and remember my times dancing in a high quality dance group, I figured out that humans also understand what that interdepence and holistic view mean, and constantly express that through art. That's nothing more interdependent than a great dance group: for being successful, it needs a great group of musicians (already depending on each other) and a good amount of dancers, each one with a specific role to play, with no space
for individualism, in the name of harmony and beauty.

It seems like we have a lot to learn with our culture, emotions and intuition. Maybe we should dance more often...

Brazil

"Brasil, meu Brasil brasileiro
Meu mulato inzoneiro
Vou cantar-te nos meus versos

[...]

Deixa cantar de novo o trovador
A merencória luz da lua
Toda a canção do meu amor
Quero ver a “sá dona” caminhando
Pelos salões arrastando
O seu vestido rendado

[...]

Ôi, esse Brasil lindo e trigueiro
É o meu Brasil brasileiro
Terra de samba e pandeiro

Brasil! Brasil!

Prá mim... prá mim..."

Aquarela do Brasil - Ary Barroso

Stories, pictures and thoughts about my brazilian experience soon...

Relationships

Last weekend, I watched the movie "Russian Dolls". The French guy from "Spanish Apartment" was the main character, five years after the experience in Barcelona. The main theme now is relationships, and how we always look for something else (the smaller doll) when we already have somebody great to whom we don't commit.

Talking about relationships in Australia, it seems to me that people are lighter and less complicated around here. Some things I've noticed:

- It's not a big deal to move in with a boyfriend / girlfriend. Differently from Brazil, it doesn't necessarily mean a great commitment, almost a marriage;
- Family doesn't pressurise as much for a "conventional life": get married young, have children, stay with the same person for the rest of one's life;
- As I mentioned before, people travel overseas quite a lot. So, it's also not a big deal to travel and leave the boyfriend / girlfriend. Nobody interprets that as a "I don't care about us" decision.

Other observations, maybe related to the facts above:
- People don't kiss as easily. But once they do, sex is not a very far away step;
- People are not as romantic and dedicated when they are in love. As well, they don't show much affection in public
- Sometimes a group of people go out and I don't even notice there are couples in it.

Interesting, isn't it? Lots of reflections going on here…

Australian Snapshot #1 - Sculpture

Walking in a beautiful park close to where I live, I faced this very interesting and profound sculpture by the famous Australian artist Brett Whiteley.


“The fine art of painting, which is the bastard of alchemy, always has been always will be, a game. The rules of the game are quite simple: in a given arena, on as many psychic fronts as the talent allows, one must visually describe, the centre of the meaning of existence."

Brett Whiteley


To see some of his paintings, check http://www.artquotes.net/masters/whiteley_paintings.htm

Australian cultural programs

Last week, I had at least 2 very Australian cultural programs, as I went both to the theatre and cinema.

The play I watch was a very strange adaptation of the Peter Pan story. It was interesting to challenge my world view, but I didn’t really like it, as it was quite aggressive and odd (in my perspective).

The movie, on the other hand, was very, very good. It’s called 2:37 and it talks about many issues faced by teenagers: homosexuality, sexual harassment, anorexia, drugs, relationships and suicide. As I said, it’s very good, but also very heavy. I went with Sid, my Indian friend, and arrived home kind of speechless. Alex (my flat mate) talked to me for about 40 minutes or so, until I was recovered. More about the movie at http://www.smh.com.au/news/film-reviews/237/2006/08/16/1155407887243.html.