by Erva Daninha/ Daniel Seabra

How far apart can we be and still be together, today?

Circus artists are not afraid to take risks and fully embrace the responsibility of their recklessness and unorthodox practice.

Through a contemporary circus performance, two performers use aerial acrobatics as their technique to continually seek balance between two bodies, using a slack rope with two ends suspended 7 meters above the ground. This rope — impermanent and unstable — alters the audience’s perception of the bodies on stage.

We start from this rope that tightens the need for something more than a simple connection. We depend on this bond, this rope that suspends and restrains us. That binds us, but also holds us. Any action triggers a consequence in the other’s state, and it is this dependence that compels us to trust one another.

With this show designed for public space, we aim to rethink the potential that can arise from something so simple, human, and volatile. The value of trust and the importance of our presence in the present moment are explored through this dizzying aerial dance between two bodies.

The concept of presence is in transformation, also as a consequence of a more technological society governed by social networks. The way we relate, the here and now, and the notion of the real generate complexity in interpersonal relationships. These new channels make communication faster but more distant. We are in contact, but far away — a superficial closeness, less real, less present.

Every relationship demands the existence of the present — more than that, it depends on it. We propose to revisit the idea associated with the word “relationship” in today’s society. To speak about the present, about presence, about the moment in which we find ourselves — and how only that moment fully influences the one that follows. To recall the concepts of correlation and codependence, and how much we need each other to live, to fly, to exist, and to be.

artistic direction DANIEL SEABRA | co-creation and performance DANIEL SEABRA and MARGARIDA MONTENY | original music MIGUEL DE | technical setup and operation LUÍS RIBEIRO | artistic direction erva daninha JULIETA GUIMARÃES and VASCO GOMES | executive production erva daninha TERESA CAMARINHA | residencies ERVA DANINHA, TEATRO MUNICIPAL DO PORTO, SALTO | production ERVA DANINHA | co-production TEATRO MUNICIPAL DO PORTO | support RÉPUBLICA PORTUGUESA – CULTURA / DIREÇÃO-GERAL DAS ARTES