A little more about Cesc Gelabert

Do you think the sign of great art is that it lingers on in your imagination after you have seen or heard it?  The book that stays with you, the painting that sometimes flashes into your mind, the music that haunts you.
Today I found myself thinking about last nights performance. Actually even in the middle of the night as I fumbled my way in the dark to the toilet, I remembered some movements of the dance and my own body started to move in a different way.  Walking Bonnie to the park, suddenly my hips started to swing and my feet to place themselves more carefully on the pavement.
I haven’t been dancing so much recently but watching Cesc Gelabert last night made me want to get started again.

Here is another short video I found – it’s a mixture of dancing and talking. He is speaking in Spanish but you can put on the subtitles and anyway, his face is so expressive and kind that it is a pleasure to watch even if you don’t understand the actual words. I find his dance mesmerising.

Last night after the performance he talked a little in a questions and answers session. It was all in Catalan so perhaps I missed about half of the content but one thing he said that was very interesting was about the tension – creative tension perhaps – between people of the north and the south. Protestantism and Catholicism. Perhaps the head and the heart. Not that one group is only head or only heart but that there are different balances and norms.
There was so much that was stimulating.
The first performance I’ve seen in a long time that has touched me in this way.

Cesc Gelabert

We went to the theatre twice this weekend.

The first outing was to see a play called Incendis and I’m afraid we left at half time. It is a struggle for me to watch a long piece in Catalan and it was a very wordy production;  very long scenes of talking talking talking and very little action. Also the theatre was totally full and it felt a bit claustophobic. The man sitting beside me had decided to come along in spite of his streaming cold and I was leaning more and more in the opposite direction to escape his viral loaded breathing.

But our second try tonight was a great success. We went to exactly the same place in Granollers, the Teatre Auditori de Granollers, and had better and more spacious seats near the front.  The audience was smaller than the other night but made up for lack of numbers by their intense interest in the dance.

And the sneezers were much further away!

The show was by Cesc Gelabert who is an incredible dancer with a body so fluid and expressive I didn’t see one moment that he was not 100% present. He danced solo and in between the acts he spoke about the dance and what it meant for him. It is incredible how he can change his form from one moment to the next. Also he comes across as a really intelligent and humble person.

The first piece was amazing – a large amorphous white form was moving and changing and gradually out of it emerged the artist, shedding one skin to move into many others.

I came out feeling better than when I went in which is one of the things Cesc says he aims for.