Contempo Dance 2022

 Contempo Physical Dance returns to The O'Shaughnessy with their 3rd international choreography residency, featuring a world premiere by the 2022 McKnight International Choreographer, Mario Nascimento.  Mr. Nascimento is from Manaus, in the Amazon region of Brazil. He is the Artistic Director of Corpo de Dança do Amazonas, a contemporary dance company in the region. In the future, everything could be transformed into a desert of the soul; an emptiness of the soul and emptiness of life. It could also be a place where there isn’t anything, where there aren’t any trees or life. But at the same time, the desert is a place of resistance because people who live in the desert are resistant people. The desert is a place where the species of life are resistant to the world, resistant to destruction, resistant to everything that is bad.  This group of dancers are resistant to the state in which we live today - resistant to the destruction of the forest, the destruction of indigenous people, and prejudices. This work is about human nature in its search for survival and preservation. An insistence for survival, an insistence to keep on our feet, an insistence in being resistant to the questions in our everyday lives that box us in. These dancers are like an urban tribe, resisting the desertification of the soul. People who live in the desert are strong and heroic. They are resistant, because the desert strengthens them.