Vanamie Art and Info Blog

This is me. I am here. On my side. Giving you and idea of what my side is. Presenting it as well as I can, with what I have around me. I am no painter, my life is not filled with oil paint, or watercolor. Or clay, for that matter. It is filled with toothpaste and cigarettes and matches. This is what I know, and this is what you know. It is our shared vocabulary.
So I build my stories with our common vocabulary. I tell you about what I know best, about the things I specialize in - my town, it's places, it's memories.

This is pretty much a summary of Cláudia Dias' Guided Tour, a performance shown during the Alkantara Festival. A beautiful performance. One filled with the unpretensious poetry of storytelling. And this is the storytelling I most crave: one absolutely devoid of any trace of interpretation, of dramatization, of anything not belonging to the person that's in front of me on the stage. When Cláudia Dias says I am here, on this side. For you, of course, it is that side, but for me it is this side, we know she speaks about the part of the city (across the river) she lives in and will go on to talk about. But she is also talking about where she is at that very moment - on the stage. And the only thing that's different between her and us seems to be this little word: that.
Which is exactly why she seems so close: she knows the distance. She doesn't pretend it's not there, but doesn't make a great fuss out of it. She simply moves, paints with her household appliances, and makes her painting, for us, the onlookers, the curious tourists, the ever unsatisfied voyeurs.