In Cadences créoles, dix mille fois dédoublées, Malvin Puerca de Goma and Inés Sybille Vooduness slide into questions contaminated by the Marassa twins from the moving iconography of voodoo. In a gesture that is both a subterranean escape and a light flight, the dancers work within a forgeron imaginary — a metallic, spiralling, sticky, playful, and dangerous poetics. Like a diasporic web of connection, Angolan Kuduro, Jamaican Dancehall, and Dominican Dembow allow them to flirt ironically with horns, guns, and laments. Through the syncretism of this confusion of codes, in which Malvin and Inés both mobilise and generate memory, their union reterritorialises an erotic, protective, and strategic spirituality.
Credits
Artistic direction
Inés Sybille Vooduness
Creation and performance
Inés Sybille Vooduness, Malvin Montero
Movement, gesture and Afro-Caribbean singing coaching
Sheila Ramirez
Set and costume design
Neusa Trovoada
Sound design
Nelsoniq
Video design
Heidi Ramírez
Dramaturgy
Sarah Lewis-Cappellari
Lighting design
matéria leve
Creation and technical direction
Bee Barros, Gabriela Claveria
Accompaniment and mentoring
Leticia Skrycky
Poduction
Alkantara ⎯ Lysandra Domingues
Co-production
Alkantara, Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles and MC93, in the context of Common Stories, a Creative Europe programme funded by the European Union
Creation grant O Espaço do Tempo, with the support of BPI and the ‘la Caixa’ Foundation
Residencies support
Moussem Nomadic Arts Centre (Brussels)
© Letícia Diniz
Inés Sybille Vooduness is a dancer, cultural researcher, and teacher. Born in Barcelona to a Catalan mother and a Haitian father, she currently resides in Lisbon. Inés Sybille creates fictional encounters with Haitian Vodou deities through her choreographic field: Kuduro from Angola, Coupé Décalé from Côte d’Ivoire, and Dancehall from Jamaica. She shapes this philosophical material and explores the possibility of producing an existential awareness by reterritorializing these codes. In 2023, Inés was selected as an artist-in-residence at La Casa Encendida with her performance Santa de sustrato autónomo.
Born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic (Los Mina). Malvin Montero began his dance career in 2003 at the Alina Abreu Dance Conservatory. He graduated from the National School of Dance of Fine Arts (Endanza) and Pro Danza (Havana). He holds a degree in choreography and dance performance from Rey Juan Carlos University (ISDAl) in Madrid, Spain. As a creator, dancer, and director, he has an extensive professional trajectory encompassing classical academic dance, contemporary dance, improvisation, and free improvisation, trained under composer Chefa Alonso. A key focus of his creative work is exploring diasporic corporeality and its imaginaries. He directs the platform Zebra Prieta and was a finalist and award-winner at the 35th Madrid Choreographic Contest in 2021 with his piece El mal comío no piensa. In his poetic work, Dominican choreographer and director Malvin Montero Puerca de Goma focuses on the movements, speech, and everyday practices of Caribbean peoples, specifically the Caribbean diaspora living in the Iberian Peninsula.