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El cortejo is a series of videos inspired by the mating dance of paradise birds.
At the beginning of the process, a series of documentation videos are shared with the dancers. The videos are visual references of different bird species performing mating dances. The dancers develop their movements from these references and choose the location to perform after.
The dancers made a personal color selection for their body paint. Once the body paint is done, the dancers perform for me without music, feeling only the sound of the environment and flowing with the space. I recorded these unique events and edited them later in the studio. The music is chosen after the first stage of editing and is considered a secondary element in this exercise. The body language and the dialog created at the place are the most important elements in the video. I consider the result successful only when the dancers truly forget their humanity and embrace their animal spirit during these explorations. The performances are never reproduced again in a live version and they are presented to the public only in their digital format to be truthful to the exercise.
These events are a continuous study of the body language during the mating. The first one was created in 2001 and the research continues to the present day.
Copyright © Lua Rivera. All rights reserved.