Háita

Háita was born from the exercise of imagining how a dancer’s choreography could be explored inside out, through cutting-edge scientific and creative technology developed by the renowned international creative studio Satore.

Combining dance with music and state-of-the-art technology, this installation takes the form of a quadripathic exhibition of four projections of the same choreographed piece. The dance itself is a mixture of styles − incorporating ballet, Portuguese vira and Mexican traditions − captured on film, but also through volumetric and motion capture technology. While motion capture converts movements into computer-generated animations, volumetric capture records changes in the spaces around the dancer, inverting the process.

The music used is inspired by two rivers, the Portuguese Tagus and the Rio Grande, which separates Mexico from the United States. Inspired with great liberality by Mexican song and Portuguese fado, the music is then sprinkled with the melancholy that runs in the blood of both countries, born from the stories of love, loss and migration.

The installation will be activated by a dancer, who will be illuminated by a third projection, based on an electroencephalogram made of her brain and representing the patterns of her brain waves throughout the choreography. Tupac is a resident at Champalimaud Research Center, having used medical technology to analyze the dancer’s body and brain, building an inverted image of how a dancer imagines her own choreography.