OJO

The idea for this came about when I discovered an old Andalusian tradition in which the women covered their entire body with a black cloak apart from one eye. This small detail sparked off my interest in bringing the recurring theme of vision to the stage and made me question the concept of perception.

- ANTONIO RUZ

OJO is an invitation to open up one's eyes to the soul. Inspired by art, literature and cinema, the choreographer and dancer, Antonio Ruz, seeks in this, his latest work, a specific body language in which blindness, darkness and shadow stimulate our imagination. As the artist himself reflects: "The information that we receive from outside, via our faculty of sight, represents 50 per cent of the perception that we have of our environment in relation to our other senses. This perception of reality is relative and is changing all the time. The gaze as expression and engine of movement. The eye works with the other senses. We see through our skin, we caress the spatial limits with our ears, where the sound sculpts the volume with its echo, our hands read the weight and temperature of our bodies and our bare feet measure the gravity, set the pace and search for the ground.

"From the ambiguity and contrast, the concepts of light and darkness are axes of inspiration to create a specific body language which is present throughout the piece, a surreal, fragile, everyday gaze. But to see is not only a habitual action which looks around that which is outside of ourselves but also in close relation with our environment. In the process of transforming internal images into real actions, the interior becomes a record of a collective memory inside of the act of portraying ourselves 'from inside'. In this artistic exercise, the fantasy, the reflection or the re-composition, constitute an accurate line of knowledge and analysis of reality."

OJO, is a co-production of the Festival de Otoño en primavera and the renowned German company, Sasha Waltz & Guests Berlin, with which Antonio Ruz works regularly.

www.antonioruz.com