Michelle Moura’s BOCA COVA takes place from 20 – 23 August at the Sophiensæle as part of Tanz im August. We find ourselves in the mouth of a greedy, insatiable system by which we are ultimately chewed up and spit out renewed.
A machine made of mouths: it chews, crunches, devours, swallows everything in sight and then spits it out again. The individual gears of the machine are in perfect harmony. In tact, moving in sync, all-encompassing – nothing can escape it. Bite. Breathing wearily, a machine in need of oiling. Never getting enough takes effort. Yet its insatiable hunger is enough to drive this creation. A colonial, capitalistic machinery whose gluttony is the oil for its motor. An urge that cannot be quenched. A hunger that camouflages greed and a bottomless stomach. So immense, so overwhelming, that everything else is soon forgotten.
In a trance, befuddled, it constantly craves more. More! The individual protagonists encourage one another, are driven by one another, into one another. They smash. Bash everything that gets in their way until they are finally the only ones left in the space. Everything belongs to them. We, the viewers, are positioned around the happening. Somewhat removed, yet nearly right in the middle. Suddenly, the machine leaves the center of the room. Now it might be anywhere. Behind us. Under us. Devouring us and making us part of this unstoppable machine. If we aren’t already. Am I looking into a mirror? Am I watching the other spectators as they rediscover a part of themselves, a part of me, in this machinery in our midst?
Back to smashing. In its ecstasy, it is eating, chewing, and devouring its fellow allies. Its hunger, greed undeterred. Sickness results from that which was chewed up. The others feast on the vomit. But even this illness can be repurposed and monetized, becoming part of the frenzy. Eating one another turns into kissing one another. Is love possible in this turbo-capitalist, extractive machinery? Or is it just another gear meant to briefly plug the bottomless pit in its stomach through mutual consumption and draining? The machine digests itself. Individuals pass through the intestines in an effort to digest them. They are squished, pressed, and excreted. For a moment, it appears as if the creation is barely able to digest, to endure. But there is ecstasy even in this pain, the happening continues. The individual parts are extricated and drawn back in. Endless greed has everyone firmly transfixed. After around 75 minutes, I, too, wake up from the trance that Boca Cova catapulted me into. The individual dancers have become a superhuman being with their rhythmic steps, their voices, their mouths. The choreographer Michelle Moura skillfully stages the ubiquitous, and nonetheless barely tangible, through movement, body language, and rituals that leave me deeply moved and reflective. The mixture of the performers’ voices and the voice-over of the soundscape also renders the happening close, palpable, and pervasive.
English translation by Melissa Maldonado
BOCA COVA by Michelle Moura was presented in the frame of Tanz im August 2024 from 20 – 23 August 2024 at Sophiensæle.
