Tiago Guedes

Why are children fascinated by Russian dolls, matryoshkas, these Russian folk craft objects? Probably because of the way the figures fit inside each other, from the biggest to the smallest, where you can see – at the same time as the comical effect of repetition – a series of metaphors for similarity and difference, the visible and the invisible. For this work aimed at children, Tiago Guedes has adopted this principle of things that fit inside each other, the dialectic of the present and the hidden, of illusion and subterfuge, while playing on the effects of resemblance and analogy. What is true and what is false? What are you seeing and what can you make out? In this interplay of visual and sensory trails where everything is endlessly transformed, dance is a vehicle for physical, aural and spatial enigmas. In the course of the little fragments of history that interlock and reflect each other, space changes in shifting light and perspectives, like an installation that produces illusions and trompe l’oeil. Inside is outside, outside is upside down, the frightening can produce laughter and laughter can hide an enigma to decipher. Is it a face? A monster? An animal? A game of hide and seek with meanings, forms and melodies, Matrioska creates a rich imaginary world and requires an acute sense of observation on the part of young and old.

A musician by training, then a performer (notably for João Fiadeiro, Miguel Pereira and Alice Chauchat), Tiago Guedes created the work Um Solo in 2002, then Matériaux Divers (2003), a choreographic exploration of the frontier between visual arts installation and cartography, and Hoje (2013), which explores the present through modes of action that are available to individuals and groups. He is now director of the municipal theatre in Oporto, where he organises the Dias da Dança festival, which promotes the emerging Portuguese and international scene.