Instant Dissidence

Involuntary Dances

1/4 art showcase, 1/4 pyjama party and 1/4 club night and 1/4 voyeuristic pleasure, Involuntary Dances is a one-off 24 hour event presenting epilepsy as performance.

This is the first work in a trilogy looking at the relationship between dance, epilepsy and drug research. Rita Marcalo is a performance artist who suffers from epilepsy. Having come off her epilepsy medication exactly one month prior to the performance date in order to reduce the level of anticonvulsant medication in her blood stream, Marcalo will spend a period of a total of 24 hours inducing an epileptic seizure.

The event will last 24 hours, as Marcalo can not exactly predict when she will fit:

It will start at 1pm on Friday 11th, with a series of art events by other artists curated by Rita Marcalo.
From 9pm the lights are dimmed and the event moves into a club atmosphere, with music played by DJ Tom Smith, into the night.
From 2am the event enters a ‘chill out’ stage: everyone will be invited to get into their sleeping bags.
Breakfast will be available from 9am, and throughout the morning there will be time to engage in some more art events by the curated artists.
The event will end at 1pm on Saturday 12th.

During the 24 hours Marcalo will be engaging in a series of epilepsy inducing acts: from ingesting legal brain stimulants (alcohol, coffee, dark chocolate), to stimulating the brain through strobe lights and specially designed computer programmes, to raising her bodily temperature, to fasting, to sleep deprivation.

At any point in the event Marcalo might have an epileptic seizure. Whenever this happens, a loud alarm will sound, lights will brighten, music will stop, and a series of cameras will start recording her seizure. Audience members will also be encouraged to record it on their mobile phones.

The satellite artists participating in the event are:

Performance artist Thom Shaw presents Drag Democracy, an interactive durational piece where the spectators are invited to become agents in gender resistance.
Dance artist Daliah Toure presents The Only Time I Ever Straightened My Hair I Looked Like Condoleezza Rice, a series of short solos, each around the idea of hair.
Dance artist Sheena McGrandles presents One Woman And A Mic, a performance involving an alter, a wedding to no one, and a cooking session.
Digital media artist Andy Wood presents Shorts: a series of stunning dance for the camera works.
Dance artists Vanessa Grasse and Caitlin Smith, violinist Yvonna Magda and cellist Semay Wu (The Strati Project), present Solo? a music/dance structured improvisation.
Composer Matthew Knowles presents Seven Questions Make Me My Own Lolita: a collective poetry reading involving audience participation.
Visual and installation artist Carli Rebecca Jefferson presents Miss Jefferson is... IN VOLUNTARY: a dance performed inside small picket fences, which can be influenced by the audience.
Dance artist Rachel Dean presents Out of the Hat: a structured improvisation involving hats.

White Out Conditions

White Out Conditions is driven by an interest in the notions of the beautiful and the grotesque, doing away with the common sense binary opposition and instead suggesting a continuum between them. The work challenges the audience with a series of visual scenarios from which serve to amuse, discomfort, attract and repel – often simultaneously. These scenarios move in and out of sight, sparking strong emotional responses.

In White Out Conditions, someone performs a dance his body can no longer do, someone eats to exhaustion, someone dances like a bird, someone loves someone whose left foot is tied to the ceiling. This weird and wonderful performance distorts reality along the way whilst questioning perceptions of nudity and sexuality (the performance is suitable for those aged 16+).

The work is a collaboration between a comedian/actor, a cabaret artist, two professional dancers and award-winning choreographer Rita Marcalo. Original music has been composed by various artists ranging from classical musicians to a punk band. Costume and set design has been created by Leeds-based visual artist Lucy Barker. Lighting design is by Leeds-based lighting designer Matt Sykes-Hooban.

Tour Dates

Documentation film

Press quotes and audience response

Aemilius Sense Live

Choreography commissioned by Community Dance York – live version of Aemilius Sense, the film.

Grand Opera House, York
30th May 2006 @ 7pm
Box office: 01904 678 700

Three Steps on the Ladder While Waiting

Choreographic commission for Flight Effect Dance Company. A piece based on adverts for missing persons.

Tour Dates

Documentation clip on showreel

Press quotes and audience response

Crooked Angels

Crooked Angels takes the audience on a journey through a trilogy of dance theatre works that allows you to become a voyeur into different stages of the relationship between two people.

The first of the works shows a woman frantically arranging objects in the space, so embedded in her task that she begins to treat her companion as an object. This evolves into a sometimes humorous, sometimes dark portrayal of the power of one woman against the other, in a visually stunning set of flying feathers.

The second inverts the power relationship between the two women. This time the feathers have given way to carnations and the women struggle to negotiate the power shift between them through a raw physicality that is a combination of dance and fighting techniques.

The final work begins as you enter the space pre-set with rows of candles and the scent of vanilla. The piece is almost entirely performed in candlelight, and as the candles are blown one by one, the darkness descends on the performers and the audience. Gigantic metal angel wings, dolls, cotton and knifes are all played out in front of your eyes, gradually leading to a final conflict resolution…

A varied soundtrack of live and pre-recorded sound, ranging from 80's pop to contemporary music, add to the creation of an atmosphere of dark romanticism. With Marcalo's trademark emphasis on emotionally charged choreography set in a series of surrealist visual environments, this is dance theatre bordering on visual art.

Tour Dates

Documentation clip on showreel

Press quotes and audience response

Academic article

Unicorn Study

Contribution to Fast, Loud and Out of Control event: a woman, a dildo, and Shania Twain.

Yorkshire Dance @ The Wardrobe, Leeds
31st May 2005 @ 7pm
Box office: 0113 2438765

Vinte Estados

Instant Dissidence choreographic commission for the Ferens Art Gallery, Hull. The work takes inspiration from different bodily states.

Ferens Arts Gallery, Hull
12th May 2004 @ 7.30 pm
Box office: 01482 613 902

Documentation clip on company showreel

Never Mind the Flying Chipmunks

Instant Dissidence commission for the Yorkshire Dance Community Performance Group, Leeds. The work was a collaborative devising process between the Rita Marcalo and the performers.

Yorkshire Dance, Leeds
16th December 2003 @ 7.30 pm
Box office: 0113 2438765

Documentation clip on company showreel

Event

Instant Dissidence commission for Bretton Hall. The work was devised as a response to a particular gallery exhibition, and it worked from site-specific premises.

Leeds City Art Gallery, Leeds
15th May 2001 @ 3pm
Box office: 07799 852001

Volatile Velvety Suck

Choreographic commission for the Bretton Hall Dance Company. A piece devised in collaboration with the dancers, based on notions of falling, food and sex.

Leeds City Art Gallery, Leeds
15th May 2001 @ 3pm
Box office: 07799 852001

Tour Dates

Documentation clip on showreel

Strange People

Choreographic site-specific commission for Bretton Hall Student Company. The work was site-specific, and it took inspiration from the nature of a particular nightclub, as well as the people who frequent it.

Zeus Club, Wakefield
15th May 2000 @ 10pm
Box office: 07799 852001

Instant Dissidence

A work looking at religious and sexual identity.

Quinzena de Danca de Almada, Lisbon (Portugal)
15th October 1999 @ 9pm
Box office: 00351 21 2583175

Apprehensions

A collaboration between Rita Marcalo and a Euphonium player/composer

Powerhouse 1, Wakefield
15th March 1998 @ 7.30 pm
Box office: 01924 832 069

Documentation clip on showreel

Past the Mission

A work tracing the romantic relationship between two women.

Made in Surrey Dance Festival, Guildford
15th June 1998 @ 7.30pm
Box Office: 01483 686876

Cravo

A duet between two women and a carnation.

Surrey Dance Recital, Guildford
7th June 1996 @ 7.30pm
Box Office: 01483 686876

Documentation clip on showreel

White Out Conditions (version 1)

A trio inspired by Portuguese folk music.

Surrey Dance Recital, Guildford
5th June 1995 @ 7.30pm
Box Office: 01483 686876

Documentation clip on showreel

Em Queda de Guerra

A trio about fighting for what you believe in.

UTL Dance Festival, Lisbon (Portugal)
11th June 1993 @ 9pm
Box office: 00351 21 4196777

Por Causa de Uma Batata

A duet between two women and a table.

Lisbon Dance Festival, Lisbon (Portugal)
27th September 1993 @ 9pm
Box office: 00351 21 2583175