Ana Borralho & João Galante [Portugal]

ARTIST: Ana Borralho & João Galante

COUNTRY: Portugal

GENRE: Performance Art

DESCRIPTION: Frequent addressed themes include body/mind, outside/inside, emotion/feeling, me/others, gender/sexual ambiguity, erotic imaginary

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BIOGRAPHY:

Ana Borralho and João Galante met each other while studying visual arts at AR.CO (Lisbon) and have been working together since 2002, having created and performed the following pieces:  Mistermissmissmister (2002), Glin Gló (2002), I Love You (2003), No Body Never Mind, 001 (2004), Girl Play Boy (2004), No Body Never Mind, 002 (2005), No Body Never Mind, 003 (2006), sexyMF (2007), I For An I (2007), I Put A Spell On You (2008) and Meatphysics (2008).

They must not only be regarded as a duo of artists, but as an actual couple, an essential feature to understand their work, where it is not purposeless that we never see them performing face to face. The face-to-face of Galante-Borralho stands for a couple facing an audience. Just as in family portraits, they do not look at each other – they look at us. Here lies one of the reasons why the male and the female elements are simultaneously revealed and inverted in their pieces

In No Body Never Mind, 001, the bodies of the creators/performers are tattooed, so as to establish an implacable frontier between the biological and the social, donning the skin with the capacity to produce an immutable opacity, or in other words, transforming it into a second skin. In No Body Never Mind, 002, they show the mechanisms of objectivation of the body, blurring the distinction between the scatological and the sublime, and in No Body Never Mind, 003, the sound of the body is transformed into a soundscape echoing with our own perceiving of the body: fluids, pulsations, circulations, streams.

With Meatphysics, the sounds of hiccups, laughs, sights and internal movements are amplified constructing a physical soundtrack, which is contradicted by their facial passivity. They seem to suggest a physical annulation. Almost as if it was asked to the audience to forget the form and to think the content.

Since 2004 their work has been shown at festivals in Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Switzerland, Scotland, Germany, Japan, United Arab Emirates and Brazil. They are now working on their next performances Dança do Futuro and World of Interiors.

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PRESS:

“It’s based on the desire to provoke in each viewer a strong emotion in the presence of a confront and a direct communication through characters with an extreme exhibition and an obvious sexual ambiguity. The other viewers wait and watch the previous participants relations with the performers, like in a voyeuristic game.” in Postal do Algarve, about “Mistermissmissmister”

“The notion of intimacy on the opposite of the exhibition demanded by pornography is very present almost as a social critic. The pornography has been invading the imaginary keeping less space for stories. When everything is showed, the imagination remains hidden.” Lucinda Canelas, in Publico, about “Sexy MF”

“The contradiction between the human being impulse for self-destruction and the simultaneous impulse to resist to dissolution make part of the conceptual display of the project.” MG, in Agenda Cultural de Lisboa, about “NBNM, 002”

“‘no body’ in Ana’s back and ‘never mind’  in Joao Galante’s. This was an initial ritual through a painful writing, that had retrieved body art paradoxes (to be a tattoo to distinguish each subject) and the ironical interrogation of body manipulation (to “no body” – “nobody” – “whose body?”, answer an incompliant  or restrictive “never mind”). In this second part, the bodies have lost their passivity as a support. The short debut section place precisely an expression problem summarizing all the communication on inner sounds of two naked bodies – statics but on effort – heard by instruments of sound amplification. This technological mediation is followed by a second moment in which the bodies embrace an intense and polished slow dialogue.” Miguel Pedro Quadrio, in Diario de Noticias, about “NBNM, 001” and “NBNM, 002”

“Since the first moment in the play the territory where both moves is exposed:  the ambiguity. A dissonance between a facial expression (face, skin, surface, dramatic, painful, twisted) and a convulsive laugh (the sound comes from the human being visceras through a microphone attached to their throats)  is presented. This conflict is the metaphorical space between body/mind, superficiality/profundity, illusion/reality, material/immaterial.” Claudia Galhos, in Expresso, about “NBNM, 002”

“In which ways the body that is exhibited, naked, touching the delicate universe of privacy and erotism, could create ambiguous images by itself? What we can see depends of the look we use in the act of looking. The couple Ana Borralho & Joao Galante work a lot on this delicate side of intimacy, here in a performance/installation to 12 or more performers, with interactive video projection and sound from Vitor Rua. An experience of proximity, between viewers and actors, in the disturbed ‘extreme exhibition and a obvious sexual ambiguity’.” in Culturgest programme, about “Sexy MF”

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PERFORMANCE WORKS:

- “World of Interiors” (2010)

- “Untitled, Still Life” (2009)

- “Meatphysics” (2008)

- “I Put A Spell On You” (2008)

- “I For An I” (2007)

- “sexyMF” (2007)

- “No Body Never Mind, 003” (2006)

- “No Body Never Mind, 002” (2005)

- “No Body Never Mind, 001” (2004)

- “Girl Play Boy” (2004)

- “I Love You” (2003)

- “Glin Gló” (2002)

- “Mistermissmissmister” (2002)

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SELECTED APPEARANCES:

- TNT – Manufacture des Chaussures, Bordeaux, France (2008)

- Manifesta7, Bolzano, Italy (2008)

- New Territories/National Review of Live Art, New Moves, Glasgow, Scotland (2007)

- Performances En Tout Genre, Theatre Arsenic, Lausanne, Switzerland (2007)

- Nuit curieuse – La Ferme du Buisson, Paris, France (2007)

- Wunder der Praerie Festival, Mannheim, Germany (2007)

- ALKANTARA Festival, Lisbon, Portugal (2006)

- Escena Contemporânea Festival, Madrid, Spain (2005)

- ZDB Art Gallery, Lisbon, Portugal (2005)

- Festival 100 Dessus Dessous/Parc de La Villette, Paris, France (2005)

- Lux, Lisbon, Portugal (2005)

- RE.AL – in the context of the 15º anniversary, Lisbon, Portugal (2005)

- TRACTOR, a Contemporary Art Exhibition in the context of Faro Cultural Capital, Faro, Portugal (2005)

- Panorama de Dança Festival, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2005)

- La Bâtie Festival, Geneve, Switzerland (2004)

- Fx Festival, Lisbon, Portugal (2003)

- A8 Festival, Torres Vedras, Portugal (2003)

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PICTURES:

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VIDEOS:

Mistermissmissmister (1’)

Mistermissmissmister (12’)

No Body Never Mind, 001 (5’30’’)

No Body Never Mind, 003 (7’)

Meatphysics (9’)

Experiences – draft / initial ideas for I Put A Spell On You

Experiences – sexyMF sensor

Experiences – The Vanishing Act 4