interview with fernanda branco
Performance: transversal lines
Photo by: Monika Sobczak
16. 09. 2014
Q: Why / when / how did you start to work with performance, what is your background, how did you arrive at doing performance?
I have always been fascinated by how one can be moved while witnessing the other go through a process of transformation. That fascination brought me to study theater several years ago. I started to work with performance in 2004 after finishing my studies at the International School of Corporeal Mime in London. In my practices, during a period of 4 years I took part of several actress training modules based on Grotowisk's methods by the guidance of his former actress Gey Pin Ang. Before that I have studied theater for 4 years while being part of a theater company in Brazil, performing in open spaces. For the past 10 years I have been mostly working with site-specific performances. As the years pass, I have dived into performance art, focusing more in the visual aspect of performance. Nevertheless my work still focuses a great deal on movement and vocal expressions.
Q: What is your process like when you make a performance, from idea to actual work?
Usually I start with an image - usually coming from a material or object. Then, I work creating a collage of images that in a way will guide me to create a path. I have a long practice with “improvisation”, that I also call: instant creations. This practice consists in being able to follow your intuition, to create in the present moment, and eventually, being able to revisit those moments in case the performance takes place once again.
Q: Can you tell about your latest project?
traversal lines was a 4 hours site-specific performance as part of Østlandsutstillingen 2014 that took place in Fredrikstad. The theme of the project was: travel and I chose 3 locations for the performance: inside the ferry that crosses the river Glomma and the 2 piers on each side of the river. Each place represented departure, travel and arrival in a cyclical journey. The materials I used was: copies of my passports pages, which I had sewn onto my skirt. hundreds of keys that had a relationship with time, patterns with books and a long red thread which respresented a spiderweb invading the landscape.
Q: What role does performance art have in your life / artistic praxis. Do you also work within other fields, like installation, sculpture, drawing, other expressions. How do they influence / inform each other?
Performance art is my main artistic expression - which is done throughout my body. In parallel, installation and video are other fields that I integrate. Some times, I work in collaboration with visual and /or video artists and in other projects and I embrace those expressions myself. My clothes are mostly garments working as second skin, the objects and materials that I use function as an extension of my body. The installations that I create are in dialog with the landscape.
Q: With what kind of form / material do you express yourself and use in your work and how did you arrive at using this material?
I do not have a specific form or material to work with. Yet, I mainly work with movement and vocal sounds as expressions to evoke diverse states of presence. The visual aspect of it is reinforced by using very common materials, yet put in a different context of use. I am interested in materials that are part of your daily life. Lately, I have become more interested in land art as well as investigating and using organic materials. This has been influenced by my studies in gardening and horticulture.
Q: How do you experience or consider the audience / surrounding. What space / surrounding do you find interesting to work in. How does your surrounding influence your work. Do you involve the public? If so how?
The audience has a big role in my work. Mostly because I am obsessed with the never ending interrelations between the viewer and myself - the performer. Nevertheless I rarely integrate the audience into my performances. I strongly stimulate them to question and or review their position as the audience. I work via indirect layers, that might do something to their senses, instead of forcing them to be active or take actions. I, kindly, force them to be aware of themselves during the moment the performance is taking place.
As for the surroundings of my performances- more than just occupying a room, I am often more interested in dialoging with a space. The white box gallery to urban areas and natural surroundings are all inspirational to me. Influenced by cinema, I am interested in the mood- an atmosphere that a surrounding can give or be explored from. The surroundings can say so much that sometimes that they are often the first idea from which I work from.
Q: What is the most import aspect of research in your work?
I am mostly occupied with the aspect of presence in performance art. I practice different states of body-mind that can activate states of presence. For me, the ability to shift states within presence gives the performer a great tool to lead the audience's focus. Filling the images created in the performance with an extra degree of curiosity or alertness, that creates a certain flow to the live act of performing.
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Q: Why / when / how did you start to work with performance, what is your background, how did you arrive at doing performance?
I have always been fascinated by how one can be moved while witnessing the other go through a process of transformation. That fascination brought me to study theater several years ago. I started to work with performance in 2004 after finishing my studies at the International School of Corporeal Mime in London. In my practices, during a period of 4 years I took part of several actress training modules based on Grotowisk's methods by the guidance of his former actress Gey Pin Ang. Before that I have studied theater for 4 years while being part of a theater company in Brazil, performing in open spaces. For the past 10 years I have been mostly working with site-specific performances. As the years pass, I have dived into performance art, focusing more in the visual aspect of performance. Nevertheless my work still focuses a great deal on movement and vocal expressions.
Q: What is your process like when you make a performance, from idea to actual work?
Usually I start with an image - usually coming from a material or object. Then, I work creating a collage of images that in a way will guide me to create a path. I have a long practice with “improvisation”, that I also call: instant creations. This practice consists in being able to follow your intuition, to create in the present moment, and eventually, being able to revisit those moments in case the performance takes place once again.
Q: Can you tell about your latest project?
traversal lines was a 4 hours site-specific performance as part of Østlandsutstillingen 2014 that took place in Fredrikstad. The theme of the project was: travel and I chose 3 locations for the performance: inside the ferry that crosses the river Glomma and the 2 piers on each side of the river. Each place represented departure, travel and arrival in a cyclical journey. The materials I used was: copies of my passports pages, which I had sewn onto my skirt. hundreds of keys that had a relationship with time, patterns with books and a long red thread which respresented a spiderweb invading the landscape.
Q: What role does performance art have in your life / artistic praxis. Do you also work within other fields, like installation, sculpture, drawing, other expressions. How do they influence / inform each other?
Performance art is my main artistic expression - which is done throughout my body. In parallel, installation and video are other fields that I integrate. Some times, I work in collaboration with visual and /or video artists and in other projects and I embrace those expressions myself. My clothes are mostly garments working as second skin, the objects and materials that I use function as an extension of my body. The installations that I create are in dialog with the landscape.
Q: With what kind of form / material do you express yourself and use in your work and how did you arrive at using this material?
I do not have a specific form or material to work with. Yet, I mainly work with movement and vocal sounds as expressions to evoke diverse states of presence. The visual aspect of it is reinforced by using very common materials, yet put in a different context of use. I am interested in materials that are part of your daily life. Lately, I have become more interested in land art as well as investigating and using organic materials. This has been influenced by my studies in gardening and horticulture.
Q: How do you experience or consider the audience / surrounding. What space / surrounding do you find interesting to work in. How does your surrounding influence your work. Do you involve the public? If so how?
The audience has a big role in my work. Mostly because I am obsessed with the never ending interrelations between the viewer and myself - the performer. Nevertheless I rarely integrate the audience into my performances. I strongly stimulate them to question and or review their position as the audience. I work via indirect layers, that might do something to their senses, instead of forcing them to be active or take actions. I, kindly, force them to be aware of themselves during the moment the performance is taking place.
As for the surroundings of my performances- more than just occupying a room, I am often more interested in dialoging with a space. The white box gallery to urban areas and natural surroundings are all inspirational to me. Influenced by cinema, I am interested in the mood- an atmosphere that a surrounding can give or be explored from. The surroundings can say so much that sometimes that they are often the first idea from which I work from.
Q: What is the most import aspect of research in your work?
I am mostly occupied with the aspect of presence in performance art. I practice different states of body-mind that can activate states of presence. For me, the ability to shift states within presence gives the performer a great tool to lead the audience's focus. Filling the images created in the performance with an extra degree of curiosity or alertness, that creates a certain flow to the live act of performing.
<< Back