“Balé Literal” is a software of poetic resistance, an exhibition-dance was a dwelling organism. It’s a motion made up of a diversified repertoire of dangling object-works, set in movement by a bunch of individuals orchestrated by the Brazilian artist Laura Lima.

Balé Literal was initially offered in June 2019, on a road nook in entrance of A Gentil Carioca, a gallery in Rio de Janeiro. That is the primary time it has been proven in a museum. The bigger house homes its choreographic mechanism, whereas the adjoining house operates as a backstage warehouse—a repository of artifacts able to be moved into dance.

Within the bigger house, two groups activate the mechanism of the ballet and cling objects from threads. The motion is powered by the pedals of two bicycles, evoking the movement of a loom. With a soundtrack by Ana Frango Elétrico, lighting design by Andrea Capella, re-engineering by Yoann Saura, and the collaboration of Hangar, each rehearsal of this transmedia choreography is a efficiency, and every efficiency is exclusive.

“Balé Literal” is an exhibition-as-dance, a retrospective in movement by Laura Lima. The bestiary of varied beings that make up the piece animates ideas developed by the artist over three many years. Work, textiles, masks, placards, poems, alien craft, astronauts, umbrellas and different characters participate on this ritual dance, which invitations us to follow new methods of seeing and shifting within the museum. “Should you transfer in a different way, you assume in a different way,” says Lima.

The activation of Balé Literal includes the day by day strategy of hanging, gathering and mobilising the objects.

Curated by
Elvira Dyangani Ose

at MACBA—Museu d’Artwork Contemporani de Barcelona
till September 25, 2023