"As a choreographer, Im found in connecting and working with and for the dancers. Pursuing a full spectrum of challenges and colors, the concept of meaningful movement leads my creative instinct and guides me in my choreographic work. Every project has a different mindset, and specific tasks, allowing my body to generate the draft of my movement output.
The atmosphere generated in every creation builds a connection between the dancers and the audience. The willingness to emotionally touch the audience by approaching relevant subjects and developing a message is a constant in my work. Creating stories with sense and dramaturgy gifts each dancer with something they can relate to and make others engage in their journey."
Public Domain
"People may see society as a place where they are united because of some common reasons and concerns, about their politics, culture, traditions, beliefs, and values. However, they need to see society as an essential part of life, to which they have to belong because they cannot survive without it - selfishness is an excessive or exclusive concern, for themselves or for their own advantage, pleasure, or well-being, regardless of others." - Ricardo Campos Freire
Premiere: Companhia Portuguesa de Bailado Contemporâneo | Teatro Camões | Lisbon, Portugal | 2023
Num instante
"Within a contemporary conceptual language, Ricardo Campos Freire takes the dancers to transport to his organicity of movement and resulting sounds the desire to rise and the fear to fall... the will to move forward... but with fear to retreat taking them to a crossroad of their existence... to the collapse between the will... the resistance that pulls them from their cocoon to face the laws of an invisible force..." - Odete Rios
Premiere: Companhia Poveira Nós da Dança | Cine-Teatro Garrett | Póvoa do Varzim, Portugal | 2023
Something in between
What can happen when two individuals are in the same space and time? In the same space, but at a different time? Or at the same time in a different space? What can happen in between those transitional situations? Do our bodies realize it and fight it, or surrender to the evidence of what we can define as normal? Which role do our senses play in this game?
These are the first impressions of our Research during the Residency at Stroetmanns Fabrik in Emsdetten between 25.09.2022 and 29.09.2022 - Thanks to the program Tiny Residencies sponsored by Ministerium für Kultur und Wissenschaft des Landes NRW, and NRW Landesbüro Freie Darstellende Künste.
Co-creation and performance: Melanie López López & Ricardo Campos Freire
Photographer/Videographer: Rekie
Video and music edit: Ricardo Campos Freire
A procura do instante
When we set out in search of the instant we create the time gap where we discover who we are. Taking risks, challenging ourselves, and having the experience of "doing" creates confidence and helps build skills to deal with future problems that may arise outside our comfort zone. The concept of this artistic creation falls on the constant search that dwells in each of us when we consider that something is missing. The key is knowledge and practice - gaining familiarity with any new situation. Working on the theme of travel/ocean, fado/destination, and connecting space and time, these icons of referential concepts take us to the search for the instant in a performative language that speaks of other places, encounters, and the journey to the stage of our memories.
Premiere: Companhia Poveira Nós da Dança | Cine-Teatro Garrett | Póvoa do Varzim | 2022
La bellezza del Niente
"Leave, I was going to say leave all that. What matter who's speaking, someone said what matter who's speak-ing. There's going to be a departure, I'll be there, I won't miss it, it won't be me, I'll be here, I'll say I'm far from here, it won't be me, I won't say anything, there's going to be a story, someone's going to try to tell a story... it's only voices, only lies." - Samuel Beckett
Premiere: DAF (Dance Arts Faculty) | Rome, Italy | 2021
Unavoidable
Two bodies represent how anxiety, concerns, and lack of words become real and reflect in specific external actions. The need to express ourselves fills the brain and explodes in different directions not always linked to our character or behavior as an individual. There is always a middle term in any situation, a gathering of all our emotions in a place where the capacity to restrain certain actions is moderated and allows us to be us. Embrace yourself.
Premiere: KOTID Festival | Frankfurt, Germany | 2018
301, somewhere on the line
Life happens every day, and with it, our inner self deals with doubts and uncertain decisions. Situations occur for various reasons and we can or not know the reason why. We can swim through everyday life trying to sort out a way to move into the next day. Like a tram, there are several stops throughout our journey. Where does the line go? Are we following the line or are we creating our own?
The day before yesterday
This piece intends to show how one can be caught in the flow of our daily life becoming himself part of a repressive and capitalist society. Representing a Socio-Behavioral understanding using an analogy between the animal life, Praying Mantis, and the economic and political system controlled by private owners for their own profit, a clear image shows how a corrupt and poisoning influence can change the path of one's life.
Impressions of Myself
"How well we communicate is not determined by how well we say things, but how well we are understood".
Premiere: Croatian National Theatre | Rijeka, Croatia | 2018
Unstable Ground
Our world is constantly changing. Right now, the social media era is emerging and providing us with instant products. Interesting opinions, thoughts, and ideas are often put aside for a hateful or sympathetic comment, enhancing that other's opinions and apparent happiness are more important than our own.
This era also created a "notion of supervision", disguised, so we don't realize that we are being monitored 24/7, 365 days a year...
Premiere: Theater Hagen | Hagen, Germany | 2017
Apart
"Venus and Jupiter... The largest visible objects in the sky, the God and the Goddess...
In Venus, we find the inherent duality of the experience. Loving, healing, destructive.
Jupiter shows us the essence of man itself, the search for power, and the ego.
Are they real? Can they relate to each other? Are they strong enough for the "real" world?"
Premiere: Theater Hagen | Hagen, Germany | 2016.
Selected for the 31st International
Competition for Choreographers Hannover.
Clash and Outsider
Clash
This piece represents the clash of ideas between men and women. The power of the group judging relationships between genders is sometimes taken as not normal or forbidden. The fight between the individual and the group to impose his idea. The noise of this contradiction is visible during the piece with constant interruption by the group in any different "move" made by the individual, suffocating any attempt at acceptance.
Outsider
Outsider shows us the judgment that our society inputs on everything that presents different behavior and ideas. The group rejects individuality and criticizes the idea of someone breaking the harmony of this society. In this piece, the general idea is the exclusion and non-acceptance of the individual that doesn't follow the concepts rooted in the group.
Premiere: Korea Youth Ballet Stars | Seoul, south Korea | 2019
Indirect Bond
This project was filmed in two different spaces, one inside and one outside. Inside represented by their home, and outside a special place in the city where they live. The importance of freedom was visible throughout the working process, and the idea of light and dark was implicit in the environment in which we worked. Looking for the emotional range each dancer could achieve, the goal was not the movement itself but the expression of the feelings behind it. Generosity, sadness, happiness, fragility, kindness, and aggressivity, among others, are traces of ourselves as human beings - We intended to show the human side of the artist.
Concept | Ricardo Campos Freire
Video recording & video editing | Ricardo Campos Freire
Dancers | Melanie Lopez Lopez, Davide Degano, Tiana Lara Hogan, and Péter Dániel Matkaicsek
Sponsor | Stipendienprogramm 2021 des Ministeriums für Kultur und Wissenschaft des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen
Prosas Bárbaras
"E quantas vezes, ó meu corpo bem-amado, eu não seduzi os teus olhos a que seguissem as viagens imensas das estrelas! Então não sabia ainda que havia de cair e desfazer-me, como uma gota de àgua! Adeus! Em breve não te lembrarás de mim. Há-de nascer-te uma outra filha, e depois outra, e outra. E tu hás-de estreitá-las apertadamente. Ou ela se chame alma como eu - ou então se chame aroma - ou então se chame Som. Adeus! Escuta. Se nas tuas peregrinações através da matéria encontrares os átomos daquela que eu tanto amem, não te juntes com eles; porque se vos juntardes no cálice de uma flor, a flor há-de mirrar-se; se for na luz de uma estrela, a estrela há-de apagar-se: se for nas águas, o mar há-de gelar-se..." - Eça de Queiroz
Premiere: Associação Nós da Dança | 2020