Contempo Physical Dance Premieres Desert at The O’Shaughnessy

Performances and Events

Contempo Physical Dance returns to The O’Shaughnessy with their third international choreography residency, featuring a world premiere by the 2022 McKnight International Choreographer, Mario Nascimento. 

Mr. Nascimento is from Manaus, in the Amazon region of Brazil. He is the Artistic Director of Corpo de Dança do Amazonas, a contemporary dance company in the region.

His work, Desert, is about the desertification of the soul, our environment, the destruction of indigenous people, and prejudices. It is a work about human nature in its search for survival and preservation. An insistence for survival, an insistence to keep on our feet, an insistence in being resistant to the questions in our everyday lives that box us in. A cast of nine dancers, which Mário calls strong and heroic, are resistant. They are resistant, because the desert strengthens them.