Pedi is a performance duet by Javier Velazquez Cabrero in collaboration with Teresa Phuti Mojela. The piece was performed at The Centre for the Less Good Idea in November 2018 as part of the For Once programme.

In Pedi, Madrid-born visual artist and dancer Cabrero pairs up with South African-based dancer and choreographer Mojela to put into place a collaborative methodology he’s been working with for the past three years, developed predominantly with the actor Pedro Mira. The performance is a measured one, prizing stillness and key moments for reflection on stage. It is in these moments that each performer identifies and pursues a single gesture, seemingly in isolation, but always in response to one another, building upon and incorporating these moments back into the greater performance.

We see the two dancers reflecting on an abstract premise – “the physical ability to relate to one another through varying states of distance”. It is a ritual of communication with those who have left the physical world, as well as with the characters who remain relevant to the collective imagination.

Adding to Mojela and Cabrero’s control of the performance through strict, responsive and empathetic choreography, is a low, atmospheric soundscape by Terry Riley. The result is a performance that holds, provokes and soothes, at times propelled and contained by a single gesture – the trembling hand, the poised strut. While both Cabrero and Mojela command the stage as individual performers, it is through the collaborative, responsive, and intuitive duet that they come alive.

As much as Pedi is a process-based performance on the psychological relationship one has with one’s own body – and in turn one’s physical relationship to other bodies – it is also a work that prizes memory, intangibility and the endless imaginaries.

– David Mann

CREDITS:

CONCEPTUALISERS & COLLABORATORS | Javier Velazquez Cabrero & Teresa Phuti Mojela
PROJECT MANAGER | Shruthi Nair
STAGE MANAGER | Hayleigh Evans & POPArt Productions
MUSIC | Persian Surgery Dervishes by Terry Riley