Bittersweet, 2001 [Enlarge in New Window]

David Rousseve: Saudade

Some years ago, choreographer David Rousseve got turned on to fado, the melancholy Portuguese folk music that is over 200 years old. He says friends described it as “the Portuguese equivalent of the blues,” to which Rousseve has a strong attachment. “I went out and bought a record by Amália Rodrigues,” the late Portuguese singer considered the queen of fado. “My heart nearly exploded.”

Hence, the title of his Creative Capital-funded performance work: Saudade, a Portuguese word that, according to Rousseve, refers to the “emotional core of fado music” and has no English equivalent—“ although a sense of longing is the closest translation I have found,” he says. Like the blues, fado sings of loss and unattainable yearnings, phrased in haunting tones. “It appeals to me both lyrically and melodically,” says Rousseve. “It is also metaphoric and poetic, and therefore for me spiritual.”

The spirit of fado—as well as that of the other forms Rousseve employs in Saudade—will be revealed through an idiosyncratic unearthing of emotional layers. These forms, he explains, “are united on a deeper, subtextual level—a complex emotional terrain just beneath the surface of the dance, text, or music. This terrain, in accessing a deeply emotional place, often feels ‘spiritual’ to me, though definitely not ‘religious.’”

Saudade can also be understood as an ode to the bittersweetness of the black experience. Rousseve, who grew up in the American South, makes it clear that “slavery itself was a totally bitter experience,” but the slaves managed to find “moments of joy and spirit . . . to bring a little humanity into their lives.”

Most of the text for Saudade has been written, along with some scenes and dances. But, as the choreographer notes, “we have a long way to go.” Creative Capital funding has supported invaluable weeks of rehearsal and development with the performers. Incorporating theater, movement, and video-generated imagery, the work will be couched in such diverse dance forms as classical Indian, Indonesian, West African, and contemporary dance—all infused with postmodern aesthetics, and with a sense of both philosophical and African American issues.

Race and spirituality are subjects that have always fascinated this professor of choreography at the University of California at Los Angeles. Rousseve says he appreciates Socrates, especially his “ability to wonder.” With everything that was denied to them, slaves had, if nothing else, “a lot of time to wonder.”

One character Rousseve has created for Saudade is an 18th-century slave, who delivers two monologues. Through these, “the connection to slavery and Katrina will be made.” The characters are fictional but the events did happen, with one of the stories based on that of a real survivor. Indeed, memory plays a crucial role in Saudade; Rousseve’s characters are people haunted by other people, or more precisely, by the memories of those people. Ghosts seem to move and possess them—ghosts who appear more substantial than the contemporary world.

Rousseve is working with MultiArts Projects & Productions in New York to produce and book Saudade, which is expected to premiere in the spring of 2008. The artist remains passionately iconoclastic in his desire to obliterate the boundaries between high and low art. His is a democratic republic: “I’m as much Motown as Wagner.” He cites other influences, such as avant-garde choreographer Pina Bausch and author Toni Morrison, more for what they seek than the forms they use. “Purpose is much more important to me than form,” he declares. He alludes to the irony today of being “in a world that is transnational and borderless” while living in “a country that doesn’t want to be there,” to be part of the global community—a realization that underscores Rousseve’s aim to make art that’s relevant to our times.

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THIS PROJECT'S CATEGORIES: Performance > Dance | African American Themes | California | 2006