According to choreographers and dancers Jonas&Lander, Adorabilis is a fantasy creature: a giant, colourful and exuberant octopus, capable of assuming different forms (similar to the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch), spraying champagne and above all making humans ask themselves major existential questions.
Spotting a creature like this, in the homonymous show prepared by the duo of Portuguese artists (born Jonas Lopes and Lander Patrick), is pretty simple. The scene is a grid in which the artists themselves, together with dancer Lewis Seivwright, take the part of this bizarre animal. Light, sound and scenery, like the equivalent natural elements, influence the behaviour and the reaction of the artists/animals who, at the mercy of invisible tensions, take on a state of alarm, as if controlled by the presence of a virtual eye.
Neither authoritarian neither passive, this eye (perhaps that of the spectator themselves?) observes and arranges, checks and cares, modulating space and action like in a castrating and somewhat kitsch videogame. Selected by the Aerowaves 2017 network, Adorabilis is a labyrinthine dance inspired by Sufi in the style of Bob Fosse, interweaving singing and music. The result is a contemporary ceremony that is ironically naïf.
