“Borboleta do Cèu e da Terra” is an experimental dance piece that waves the soulful essence of Flamenco with the meditative depths of Butoh. Not confined to either form, it serves as a bridge between tradition and contemporary expression, exploring the body as a living archive of cultural memory and transformation.

This ongoing creation emerged from a two months artistic residency in collaboration with Shinehouse Theatre in Taipei, Taiwan. Deeply influenced by the city’s unique multicultural intersections, the work reflects an intimate dialogue between movement and identity. “Borboleta do Cèu e da Terra” premiered on December 27, 2024, at Longshan Cultural Center (Taipei). Music from Chia Chung Xu, local artist from Taipei.

The piece unfolds as a multilayered creation blending:
- Ancestral connection: digging into the body’s memory, tracing the echoes of the lineage,
and becoming a channel for transformation through movement. This inquiry is deeply rooted in the earth, carrying the intention of grounding and renewal.
- Flamenco re-embodied: not a mere replication of form, but an awakening of its essence
through the body’s lived memory, allowing it to breathe anew.
- Literary and artistic inspiration: drawing from Federico García Lorca’s In Search of Duende and Kazuo Ohno’s piece La Argentina, the piece navigates the intersection of poetic intuition and embodied expression.
- A meeting of two worlds: Butoh and Flamenco, though seemingly distant, converge in their
rawness, their visceral presence. In Lorca’s research on El Duende, he identifies earthiness, irrationality, an encounter with death and a touch of the diabolical- elements also at the heart of Butoh’s philosophy. This piece delves into their spirit, revealing their resonance beyond form.
- A dialogue with tradition: Honouring cultural roots while pushing beyond their edges,
stepping into the unknown, where movement is free to transform.

“Borboleta do Cèu e da Terra” emerges from a deep inquiry into freedom- freedom from imposed identities, from inherited memories and the weight of history. This piece is an act of shedding, a dance that dissolves boundaries, allowing the body to exist in a state of becoming. At its core, the work resonates with a shared essence of Butoh and Flamenco- the search for el duende, that elusive force that arises from the depths of the body and the unknown. Both forms embrace the raw, the primal, the inexplicable, tapping into a mystery that moves beyond technique.