Oratorio - Encantação pelo Rio

"ORATORIO – Encantação pelo Rio" was conceived in 2002 and made in 2003, as a project rewarded in the IV Sergio Motta Cultural Prize. It's a kind of "suite of poems" about Rio de Janeiro (the subtitle "Incantation by Rio" makes a refference to Khlebnikov's "Incantation by Laugh", wonderfuly translated by Haroldo de Campos). The work's start point was a set of 3 "conventional" poems (perhaps the first that I made without a "visual" intention) inspired by 3 locations in Rio: Rocinha (one of its biggest "favela"), the Corcovado (Christ) and the Sambadrome. Then I made a list of 64 rivers and mountains of the city, combining them in verses, playing with the "coincidence" that in Portuguese: "river" and "I laugh" / "mountain" and "I die" have the same writing form: rio / morro. It was a period when violence was specially alarming in the city.

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