Video still from the videoenvironmentperformance Ophelia’s Subtraction

The word taanteatro is a neologism and means choreographic theater of tensions. 
In addition to naming the company it denotes the theoretic and practical dynamic unfolded in three areas of investigation:

1. Analysis of the body as a scenic event
2. Training and development of performing artists
3. Authoral performings arts creation

Taanteatro seeks to develop the actors and dancers’ communicative capacities towards a specific methodology which will enable new procedures and parameters for generating, staging and analyzing a performance.

It is based upon the idea that the quality and efficiency of the performer’s potential are related to his/her capacity of operating tensions: intra-tensions (internal landscape of the body), inter-tensions (between bodies of all kind) and infra-tensions (socio-political and cultural).

This capacity is furthermore based on the knowledge of
a) tipologies of tensions: corporal, syntatctic, semantic, intermodal and pragmatic tensions.
b) strategys of tensions: conflict, indetermination, retardation, metapjor,alternation, variations, multplication and assimetry.

taanteatro concepts: tension, will to tension, inbetween, pentamusculature, ecorporality, eternal originating, metachoreography, schizopresence.
taanteatro creative processes: [de]construction of performance based on [trans]personal mythology, rite of passage.
taanteatro trainings: mandala of body energy, tonatus, wandering, corporal calligraphy, sound alphabet.

The taanteatro research, awarded by the Vitae Fellowships of Art and Culture, has achieved academical recognition through Maura Baiocchi’s master degree “Body and Communication in Process: The Principle Tension In The Taanteatro Experience” (2006, PUC University, São Paulo).

Taanteatro is being disseminated through workshops, lectures, long-term workshops (NuTAAN) and publications such as Taanteatro: Teatro Coreográfico de Tensões  (Taanteatro – Choreographic Theater of Tensions) published by Azougue Editorial, Rio de Janeiro, 2007. 

It has been presented through extensive courses at Brazilian and international universities:
University of São Paulo, University of Brasilia, Federal University of Minas Gerais, University of Goias, Federal University of Alagoas, National University of Córdoba, University of Buenos Aires, amongst others.

The application of Taanteatro’s dynamic transcends the company’s activities.  Since 1994 it has been applied in actors’ trainings for TV movies, other theater, dance and music companies.  A few examples:

-Municipal Company of Dance and Chant of Matola, Mozambique – Performers’ training
-Os Sertões a Play by Teatro Oficina Directed by José Celso Martinez
-A Woman Dressed in Sun Movie for TV Directed by Luis Fernando Carvalho/TV Globo