Beat

Group Acorde presents Beat: an evening of premiere works of contemporary dance and live music performances highlighting the work of composers Thomas Helton and Natasha Manley and choreographers Roberta Paixao Cortes and Lindsey McGill. This full evening production will feature two works: Batimento Cardiaco and Vessel (excerpt). Both works demonstrate Group Acorde’s ability to create art collaborations that display the company’s diverse artistry and artists.

Batimento Cardiaco is a new work by composer Thomas Helton in collaboration with contemporary choreography and visual art by Brazilian artist Andre Amaral. This work is a conversation between a sound score for several different instruments that will include improvisation, pulsating sounds and out of sync rhythms, contemporary dance choreography, and a set design made of recycled materials. The work will feature three more musicians from the local ensemble Relative Dissonance in a never-before-seen collaboration between Group Acorde and a local musical ensemble. Batimento Cardiaco is Portuguese for “heartbeat.” Studies have shown that experiences with natural disasters can affect one’s mental health and have an impact on one’s sleep and overall mood. Physically, traumatic experiences such as preparing for a hurricane to hit one’s city, going through it and the aftermath of it can cause heart palpitations to temporary or permanent heart damage. All experiences that Houstonians tend to be very familiar with. On the contrary, music and dance have been proven to normalize one’s heart rate as sound processing begins in the brainstem, which also controls the rate of one’s heartbeat and respiration. Movement increases cardiovascular endurance elevating awareness to an individual’s breathing. Vessel (excerpt) is the first time Natasha Manley collaborates with the company. Natasha is a soprano and this new work displays her vocal abilities as a classically trained musician that is exploring different sounds and their relationship to movement and dance. Beat offers a unique channel of information and awareness to traumatic experiences and its effects on one’s mental health with the heartbeat as the center and inspiration for both works.

Beat features performances by Roberta Paixao Cortes, Lindsey McGill, Thomas Helton, Natasha Manley and artists of Relative Dissonance. Set and digital design by Andre Amaral and lighting design by Tiffany Schrepferman.

This is Group Acorde’s fifth full evening production featuring all new collaborative works. Group Acorde is funded in part by the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance, Dance Source Houston’s GroundWork Grant program and California Community Foundation/Jane Greenberg. Group Acorde is sponsored in part by Houston Met Dance through their Dance Floor Space Grant.

Pictured artist: Lindsey McGill.
Graphic design and digital art by Andre Amaral.