PARAÍSO SEM CONSOLAÇÃO / PARADISE WITHOUT CONSOLATION – CHOREOGRAPHY: CONSTANZA MACRAS, SÃO PAULO 13 until 15 September 2008 / 19.30 h / HAU 1 A road sweeper from São Paulo is supposed to have said one day that the Avenida Paulista reminds him of love: it begins in paradise and ends in consolation. Indeed, this big avenue in the Brazilian mega-metropolis with its banks and businesses stretches from one district to the other. Their names are quite illustrious: “Paraíso” and “Consolação”. They served as an inspiration to Constanza Macras, an Argentinian choreographer from Berlin, for the title of her latest work that was elaborated in São Paulo with Brazilian dancers and musicians: “Paraíso sem Consolação”. Fragments of living and surviving in a metropolis, as well as patterns of behaviour and movement of the masses that are hungry for and that swallow individuality – all this adds to a big puzzle. It produces the image of a different, dreamt and yet real city, a parallel universe, where the inhabitants and their sparks of identity, remembrance, fantasy and eventualities thwart the stereotype of Moloch and megalopolis, finally giving it a new shape. Together with 12 Brazilian dancers and two musicians Constanza Macras has developed and elaborated this project in São Paulo. The result reflects the working process: the quest for what makes the individual so special, and the way the individual stands its ground against the city’s levelling down. A project by the Goethe Institute São Paulo and the Serviço Social do Comércio (SESC SP). Sponsored by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes. In co-operation with HAU. “Soaring São Paulo – Loving Lagos” are events by the Goethe Institute and HAU in the context of “Die Tropen – Ansichten aus der Mitte der Weltkugel” www.goethe.de/Tropenausstellung