LET SLEEPING DOGS LIE

 📷 ©Vèrtex @Manuel G. Vicente

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie is a performance that wanders between memory and premonition — a contemporary dance solo exploring (in)communication and the emotional scars that human beings inevitably accumulate over time. An inventory of reflections on the human condition and its intricate relationship with the forces that govern our existence. This search for meaning is presented through an intimate and distinctly feminine lens.

On stage, a fragmented narrative unfolds, transforming the scene into a scenographic installation. Through staged action, universal themes—love, pain, hope, the urge to explore the world, and the need to share experiences— are addressed. Gradually, the performer and creator immerse us in a magical play of subtle humor, transporting the audience into a galaxy of personal reflection that remains deeply accessible.

This scenic proposal is a warm invitation to walk together through a personal gaze that nevertheless awakens tingles in the collective imagination.

55 minutes of celebration, marking 29 years on stage.

Created and performed by Laura Aris
Original Music by Roger Marín
Dramaturgical support: Muriel Hérault
Light Designer by Alban Rouge
Costumes advised and transformation by Amber De Sagaer
Light technician on Latino American tour: Gerson Guerra
Residences at La Caldera (Barcelona), Destelheiden Art Center (Belgium), Studio Belgica and Ultima Vez asbl (Brussels).
Thanks to Jos Baker, Karen Joosten and Luciana Carlevaro.

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie is a co-production of Sismògraf Dance Festival (Catalonia), Theater Roxy (Basel, Switzerland), and Laura Aris Projects, with the support of The Swedish Arts Grants Committee.

THE PRESS SAID

‘At the end, the audience was on their feet applauding in ovation, and I, who am not at all easy to cry, wept with an emotion that is difficult to contain and explain. (…) Laura Aris Álvarez's “Let Sleeping Dogs Lie” is a before and after! I think that, once again, I've gone back to being twenty years old and that this experience has made me “click” and has become part of my DNA’.

Alfonso Becerra, Artezblai, 13-05-2024.

“She has transfigured the material made of memory and sensations into dramaturgy, a big word that contains more than one. So we see that there is a dramaturgy of the object, of the costume, of the body, which, by the way, plays the primordial role because it is a body that carries within itself a technique that, over time, has metamorphosed into experience, into humanity, into art.”

Genoveva Mora Toral, El Apuntador, 19-12-2019.

"Aris dresses—and undresses—her work with elements that appear and disappear, apparently from nothingness, giving a twist to a fairly abstract plot that reveals intimate pain and hope."

Jordi Bordes, El Punt Avui, 2017.

“The piece is sustained by the expressive strength of Aris and the good ideas it hides.”

Oriol Puig Taulé, Núvol, the digital culture magazine, 2017.

OPEN WOUND

A Micro-Action by Laura Aris

Open Wound is part of a series of solo micro-action works created by Laura Arís during her 2013/14 artist residency at the HKAPA-Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.

Make the invisible visible.
From the inside of a closed room, hidden from within
from the ugly,
the most intimate,
from the unspoken, the unshown.
From what you may not want, even had a name.

A possibility to inhabit what I am and, from there, become something new.

“The blood jet is poetry, and there is no stopping it.”

Sylvia Plath 

The Press said

“Open Wound, a performance that goes beyond what the audience reads as a dance piece, it was something like unfolding a body language sustained by dance but at the same time nourished by powerful theatricality.”

El Apuntador, Revista de Artes Escénicas (Quito, Ecuador, Abril 2015).

“A glossy highlight is being set in the open air courtyard by dancer Laura Aris, who bewitches in her Open Wound with the infatuating and unsettling grace of a praying mantis."

Martin Vögele, Manheimer Morgen, Germany (2015)

Open Wound

Created and performed by Laura Aris
Music: Banda Ionica, Samir Kadribašić

A-PART

A SOLO RESEARCH PROJECT

©Ka Lam

A-PART was a prolonged research project that evolved slowly in different places and times. It represented a process of losing and finding myself.   

It was part of a series of artistic works under the framework of Anatomy of Broken Things, created during my residency at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (HKAPA). 

A-PART was presented in 2013 at various alternative spaces in Hong Kong and the Deltebre Dansa festival in Spain, always under the level of "creative process.’ It never became a conventional show, but it was a breeding ground for other projects.  

During that long wondering, the following performances were made: The Anatomy of Broken Things - Chapter 1, a group piece; Cualquier Mañana, a collaboration with Álvaro Esteban; Open Wound, a solo micro-action for unusual spaces; and Let Sleeping Dogs Lie, a solo performance.

"The project began with the luxury of solitude and access to spaces where creation and play could unfold freely—no deadlines, no defined objectives, just time to explore. It was an artistic indulgence, with the inherent risk of wandering without ever arriving. A-PART remains undefined, and perhaps it will never be, which is a notion I embrace. This openness brings a sense of freedom, inviting movement and sparking imagination. Ideas, materials, costumes, and images emerge intuitively, without a pre-conceived concept, yet with a mysterious clarity and urgency from the subconscious—a deep need to turn inward, to release, express, scream, and make the invisible visible.

Desire, identity, vulnerability, loneliness, the societal constructs of romantic love and heartbreak, and the balance of yin and yang are all themes explored in A-PART—a piece that is both part of a whole and apart from everything."

I've never been anywhere near him. The important thing is the desire.

That which is visible only inside your eyelids and does not withstand the daylight.

Clumsy words that do not even come close to what I mean.

Come, pass, choose…Choose who you want. Me, me or me?

I can take any shape.

Laura Aris

A-PART
Created and performed by Laura Aris
Live music by Edmund Leung
Recorded guitar by Roger Marín
Costume advice and confection by Sara Olivier, Laura Aris

A-PART: Un proyecto de investigación

A-PART fue un trabajo de investigación de larga duración, que se gestó a pasitos pequeños, en lugares y tiempos distintos. Significó un perder(se) y encontrar(se). 

A-PART formó parte de una serie de trabajos artísticos enmarcados bajo el título: "Anatomía de las cosas rotas", creados durante mi estancia en Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (HKAPA) como artista en residencia.

A-PART fue presentado, durante el año 2013, en varios espacios alternativos de la ciudad de Hong Kong y en el festival Deltebre Dansa, siempre 'en proceso creativo'. Nunca llegó a convertirse en un espectáculo convencional, pero fue caldo de cultivo para  otros proyectos.

Bajo el mismo marco de trabajo se crearon: The Anatomy Of Broken Things- Chapter 1,una pieza grupal; Cualquier Mañana,una colaboración con Álvaro Esteban; Open Wound, un solo micro-acción para espacios inusuales; y Let Sleeping Dogs Lie, un solo escénico.

"El proyecto comenzó con el lujo de la soledad y el acceso a espacios donde la creación y el juego podían desarrollarse libremente: sin plazos, sin objetivos definidos, solo tiempo para explorar. Fue una indulgencia artística, con el riesgo inherente de perderse sin llegar a ningún lugar. A-PART sigue sin definirse, y tal vez nunca lo haga, una idea que me resulta reconfortante. Esta apertura genera una sensación de libertad, invita al movimiento y despierta la imaginación. Las ideas, materiales, vestuarios e imágenes surgen de manera intuitiva, sin un concepto predefinido, pero con una claridad misteriosa y una urgencia desde el subconsciente—una profunda necesidad de mirar hacia adentro, de liberar, gritar, …de hacer visible lo invisible.

El deseo, la identidad, la vulnerabilidad, la soledad, las construcciones sociales del amor romántico y el desamor, y el equilibrio del yin y el yang son temas que se exploran en A-PART, una obra que es a la vez parte de un todo y aparte de todo."

Nunca he estado cerca de él.
Lo importante es el deseo.
Aquello que sólo es visible en el interior de tus párpados
y que no soporta la luz del día.
Palabras torpes que ni siquiera se acercan a lo que quiero decir.
Ven, pasa, elige. ¿elige a quien quieres?
¿A mi, a mi o a mi?
Soy capaz de tomar cualquier forma.

Laura Aris