EDUARDO FUKUSHIMA X NATASCHA ZACHEO = The crooked man isn’t propped up by his bends

Around The Crooked Man (O Homem Torto), by Eduardo Fukushima

The lights are on, then off and on again.

The Crooked Man isn’t propped up by his bends. He moves in straight and diagonal lines through a corridor that ends up molding his existence. In this place, the air isn’t enough to sustain his breathing. Maybe this is the reason why he’s coming to meet us.

Standing still. Left or right wall, depending on where he sits in his catwalk of contortions. He dismisses formalities and begins his trajectory, which had already started in his torso. He lets us see all of his changes, from the genesis of his speech at the beginning of the ‘out-of-focus’ parade to the final sweat drenching his body from the pores.

Pores in despair in a line that only occurs in plaits. Facing us or having his back turned, he displays his effort, and if by chance we concentrate on his feet – S.O.S.!

There’s a possibility this body is made of stems, there are no roots to help him walk on the straightness of the linoleum. His frail foot, the one that doesn’t offer a foundation, but bases all the choreography architecture – the Crooked Man only stands still, he’s small and unstable, even his little toes get off the ground.

If we look at his back for a few seconds, his base disappears in the scenery. Yes, it’s possible to imagine that this man vanishes on his own feet.

There are only two heels that tread the crooked verticality. There’s no straight angle offering a Newtonian vector for the body that resists the training foundations and that, from his very training, purges the space by frightening it with his vertigo gestures. Gestures that twist our retinas, irises, taste buds, harsh or soft tissues, bones that sustain our flesh before such wide spirals with dry cuts in its flows: he may tell us, “Yes, I can get to the infinite, but I choose to cut the flow and have my sweat drip all the way to your brow, your feet, your fingers”.

It’s hard to capture any of this man’s moments in photography. With his body, he digs the corridor he invites us into. He doesn’t stop his restructuring from self-destruction, muscle group by muscle group, every minute. Being and not being ceaselessly.

Darkness and light, and the crooked man in there, made of what we’ve just seen that doesn’t exist anymore. He goes back to the beginning.

Natascha has danced ever since her birth in her mother’s living room. At 17, she started to dance in the room of the Santo André Free Dance School. At 22, in the room of the Artes do Corpo. And, today, she dances in whatever room she’s invited to.

Translation Portuguese-English by Chris Ritchie: writer, poet, translator and partner of 7×7, in any room.

Image creation: Natascha Zacheo