Jean Abreu @ C Venues

After the intense masculinity of INSIDE, Jean Abreu takes a change of tack at this year’s Fringe with Parallel Memories, a collaboration with Jorge Garcia, another Brazilian choreographer and dancer.

“Jorge Garcia and I met briefly in Sao Paulo during my research for INSIDE and discovered we had many mutual interests so the collaboration really started then.”

Delicate, minimalist and physically intense, Parallel Memories is very much a personal exploration for both Abreu and Garcia, “it soon became apparent that the piece needed a high degree of sensitivity," Abreu continues.

“The duet has born from our desires to look at our trajectories and make sense of our past, present, and maybe our futures, the journeys we have taken as human beings and artists”

For Abreu, creating his individual movement style draws on a wide variety of influences and experiences. “There’s a friction of different influences that excites me.”

There is a degree of continuity between Abreu’s work and elements of ballet choreography. On this parallel between ballet and his own work Abreu said, “Both are about storytelling and I’m also a big fan of technically demanding movement… I respect the tradition and admire it strongly; I just don’t feel the need to follow a model.”

This project is very special to Abreu and has been in his mind’s eye for a long time. He is willing to reveal the personal nature of its creation and the close development with Jorge Garcia but remains coy: “The rest is a surprise so you’ll have to come and see us perform Parallel Memories!”