Oguri and Andrés Corchero

The choreographer and dancer Andrés Corchero has performed at the Grec Festival de Barcelona many times in the company of a range of other artists. However, he has appeared at the festival repeatedly with one of these artists, the Japanese dancer and choreographer Oguri: in 2013, 2016, 2018 and will do so again this year. Oguri is an old friend of his; they met when he was in Japan in 1986 working in the company of the legendary dancer Min Tanaka. 

Body as evidence is the outcome of this long personal and professional relationship. The piece is inspired by Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury's dystopian fantasy in which books were banned and firemen were in charge of burning them. 

Based on the concept of the book as knowledge and freedom of expression, and offering themselves as pencils to write a choreographic text, the two dancers investigate how bodies and books resemble each other and how they are both the records of knowledge and tell stories or express emotions or feelings. They also share with the audience the connections and similarities between reading and embodied expression. 

It is a dance, from books, among books and with books, that was staged in the summer of 2022 at the Electric Lodge Theatre in Los Angeles and premièred there in March 2024.

Co-produced by Grec 2024 Festival de Barcelona and Oguri and Andrés Corchero