As Palavras means “the words” in Portuguese.
Company As Palavras has definitively found its place at the heart of the dance scene in Belgium and abroad. Finding his inspiration in literature, theatre, music and contemporary art, the choreographer Claudio Bernardo has created a strong body of work which sets itself apart by the echoes which his different creations cause to resonate between them. He has created a real cosmogony, which evokes the bitterness and violence of human relations, their presence in Paradise, which they helped to soil and to lose, and above all the symbolic charge present in our most banal posturing. With his capacity for a distanced analysis of the cultures that formed him, Claudio Bernardo makes visible a world between body and spirit, which by a mirroring effect, shows us to ourselves.
In 1995, after several years in residence at the Atelier Sainte Anne, it was at the Théâtre Les Tanneurs, in a momentum of recognition for the work of Claudio Bernardo by public institutions, the press, programmers and the audience, that the choreographer decided to institutionalize his creative approach by creating the company As Palavras.
Two years later the company benefitted from its first major structural subsidy and installed itself in Mons. From 1999 onward it invested in the space Machine à Eau. This residency was fundamental in awaking the sensibility for dance within the French community because it helped create links between Belgian and international partners and saw the promotion of a series of 20 performances and encouraged the work of 70 different artists. All the while they continued to deepen an exchange with various schools, universities and the public at large. A festival was also created: Le Mouvement-Mons.
In 1999, within the context of Le Mouvement-Mons Festival, the company launched a symposium centred on dance in Belgium, which provided a broader vision of the dance scene in both communities. The connection with Charleroi-Danses meant the continued exposure and diffusion of many remarkable works during the Biennale of Centre Chorégraphique de Région Francophone Charleroi-Danses and saw the creation of a European platform for exchange between various artists.
Brussels and Charleroi ceased to be the two principal poles within the French community as Mons entered the dance scene on an international level. La Machine à Eau became the point of departure and the anchor for numerous tours in Europe and Latin America.
Since October 2012 the company As Palavras has been in administrative and artistic residence at the Théâtre Varia, in Brussels.
In 2015 As Palavras has celebrated its 20 years of existence with a series of events symbolized in their origination by the solo Só20 and followed by a literary publication and exhibitions on the work of the company.
