Tickets: EUR 11,-
Reservations: via website International Film Festival Rotterdam – go to the programme schedule for Friday 27 January and select WORMyWOOD, 8 pm.

On Friday 27 January 2012, as part of the International Film Festival Rotterdam, If I Can’t Dance presents the world premiere of Wendelien van Oldenborgh’s film Bete & Deise at WORM in Rotterdam. The film is included in the IFFR short film programme ‘Spectrum: Shorts’. The premiere will be festively celebrated with an all-night programme inspired by the production of Bete & Deise and van Oldenborgh’s ongoing research into Brazilian cinema. Art historian and writer Eric de Bruyn has been invited to respond to the new film and to lead an after talk with Van Oldenborgh. The program me includes a concert by Baba Electronica & DJ Lonely, and DJs Marfox and Nervoso. A screening of the film Càncer by Glauber Rocha, with an introduction by van Oldenborgh, opens the evening.

Due to personal circumstances the previously announced concert with Deise Tigrona has been cancelled.

Programme:
8pm: Screening Càncer (Glauber Rocha, 1972, 86 min), introduced by Wendelien van Oldenborgh
10pm: Screening Bete & Deise (Wendelien van Oldenborgh, 2012, 40 min), followed by a response and after talk with Eric de Bruyn
11.30pm: DJs Baba Electronica & DJ Lonely, and DJs Marfox and Nervoso

On Saturday 28 and Sunday 29 January, van Oldenborghs film Supposing I love you. And you also love me is screened at Witte de With, Centre for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam. This film is a prologue to Bete & Deise and was co-commissioned by If I Can’t Dance.

Bete & Deise
In van Oldenborgh’s new film Bete & Deise, two women encounter each other in a building under construction in Rio de Janeiro. Bete Mendes and Deise Tigrona have – each in their own way – given meaning to the idea of a public voice.

Bete Mendes (1949) has continued to maintain a political career alongside her acting career in popular television since the 1960s. Mendes was involved in the armed resistance group of the student movement against the dictatorship, and was part of the labour movement in the 1970s, co-founding the working party Partido dos Trabalhadores at the close of the decade. Up until today she has fulfilled several public functions whilst at the same time remaining active as a telenovela actress, known for her appearances in Beto Rockfeller (1967); O Rebu (1974); O Rei do Gado (1996); Caras e Bocas (2009) and many others.

Deise Tigrona (1979) is one of the most powerful voices in the Funk Carioca movement today. Growing up and performing as a singer in the impoverished community of Cidade de Deus, she rose to great international popularity with her music in 2005. The public life that came with fame made it difficult to concentrate on family life, and led to the decision to take a step back from her music career and return to a job closer to home. She has recently started performing again.

Together these women talk about the use of their voice and their positions in the public sphere, allowing for the contradictions they each carry within themselves to surface. Through a montage that evocatively combines the voices of the women with their image, van Oldenborgh confronts us with considerations on the relation between cultural production and politics and the potential power that is generated when the public intersects with the personal.

Bete & Deise is the final work in a trilogy that includes Après La Reprise, la Prise (2009) and Pertinho de Alphaville (2010). All works have come from a research into current changes in labour conditions and the shift towards affective labour – in which elements of performance are increasingly incorporated – as well as changes in our understanding of the collective and the public voice and the role of cultural production in this. A prologue to the new work, Supposing I love you. And you also love me, was recently presented at the 54th Venice Biennale in the exhibition ‘Speech Matters’ of the Danish Pavilion, co-commissioned by If I Can’t Dance. As part of the research for Bete & Deise, van Oldenborgh curated the symposium Cinema – this, Television – that in collaboration with If I Can’t Dance, on 29 March 2011 as part of the Studium Generale programme of the Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam.

Wendelien van Oldenborgh
Wendelien van Oldenborgh is an artist based in Rotterdam whose practice explores social relations through an investigation of gesture in the public sphere. Van Oldenborgh has recently participated in the Venice Biennial 2011; the 4th Moscow Biennial 2011; the 29th S?o Paulo Biennial 2010; and the 11th Istanbul Biennial 2009. In the last years her work has been exhibited at the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Generali Foundation, Vienna; Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; M HKA Antwerp; A-Space Gallery, Toronto; Art Sheffield 2010; ICA, London; and the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen. For the academic year 2009/2010 she was guest professor for Kunst und Kommunikatieve Praxis in the Universität für Angewandte Kunst in Vienna and is currently lecturer on the Artistic Research master programme at the KABK in The Hague. Van Oldenborgh was recently awarded the Hendrik Chabot Prize for visual arts 2011 from the Prins Bernard Cultuurfonds.

Wendelien van Oldenborgh is one of the five artists commissioned by If I Can’t Dance to make a new work as part of Edition IV – Affect (2010-2012). The other artists are Jeremiah Day, Sung Hwan Kim, Hito Steyerl and Emily Wardill.

Bete & Deise
Van Oldenborgh’s new film Bete & Deise stages an encounter between two women in Rio de Janeiro: Bete Mendes and Deise Tigrona. These women have – each in their own way – given meaning to the idea of a public voice. Bete Mendes (1949) has continued to maintain a political career alongside her acting career in popular television since the 1960s. Deise Tigrona (1979) is a Baile funk singer who in recent years rose to great popularity. She was forced to take a step back when it became too burdensome to combine her music career with her tough family life in Cidade de Deus.

Together these women talk about their experience with performance and their position in the public sphere, allowing for the contradictions they each carry within themselves to surface. Bete & Deise is the final work in a trilogy of works by Van Oldenborgh that have each come from a research into current changes in labour conditions and our understanding of the collective and the public voice and the role of cultural production in this.

Bete & Deise was commissioned by If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution for Edition IV (2011-2012), and was financially supported by the Mondrian Fund and Wilfried Lentz Gallery, Rotterdam. With thanks to Capacete Entretenimentos, Rio de Janeiro.