IF I CAN’T DANCE, I DON’T WANT TO BE PART OF YOUR REVOLUTION

FILM Bete & Deise Wendelien van Oldenborgh 27 January 2012 WORM, International Film Festival Rotterdam Tickets: EUR 11,- Reservations: 20 January, 8pm via websiteInternational Film Festival Rotterdam. 8pm: Screening Câncer (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: Concert Deise Tigrona, with DJs Baba Electronica & DJ Lonely, and DJ’s Marfox and Nervoso 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 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 programme also includes a Baile funk concert by Deise Tigrona, one of the protagonists in the new film, accompanied by Baba Electronica & DJ Lonely, and DJs Marfox and Nervoso. A screening of the film Câncer by Glauber Rocha opens the evening, with an introduction by van Oldenborgh.

Van Oldenborgh’s new film Bete & Deisestages 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 is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution, and is financially supported by the Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture and Wilfried Lentz Gallery, Rotterdam. With thanks to Capacete Entretenimentos, Rio de Janeiro, and WORMRotterdam. 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.