paulo caldas
Deriva 72 brings together dancer Carolina Wiehoff and choreographer Paulo Caldas in a solo performance created by Wiehoff from references drawn from one of Samuel Beckett's short dramatic works, Not I, which premiered in 1972 and was adapted for television by the BBC in 1976. The work—whose full title would be Deriva from Samuel Beckett's Not I (1972)—is not concerned with staging Beckett's original text. Rather, it unfolds from it, exploring bodily and scenic states. It is not a production of Not I.
Like several figures that inhabit Beckett's work, the performer's body is one of limited mobility. At the age of 55, with 47 years devoted to dance, advanced osteoarthritis, a metal plate in one wrist, and prosthetic implants in both hips, she embodies a body that seeks other ways of moving.
With this choreographic work, our intention is to recover, through the moving body, what Samuel Beckett himself declared to be his wish for Not I: that it should appeal "less to the understanding than to the nerves of the audience."
Our work therefore aligns itself with recurring concerns in Beckett's dramaturgy, whose writing is marked by the paradox between an often relentless, almost compulsive use of language and the inability of language itself to express. Beckett's well-known statement encapsulates this tension: "The expression that there is nothing to express, nothing with which to express, nothing from which to express, no power to express, no desire to express, together with the obligation to express."
Created in the borderland between theatre and dance, Deriva 72 proposes an investigation that draws on Not I, borrowing elements central to Beckett's dramaturgy that we understand as fundamentally choreographic: intensities, rhythms, musicalities, spatialities, and corporealities shaped through principles of fragmentation, distortion, and restraint.
Deriva 72 is an encounter between body and time. It bears witness to a dancer who moves with the marks of a lifetime rather than against them. Every gesture carries both the memory of a long artistic career and the freshness of reinvention. Carolina Wiehoff dances as one who moves through scars—both metallic and human—while Paulo Caldas shapes the dramaturgy through lines of restraint, fracture, and repetition. If Beckett taught us that language itself can exist in fragments, here it is the body that opens into splinters and new beginnings.
Deriva 72 is about persistence—in art, in performance, and in life.
This creation also marks an important milestone for the two artists. It is the first work they have created since settling in Fortaleza, Ceará, where both the dancer and the choreographer have lived since 2011. In many ways, it represents a return to collaborative creation.
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Trained in Contemporary Dance at the Angel Vianna School and in Philosophy at the Rio de Janeiro State University (UERJ), Paulo Caldas holds an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Education from the Federal University of Ceará (UFC), as well as a postdoctoral degree in Arts from the Fluminense Federal University (UFF). His artistic career has been distinguished by the dialogue between dance and film/video.
Paulo Caldas began working as a choreographer in Rio de Janeiro in the 1990s. During that period, he received First Prize at the Showcase for New Choreographers (1995), Second Prize at the Wettbewerb für Choreographen Hannover (Germany, 1996), and a nomination for the Mambembe Award (Funarte/Ministry of Culture). In 1998, he received the RioDança Award for Best Choreographer, and his work LightMotiv was selected by O Globo newspaper as one of the ten best performances of the year.
From 1993 to 2014, he was the founder, artistic director, and choreographer of Staccato, a contemporary dance company supported by institutions including the Municipality of Rio de Janeiro, SESC Rio, and Petrobras. Under his direction, the company established a nationally and internationally recognized body of work. Productions such as PalimpsestoS and the Coreografismos series received critical acclaim, earning awards and recognition in leading Brazilian newspapers including O Globo, Jornal do Brasil, Folha de S.Paulo, and O Estado de S. Paulo. In 2001, he was invited to participate in the International Choreographers Residency at the American Dance Festival (USA). That same year, he was named an Outstanding Young Choreographer in the Critics' Survey published by the German magazine Ballet International/Tanz Aktuell. In 2002, Staccato was invited as invité d'honneur (guest of honor) to the Biennale de la Danse de Lyon with PalimpsestoS.
His artistic output encompasses stage works, installations, and dance films, presented throughout Brazil and internationally in Germany, Argentina, Colombia, France, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Portugal, and the United States. Alongside his creative practice, he has maintained an extensive teaching career, leading workshops across Brazil and serving as a guest teacher for companies including Lia Rodrigues Companhia de Danças, Deborah Colker Dance Company, Primeiro Ato, and Quasar Cia de Dança.
Since 2003, Paulo Caldas has been the founder and artistic director of dança em foco – International Dance & Video Festival, the first Brazilian festival devoted exclusively to the intersection of dance and the moving image. Until 2011, he also taught in the undergraduate Dance programs at UniverCidade and Faculdade Angel Vianna (FAV), where he coordinated the postgraduate program Aesthetics of Movement: Studies in Dance, Dance Film, and Multimedia. He is the author of numerous essays published in academic journals and the editor of pioneering Brazilian books on dance film, as well as co-editor, with Ernesto Gadelha, of the volume Dance and Dramaturgy[s] (2016).
In 2013, he served as co-director of the Ateliê Internacional de Dança (International Dance Atelier), held in Fortaleza. Between 2015 and 2016, he coordinated the Dance Program at Porto Iracema das Artes – School of Training and Artistic Creation (Instituto Dragão do Mar / Secretariat of Culture of Ceará), where he established the Dance Creation Laboratory.
Since 2011, he has been a Professor in the Bachelor's and Teacher Education programs in Dance at the Federal University of Ceará (UFC). Since 2012, he has coordinated docdança, a physical and digital archive dedicated to dance documentation, and has served as co-coordinator of Midiadança, a research and artistic creation project in dance and media. In 2025, he received the First Porto Iracema das Artes Award in recognition of his contributions to the field.
Carolina Wiehoff began her professional dance career in 1988 with Companhia de Dança Fim de Século, under the direction of choreographer Renato Vieira. In 1996, she joined the Companhia de Dança Deborah Colker, where she remained until 2003, participating in the creation and international touring of works such as Mix, Rota, Casa, and 4 por 4. In 1997, she was nominated for the RioDança Award for Best Dancer for her performance in Casa. She also served as Deborah Colker's rehearsal assistant for the remounting of Casa at the Komische Oper Berlin.
In 2005, she was a guest performer with João Saldanha's Atelier de Coreografia in the production Soma. From 2004 to 2009, she taught in the undergraduate Dance Program at UniverCidade in Rio de Janeiro and at the Deborah Colker Movement Center. She holds a postgraduate degree in Advanced Studies in Contemporary Dance: Choreography and Research from UniverCidade.
Since 2004, when she joined Staccato, the company directed by Paulo Caldas, she has worked closely with him as a performer, researcher, and choreographic assistant on numerous artistic projects. She also conducted movement research for Rosa Primo's productions Iracema and Tudo Passa sobre a Terra (Ceará).
Wiehoff regularly teaches workshops and independent dance courses. She also served as coordinator of the Technical Dance Program at Porto Iracema das Artes (2020–2021).
Technical Requirements
Performance area: 6 m × 8 m (preferred);
Grid height (lighting bars): 4 m minimum (required to provide sufficient throw distance for the overhead video projection onto the stage);
Stage flooring and masking: black dance floor (marley or black linoleum), black legs, and black backdrop (cyclorama or black drape);
Lighting (distributed over 4 or 5 lighting bars):
8 Ellipsoidal Reflector Spotlights (ERS/Leko) with shutters and iris;
8 Fresnel spotlights with barndoors;
Load-in / Set-up time: 6 hours;
Strike / Load-out time: 1 hour.
Equipment provided by the company (transport at no additional cost:
Video projector;
Black fabric for scenic use;
Touring party: 3 people.