A MAN SCREAMING IS NOT A DANCING BEAR, 2008
- Super 16mm film transferred to blue-ray disc, sound, 11:55 min.

In the video work A Man Screaming Is Not a Dancing Bear, artists Allora & Calzadilla cut abruptly between gently flowing images of a lush river landscape, a dilapidated interior in an abandoned house and footage of a young man who, standing outside the window of the
house, drums rhythmically on the slats of a Venetian blind.

The footage was recorded last year in New Orleans and the Mississippi delta, where the hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc in 2005. It points to an almost impossible poetry in an everyday scene situated within a ruined, deserted house. As many other social housing projects in the area, this house hasn´t been renovated and is left wrecked with all the damaging signs of the flood. Like in other works by Allora & Calzadilla, the audio consists of an alternative musical performance, referring to both music and the unconventional use of existing objects, as a means to social survival.

In their films Allora & Calzadilla take as point of departure situations that in various ways refer to political and cultural realities. They have a keen eye for how seemingly little everyday occurrences can function as images or metaphors of overall global contexts.
Through these situations the artists try to open up to ways of rethinking our world order and our relations with each other.

The American/Cuban artist duo, Allora & Calzadilla, has collaborated since 1995, living and working in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Their work deals with the intersection between anthropology and art with a particular focus on how the underlying construct of power in the globalised world affects social and geological conditions. 

Through a critical lens, Allora & Calzadilla investigate the influence and aftereffects of political, social and cultural measures in places like Iran, Berlin, New Orleans and Puerto Rico. Despite the often documentary approach, Allora & Calzadilla generate hybrid works of art – mixtures of sculpture, performance, photography, audio and video – resulting in aesthetic and poetic “images” of the complex issues they deal with. 

Their work should not be viewed as expressions of anti-globalist attitudes, but rather as attempts to create new ways of confronting, reacting and dealing in a globalised world. 

Allora holds a BA from the University of Richmond, Virginia and a MA from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Calzadilla holds a BFA (Bachelor of Fine Arts) from Escuele de Artes Plásticas i San Juan, Puerto Rico and from Bard College, New York. Most recently they exhibited at Kunsthalle Zurich in 2007, Dallas Museum of Art in 2006, and SMAK Stedelijik Museum voor Actuele Kunst in 2006. Additionally, they were nominated for the Guggenheim Hugo Boss Award and received a DAAD fellowship for 2008.