Work combines dance and live music

11 May - 18 May 2025

---

 

In support of the show “Cat-Gut Jim”, which British choreographer and dancer Connor Scott will present on 16 and 17 May at the Centro Cultural de Belém (CCB), KEF Portugal is hosting Santiago Tricot, a member of the project team, as part of its Ateliê programme.

“Cat-Gut Jim” is defined by its creator as an ancestral drag work that combines dance and live music to invoke the invisible ties of his great-great-great-grandfather Edward Corvan (1830-1865), a street performer whose life and work were portrayed in the book Cat Gut Jim the Fiddler: Ned Corvan's Life and Songs, by Dave Harker, published in 2017. Cat-Gut Jim was Corvan's stage name.

Corvan wrote and sang songs of his own authorship in the Geordie dialect, spoken in Newcastle, Connor's hometown. His songs reflected the life of working-class communities, from which Connor is also descended.

“Through the excavation of musical archives of Corvan's work, the performance proposes a condensed meeting point between past, present and future in one real body and another invented one,” Connor underlines.

For this project, Connor has brought together Mayah Kaddish, Cormac Begley, Lambdog, as well as Santiago Tricot, who will work with the rest of the group from 11 to 18 May at Casa Mísia.

 

Connor Scott is a choreographer and dancer born in Newcastle, UK. His relationship with movement stems from studies in martial arts, breakdance and, mainly, Latin and ballroom dancing. His dance training expanded to ballet and modern techniques while studying at the Rambert School in London. Connor was the first to receive the BBC Young Dancer award in 2015 and, between 2017 and 2018, won awards at the CICC (Copenhagen International Choreography Competition) and the ICCH (Hanover International Choreography Competition) for his work 'Helium' with Solomon Allen and 'What Goes Up'. Connor has worked as a dancer for Thick&Tight (UK), Theo Clinkard (UK), Michael Keegan Dolan (IR), João Dos Santos Martins (PT) and Marcelo Evelin (BR). In response to ephemerality and immediacy, he began investigating how his dancing could provide more space for questions about body movement. His work encourages the recognition of what is often unrecognised and the amplification of that into the abstract and the absurd.

Santiago Tricot studied Visual and Plastic Arts at ENBA-Universidad de la Républica and Scenic Design at EMAD (UY). He holds a Master's in Scenic Practice and Visual Culture from the University of Castilla-La Mancha and the Reina Sofía Museum of Art (ES). He received the FEFCA-Fondo de Formação y Creación Artística scholarship from the Ministry of Culture of Uruguay. As an instrumentalist and composer, he is part of MUX, moving between analogue and electronic sounds and pop music. As a designer and artist, he collaborates on projects with Tamara Cubas (UY), Santiago Turenne (UY), Juan Domínguez Rojo (ES), Andrea Arobba (UY), Gustavo Ciríaco (BR), Florencia Martinelli (UY), Vera Garat (UY), Yann Marussich (SW), Leticia Skrycky (UY) and has participated in festivals and residencies in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Iran, Cape Verde, Chile, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. He is the director and technical coordinator of FIDCU-International Contemporary Dance Festival of Uruguay and collaborates with NIDO-International Living Arts Encounter (UY).