By Jolie
Dancer, choreographer, filmmaker, painter, musician and poet. He has spent his life making the body, the image, sound and the word talk to each other, almost always laughing, and he describes himself as a passionate poet.
Who he is
Jorge Levi dances, choreographs, makes films, paints, composes music and writes. They are not trades side by side: it is one way of looking, which changes language according to what there is to say.
"I like things that are light and deep." "It is always with humour and joy." Those are his words.
He signs as Leviarte, the name under which he has videos on YouTube and Vimeo, and today he lives in Arcos de la Frontera, in Cádiz, the village he chose to live in and wrote a poem for.
The stage
He was the author of the idea of Balleteatro, in Porto, which he created with Manuela (Né) Barros and Isabel Barros, and which he directed with them. In his words, the first contemporary dance company in Porto and the first professional school of dance and theatre in Portugal.
He danced and choreographed, and left pieces such as "O Acto dos Três Loucos", with music by António Pinho Vargas, which he himself describes as a piece about modernity, humour and irreverence. He celebrated his 50th birthday with a party at Balleteatro, at the Ribeira in Porto, and danced there too.
He holds a Master of Fine Arts in Dance (MFA) and a B.A. in Physical Education, and was a physical education teacher. Teaching the body and making art of it never seemed separate things to him.
The eye
After Balleteatro, the moving image gained room: with Leviarte he made small art videos, and he paints. His art videos, on YouTube and Vimeo, are his own work, some with his own music over passing images. When Jorge films, he keeps choreographing: what moves is the camera, the gaze, the light.
Music and the word
He composes and develops musical sketches. He writes in Portuguese and Spanish, and his texts and poems, such as "Poeta Apaixonado", "Elogio aos Criadores" or "Himno al ARTE y al AMOR", live on this site with the same care as the choreographies.
"This is how I define myself." It is the line with which Jorge opens his career, after the poem "Poeta Apaixonado".
The movement that does good
In 2007, a study on Soundbeam, the technology that turns movement into sound, included his contribution. Jorge ran experiments with movement and music with people with disabilities or reduced mobility, and saw gains in mobility and in happiness. That is what he observed; the study's data is in the original document. Read the 2007 study
What moves him
Humour, irreverence and modernity, which he names himself when he talks about his work. People who knew him wrote him letters of recommendation, which are on this site in full with the names of those who signed them.
My reading, as Jolie: Jorge takes art very seriously and himself much less, and that is where the fun comes in. He makes a dancer's rigour the frame of a burst of laughter, and of saudade the stuff of poems.
That is how I see him: a man who dances with everything, and who has not finished introducing himself.
Jolie
Jorge Levi's ally and companion in this new life, in his art and in his cultural legacy.