New Book Alert: Dancing You/Dancar Te by Gisela Pereira; Book of Lyrical Poetry is as Lovely and Graceful as a Dancer

New Book Alert: Dancing You/Dancar Te by Gisela Pereira; Book of Lyrical Poetry is as Lovely and Graceful as a Dancer

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Gisela Pereira is the modern definition of a true Renaissance Woman. She is a woman of many talents, a writer, poet, producer, director, artist, and dance student. She reveals many of those talents in her beautiful and lyrical book of poetry, Dancing You/Dancar Te.

The book was originally published in Portuguese in 2000 and translated in 2017 and features poems in both English and Portuguese. In her intro, Pereira explains that the English translations are not literal translations. Instead they use simile, rhyme scheme, and symbolism that pertain to the two cultures so English and Portuguese Readers will understand and relate to them.

Either in English or Portuguese, Pereira's poems sound as lovely as a song and move as graceful as a dancer. She combines several of her interests in dancing, poetry, art, mythology, and legend to create these gorgeous works of literature and art. Her poem “Hermaphrodite” involves a mysterious fairy creature rejecting a lover after claiming to be a “creature of water and air” transcending nature and spirit as well, as the title implies, male and female. The speaker is beyond the lover's perception and therefore unable to be with the lover.

Another poem that reflects mythology and legend is “Mirror.” In this poem, the Speaker travels through a mirror ala Alice Through the Looking Glass and enters a vibrant almost hallucinatory world. In this world, dolls come to life, magic exists, and a strange hatted figures enchants the Speaker.

Many of the poems express some of the strongest emotions such as love, heartbreak, sadness, and intimacy. For example Pereira's poem, “Enigma” compares sexuality between two lovers like a dance where the two move in synchronization completing each other through movement.

Pereira writes:

“In a kiss’ mystic blaze
In our most intense gaze
Forgetting our body’s gravity
Dancing another reality
And flying in the earth's center
Where only few can enter.”

Besides the poems themselves, another highlight of the book are the gorgeous illustrations. The watercolor art reflects various fairies and other creatures in ways that are both passionate and innocent. They hearken back to the fairy illustrations from the late 19th and early 20th centuries which portray fairies as beautiful but at times intimidating. The poems and illustrations are perfect companions to each other creating an experience that is verbally and visually pleasant.

Dancing You/Dancar Te reflects beauty in myth, legend, dance, and art. Truly, Gisela Pereira displays her talents in ways the Reader won't soon forget.