His relationship with airplanes has been an uneasy one of admiration and fear. Skyscrapers, on the other hand, have always been a source of fascination especially after living in New York City for seven years. In particular, the observation deck on the 110th floor of the World Trade Center was his favorite place in New York to visit. But with family and friends living in both Washington and New York it goes without saying that September 11th came as a more than just a shock to Seabra.
Everything he held as glamorous, romantic and even futuristic was now synonymous with terror and vulnerability. After premiering Airplanes & Skyscrapers in Mechelen on September 11th 2002, he brings the performance to Amsterdam in which he reads, tells stories, shows and manipulates images of airplanes and skyscrapers with his own hands live on stage. He recontextualizes the many images and memories he has of airplanes and skyscrapers through a mixture of live-action animation, music and storytelling. Airplanes & Skyscrapers is a journey through stories of disappointment and hope; stories that run deeper than an attack on a symbol of financial might, deeper than patriotic tales in red white and blue.
Ricky describes himself as:
Artist of Amazonian & Portuguese extraction, sligtly ruined on some level by the same fascist elementary school that Pat Buchanan attended. Astronaut wannabe, land and sand artist, concept designer and plastic architect, perfomer and frustrated dancer (though I do dance a mean salsa). Two lives ago I was a pearl diver from the Island of Tortolla and last life I was a Soviet bureaucrat. See also: www.rickyseabra.com
The performance starts at 9.00 pm.