It was in Bacantes – Prelúdio para uma purga (2017) that choreographer Marlene Monteiro Freitas began to manipulate music stands. In the installation Cattivo, with André Calado, Andreas Merk, Miguel Figueira, Tiago Cerqueira and Yannick Fouassier, she gives them a leading role. They are pedestal objects, composed by several parts of varying dimensions and shapes, linked together through kneecaps, like puppets, which in turn, are made in the likeness of the animal or human skeleton. Music stands are folding bodies with the purpose of supporting the score of musicians who play or sing. Their form and function are apparently inseparable, except when Marlene gives them new meanings and uses, thereby extracting anthropomorphic qualities from them. In Cattivo, the stands are explored to the limit of their expressive properties, their ability to embody emotional states and make decisions, manipulating themselves and other objects, presenting themselves as a team in a symphonic community with different instruments, rhythms, melodic lines… As a stage, garden or dollhouse, the installation lies between the vegetable, the animal and the fantasy world. “Alone, in space, will these stands convince us of their performance (…) We have broken them, folded them, disarticulated them, hurt them and in turn they have bitten us, hurt us, betrayed us, resisted us. (…) They will surely say more, and more rightly, from their own lips than I could ever say or will say about this work. ”