by MELANIE KLIMCHUK

João Fiadeiro was 10 years old when, in 1974, his country went from being a fascist state to a state of confusion, almost from one day to the next. Portugal's old guard had decided it was time to move on to other things. Fascism was over and Catholicism was crumbling. Portugal discarded one form of government after another--15 in 10 years--trying to decide who they wanted to see when they looked in the mirror.

It's no wonder, then, that this artist is obsessed with self-portraits. Saying, "Who am I?" is the national pastime. João Fiadeiro, part of a retinue of featured Spanish and Portuguese explorers, is here for the Festival international de nouvelle danse (FIND), running from September 30 to October 11. Portugal and Spain have both exploded creatively over the past dozen years, as the first generation of artists since fascism faded came of age. Most of the featured performers' works will make their North American debuts at FIND.

For Fiadeiro, the memory of fascism forms a curious hole, an amnesiac episode in the memory of his people, a kind of cultural cryogenic storage. Fiadeiro recognizes in himself and in his colleagues a sense of urgency, of defensiveness, of survival, that others don't have because, as he puts it, "they have a past." As he sees it, the work of his generation is not just to find the best way to live in the present, but to create a new set of traditions as well.

To this end, in 1990 he started the companhia RE.AL (ALternative REsponse Company). Twice a year, the Lisbon-based arts lab runs works-in-progress workshops, which alternate snippets of experimental pieces with public debate, subsidized by Portugal's Secretary of State. To date, 240 international performers have participated, adding their own versions of dance, theatre, music, plastic arts, circus, poetry, cinema, video and performance art to Portugal's cultural mix. RE.AL has responded by bringing its new productions to 20,000 people in France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Sweden and Brazil.

Fiadeiro's goal is to remind himself and his audience of the power to choose. "I hope my generation will be strong enough to create our memories, our identity," he explains. "The same people who allowed fascism to exist with their passivity are still there, passively soaking up any prepackaged fast-food culture, thinking they are well-informed because now, as the new rich, they can sit and watch TV all day." For him, it's almost a fight to retain consciousness.

Fiadeiro's own "geneological tree" is clear. He describes how he has culled branches from France and from Belgium, from the U.S. in the '60s. Fiadeiro's style is most easily described as multimedia performance art. He is not afraid of technology. He is cerebral rather than emotional, a philosopher more than a shaman.

Curiously, he doesn't seem to recognize how his country's historical "blip" formed him artistically in reaction. He sees the element of time, for example, in all stage work as "dictatorial." He dreams of an audience that feels free to come and go as it chooses, as one would if reading a book. They could create, he reasons, the event that suits them. In the North American premiere of Is the Self a Portrait? at the Musée d'art contemporain October 2 and 3, he wants people to feel that he, the performer, is a constant, that he will be there before and after they come and go, whether they are watching or not.

He rejects pat answers or performances, refuses absolute control. His solos don't consist of set, polished pieces but rather are what he calls "structured improvisations," leaving room for his reading of the space, the audience and his own need to question absolutely everything, to expose for himself that which he doesn't already know. He describes Is the Self a Portrait? as an exploration of how language is used not to communicate but to camouflage, to deflect too deep investigation of our deficits.

In contrast, his second solo, self(ish)-portrait, doesn't give the audience time to breathe. It is sharp and short, with many changes of rhythm. In it, Fiadeiro turns his back on the audience in a self-absorbed examination of himself. His attempts to know himself--to communicate that knowledge with us--are met with frustration. It is like watching a striptease that is all tease--we desperately want him to expose himself, but are left in a kind of "blue brains" condition, irritated and aroused.

Vera Mantero is another rising star of Portuguese new dance, but her style is entirely different. In Perhaps she could dance first and think afterwards, Mantero seems almost unconscious of herself, as if it is her spirit that propels her around the stage, dragging her limp, fluid body along in its wake. In complete contrast to Fiadeiro, she drops her ego entirely, but like Fiadeiro, her work is an "improvised solo" on a similarly theatrical set. It was this piece, a response to her own creative block and a nagging producer, that first brought her to prominence on the international stage.

With her company, Mantero will also be performing La Chute d'un égo in its North American premiere. The work was last year's prize winner at the Rencontre de Bagnolet.

Clara Andermatt's answer to the question of identity seems to be to strip away all the masks of civilized "normal" behaviour until the most naked, raw, primitive level of our being emerges. Her dancers seem as fragile, open and startled as children, as pathetic and wounded as the irretrievably crazy, along with the startling emotional range and speed of change of both. She and Mantero include the face in their definition of the dancer's body, using an unexpected range of human expressions and muscles and noises, including the kiss, in jarring contrast to the usual blank, invisible semi-detached face of dance. Andermatt, too, will be presenting a North American premiere, Poemas de Amor, along with the raw and riveting Cio Azul. Her cast of characters, whether they be lost, mad, half-witted souls or simpletons and clowns, are like nothing I've ever seen before.

In another North American premiere, soloist Monica Valenciano, "the queen of the Madrid underground," runs off on innumerable tangents. She carries out her slow, self-absorbed or full-speed-ahead explorations with all of the gravity and earnestness that children bring to their play. Valenciano accentuates her childlike, almost dwarfish stature with baggy, oversized clothes. Her bare feet and the bare stage make everything informal, as if this were a last-minute dinner she cooked up for a few friends. Suddenly, in the midst of one of her now tenuous, now feverish wanderings, she stops, drops her act and turns to stare at the audience as if to say: "What are you doing here? Why are you watching me? What? You want more?" Her smile is elfin, mischievous. She refuses to take the convention of performance seriously, in which the audience is the voyeur hidden behind one-way glass, observing unobserved. Then she gives in, her stocky body and fluttering hands moving with astonishing speed through a mock flamenco. We feel indulged and want more.

Also from Spain, but in the opposite vein, is Vincente Saez's company. He claims it's pure theatre, a trance-inducing public ritual in honour of the mother goddess. But Regina Mater looks and sounds pretty Catholic to me, almost as if the Christian conquest of all available artifacts were running in reverse.

Flamenco is hardly new dance. Still, as with any truly living tradition, it is being constantly updated, and Christina Hoyos is one of the best-known and respected interpreters of her art. Its origins disappear well past the horizon line of history. Perhaps it is history. Whenever I watch it, I swear at some point I can see the dancer's face contort, in bliss or pain or surprise, and her body shiver and change, almost as if she were being ridden by a Loa. And to the flamenco dancers I've met, it does seem to become almost a wordless, doctrineless religion, an inexplicably addictive, consuming passion. Its power is astonishing. Ballet Cristina Hoyos is a big production, bringing eight dancers, three singers and three musicians to the stage and boasting a technical staff of 30 people. She'll be performing at Place des Arts, naturally, October 10 and 11. You can see more Flamenco on Film at the Cinémathèque québécoise, running in tandem with the festival's theme, from September 24 to 28.

For ticket prices and venue information call FIND's infodanse line at 521-1212 or pick up the festival's brochure available throughout the city