La danza del cielo y la tierra
By: Henrique Coser Moreira
Publisher: Ediciones SM, Madrid, 2025
Format: Hardback
.webp)
A guide to our time from ancestral wisdom
Every year at Bologna Children´s book fair, the winning artist under 35 of the Illustrators Exhibition is provided a grant to develop a picture book. The finished book is published by the Spanish publisher SM. In 2024, the winning artist was illustrator and graphic designer Henrique Moreira from Brazil. Moreira has a special interest in silent books, thus the result of the grant was this amazing book, "La danza del cielo y la tierra", published in 2025.
The title translates to "The dance of heaven and earth". The book is inspired by a ritual dance from the Brazilian indigenous Krenak etnicity, called "suspending the sky". The purpose of the dance is to restore harmony between nature and humans.
Moreira has used the inspiration to create a book that is relevant for everyone on Earth, regardless of which country or culture you consider your own. The world in "La danza del cielo y la tierra" is filled with alienated and isolated people, prisoners of pollution and consumerism. This kind of environmentalism is not a new motif for silent books, but Moreira reinvents it with his outstanding illustrations and storytelling abilities.
Moreira uses what Scott McCloud calls "amplification through simplification": he abstracts the images through cartooning and by doing that he amplifies specific meanings. The cartoon imagery also makes the content feel more universal. The people described, all trapped in their little box, could be anyone, anywhere. True to the cartoon-style, most spreads consists of different sized panels. The panels are framed with a broad white frame, creating a feeling of distance to the action. This makes the spreads where Moreira uses full bleeds feel even more powerful - as readers we are suddenly in the middle of what is happening. The spreads with full bleeds are all uplifting, showing pictures that renders the reader hopeful and optimistic. His use of pictograms is brilliant, and they add both interest and meaning to the story.
The dramatic highlight of the book is when one human, trapped in his little cube, seeks advice with a God-like being. We learn that nature is the answer. Using love and nature, the people in the book break out of the boxes, regain vitality and experience joie de vivre. The community, that started out as a collection of lonely and isolated individuals, is now happy, including and diverse.
The front- and endpapers offer an excellent summary of the story. The frontpapers show us angry, sad and scared humans trapped in little boxes. The endpapers are filled with colorful fireworks, a celebration of humanity and companionship.
The world today is a scary place to grow up. Moreira´s book offers necessary optimism and hope for both young and adult readers. This book will work beautifully with almost all age groups as it can be read with different levels of complexity. As all great silent books it can be read again and again, the reader will discover new details and nuances with each re-reading.
