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The dance
The dance
The revelations that took place in dancing and enjoying dance, allow for immensely profound extra-everyday experiences. These experiences, on the scene, occur in the interdependence of those who present and those who enjoy the work of art, in the personal experiences of the acting being as well as the spectator and in the set formed by the culture and historical moment in which these human beings are inserted.
As it could not be otherwise, the course of my life story is formed by many diverse experiences. In that first moment, I intend to stick to the one who provided me with the experience in dance.
My life in dance has always been one of construction, deconstruction and reconstruction. I started studying Classical Ballet at the age of 8 in a small town, with an ex-dancer from the Municipal Theater of Rio de Janeiro. It was through Classical Ballet that I got to know formal dance and later on I had some experiences with Modern and Cultural Dance with that same teacher.
At the age of 14, I felt a great need to take classes with other teachers and learn about other forms of scenic dance. I started a journey in the city of São Paulo on my school holidays and took courses at great dance schools of the time such as Ballet Stagium and Joyce Ballet. In this context, I got to know creative dance and identified myself with movements that did not match the technique of Classical Ballet, I also got to know Jazz Dance and I was enchanted by its possibilities of movement.
I started giving dance lessons to kindergarten children in a regular school at the age of 14, and started my career as a choreographer. At the age of 15, I was invited to teach jazz classes at a gym and continued to take courses in São Paulo. At 18 I took my first course in the United States at studios like Luigi’s Jazz Center and Broadway Dance Center. I saw many different body types dancing and many ways to dance jazz. I understood that Modern Dance, despite being the opposite of Classical Ballet in its essence, was shaped by individual and closed techniques like Ballet.
In this diverse range of dance experiments, I realized that I had a great ease in deconstructing imprints on my dancer body, with surrender and detachment. I observed the black bodies and the white bodies dancing jazz and I was surprised by the differences in movement performed by these bodies. My perception at that time was limited and I observed roots of different movements, but I did not know how to explain where these differences came from.
My journey continued between taking practical courses, giving practical classes and putting on dance shows. At the age of 30, I entered a dance college at the State University of Campinas with a body that danced jazz, but I had to deconstruct it again, since the essence of this course was Afro Brazilian dances and contemporary dance. In order to pass the audition for this graduation in dance, I took a short course to understand this new way of dancing that was extremely creative but required me to cast aside the body shape that was in fashion in the 80's.
I noticed that I needed a body open to new opportunities and requests for movement. A body willing and able to dance for other elements than just music, pre-stipulated steps and pre-assembled choreography. So I had to deconstruct my “Jazz” body in order to "fly" in other directions and launch myself into the unknown.
The experience and learning at this university were very rich and enlightening because in the first years I learned several techniques and theoretical studies of dance. I discovered roots of movement dormant in my body and it was through Brazilian dances of African origin that I finally understood the difference between movements in white bodies and movements in black bodies that I had observed in the United States years ago. The movements are directly related to religion, culture and all of its historical ramifications; the body dances from a sum of values and beliefs, and this goes further when there is a mixture of races that come together to form other bodies and, consequently, other types of movement.
During my university studies in dance I was part of the Interdisciplinary Group in Theater and Dance directed by Joana Lopes, an experimental group in Dance Theater that took us to two stages in contemporary dance. The first was “Corps, matière poétique”, the other was "Danse et interpretation" conducted by Mas de La Dance, in Fontvieille in France. I had the opportunity to learn the roots of Contemporary Dance with the masters Françoise Dupuy, Dominique Dupuy and Laurence Louppe. Experiencing the dance of the early twentieth century from its inception, I realized that dance bodies can experience Contemporary Dance regardless of their origin and produce very different movements.
At that moment, the desire came to me to develop a methodology that would allow the dancers to research possible movements that were dormant in their own bodies. A proposal of antagonism with the technical movements available, enabled an improvisation with scenic elements that helped them to be immersed in experimentation. Build vs deconstruct, know & recognize.
I then defended my thesis for a master's degree, "The Elements of the Dance Show in the Creative Experience of the Author Dancer". This research aimed to investigate a creative process based on the construction of its own poetics. The author dancer uses the scenic elements (costumes, music, lighting, etc.), and the elements of dance (space, rhythm, weight, etc.) to reveal an expressive aesthetic in dance. I did a lot of experimentation with dancing bodies from physical education, theater, circus, dance and others using various elements from different areas. I noticed that the dancer / author / researcher can be very creative using only simple tools. With each improvisation, I saw characters appear, and completely different movements emerge in each situation, and these bodies needed to be prepared for deconstruction.
This experience in the Master's Degree showed me that all guided experimentation, with the focus presented above, can be transformed into a scene. That we can take advantage of what we have and know, to bring out what we think we don't have and we don't know. This is the basis of my methodological work of teaching, research and creation. If I offer something unknown to a dancing body, and that body experiences the unknown, what learning can this body bring to this experiment and scenic space?
At the end of the Master's Degree in 2001, I was invited to initiate a project of culture and dance in a small town called Monte Sião. Even though I knew I wouldn’t be able to apply my research to these dancers, I accepted this new start because it was an opportunity to support my family. At first, I started only teaching dance for beginners, then working on jazz and contemporary dance. We also worked on Italian dances which are part of the city's history. After 16 years of dedication, we had performances that made me feel very proud.
In 2002 I was invited to teach dance classes and coordinate a Physical Education Course in a college in a neighboring city called Ouro Fino. At the same time, I defended a research paper in postgraduate studies (latu sensu) entitled, “Modular Methodological Proposal for Dance Lessons”. Its objective was to work the scenic elements and the dance elements in the form of modular classes. Each class was a complete concept and could be taken independently of other classes. There were no prerequisites for participation. Every class was a complete unit, with a beginning, middle and end.
For 16 years I worked with children and teenagers at my dance academy and with adults at the faculty of Physical Education. On several occasions, I took the dance shows to the college and involved undergraduate students in the academy shows. When I was invited to do the opening at a big cultural party in Monte Sião, I discovered that I could combine these two groups in the same show, and the result was surprisingly good. The level of learning for everyone was immense and generated a huge leap in performance quality.
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