Amor Fati
SP Brutalista
Transforming body into dance
Season 1
Transforming Body into Dance is an artistic project in which I explore the transformation of everyday life topics into dance experiences.
In the first season, I have transformed housing into dance. In December 2018, I moved from São Paulo to Espaço Transformando, an independent atelier led by Ana Alonso in Florianópolis (BRA) . What started as a site-specific research at Espaço Transformando became an itinerant experience, and I lived in several environments of artistic housing such as ateliers, artistic residencies and communities of artists in Brazil and Europe between 2018 and 2020.
In each experience, the dwelling revealed its intrinsic social implications: the home is not the physical house indeed, but it's not also a body in itself. Topics such as colective engagement, difference, (im)permanence, immigration, domestic violence, domestic work and private property were discussed through solo and participatory dances, installations, classes, jams, interviews and talk circles.
The first season ended with an online jam in August 19th, 2020, after 600 days. In the middle of COVID-19 lockdown, the hashtag #stayathome closed my personal research. So it belonged to all of us.
"dancing with each other"
NossaJam #23
NossaJam was a project idealized and produced by Pao Francez and Clarice Rito as an online jam experience during the COVID-19 pandemic. Facilitators offered online jams throughout 2020 and 2021, with participants from different countries. The first NossaJam I've facilitated closed the first season of the project "Transforming body into dance". Online, August 2020.
Para Dona Madalena, De uma ponte no estrangeiro / For Mrs. Madalena, From a bridge in a foreign land
Video letter to my grandmother from a bridge in the city of Frankfurt am Main. It arrived late, my grandmother passed in 2005. But this letter is like a bridge, an improvisation with words from a granddaughter between the past and the future. Frankfurt am Main (GER), June 2020.
A housebodywork
Microinstallation revealed the tasks I was given during my stay at the Ponderosa Movement & Discovery on the communitary clothesline, including images and notes with personal reflections on the somatic interweaving of bodywork and housework. Lunow-Stolzenhagen (GER), March 2020.
here, now and eat
Text trilogy was distributed among the communal spaces of Ponderosa Movement & Discovery, with reflections about "being in the world" based on the experience of having Eutony and Contact Improvisation as everyday practices. Lunow-Stolzenhagen (GER), August - December 2019.
My Katja's home
Microresidence consisted of staying for 5 days at the house of the artist Katja Wiegand (RUS/ALE) in Berlin. She was also researching about "home," and proposed that guests take notes in a notebook and move objects into a thematic box. The residence also included photos and videos. Berlin (GER), October 2019.
When you call me by my name
Interactive performance had the participation of the audience holding a large fabric with a seam in the middle. I positioned myself under the fabric, and my movement came from the pressure given by the traction of the participants' hands, dancing in a tactile conversation through the fabric. The performance was featured in the exhibition "This House is Made of Water" at the Glasgow Theater Arts Collective. Glasgow (SCO), September 2019.
Between comfort and courage
Participative proposal for the audience developed with the curatorial team of the exhibition "This house is made of water", leaded by Isabel Dickens, about the topics "house/home". It consisted of a Eutony class offered inside the Glasgow Theater Arts Collective followed by an outdoor performance/urban intervention in the square of The Aitken Memorial Fountain, in Glasgow. The group of twenty participants were presented to a specific sensory information from my research with the project "Transforming body into dance" and were invited to explore it in a site-specific compositional experience in the public square. Glasgow (SCO), September 2019.
Bigger than Myself
Talk circle proposed during the 4th Dance and Somatic Practices Conference by the Center for Dance Research (C-Dare), at Coventry University. It proposed a reflection on the importance of conviviality for artistic and somatic practices with an initial facilitation for sharing experiences among the participants. Coventry (UK), July 2019.
Sharing Homes
Residency followed by a performance proposed by Aviv Sheyn (ISR) for Ponderosa Movement & Discovery. Participants were invited to a immersive week for sharing their experiences, materials, culinary recipes and artistic expressions with the theme of home. Lunow-Stolzenhagen (GER), June 2019.
Espaço Transformando
Several activities during artistic residency. Florianópolis (BRA), December 2018 - February 2019.
Season 2
The second season started on September 2019, and I am transforming work into dance with two references.
One reference is the professional biography of Gerda Alexander. I conducted a Master's research bridging the centenary gap between Gerda Alexander's artistic formation and early days activities with the current scope of work of eutonists in different countries. The research was conducted under the line of research "Poetics and Interfaces of Dance" at the Postgraduation Program in Dance by Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (PPG-Dan/UFRJ). Topics such as historical activism, symbolic annihilation of women, production of knowledge in the arts and archival practices were developed in partnership with eutonists, translators and related researchers from Brazil, Germany, Denmark, Argentina and Luxembourg. I am currently offering online lectures on related topics.
The second reference is interspecies movement. I came into regular contact with horses during COVID-19 lockdown throught the work in therapeutic horseback riding. I started to explore the interaction with horses as in the therapeutic setting, colaborating with people in learning and rehabilitation processes, as in researching movement in liberty. At the same period, I adopted my first dog, Salomon, who expanded my reflexions to the conviviality between species. Topics such as the mirroring between animal and employee welfare, anthropocentrism, motor reabilitation between species, labor rights, power harassment, nonhuman-oriented practices, among others, have been developed through interviews, classes, lectures, audiovisual artworks and the Instagram account @InterspeciesSomatics.
"moving towards the world with what I do"
Lectures - Catalogue (Brazilian Portuguese only)
Dissemination of knowledge related to Master's research through online lectures, 2025.
Poéticas do Cuidado Interspécies - Débora Oliveira / Poetics of Interspecies Care - Débora Oliveira
Chapter written for the book "Poéticas do Cuidado: Um Panorama Brasileiro", organised by prof. Dr. Tania Alice (Ed.Multifoco, Rio de Janeiro), 2025.
Community & Learning - Loheland, Landjugendheim Finkenkrug and Dore Jacobs
Lecture in "Creative Conversations" as part of the program of the Master's in Mind, Movement and Ecology, invited by the coordinator prof. Dr. Rachel Sweeney at Schumacher College/Dartington Hall Trust, Totnes (UK), May 2024.
Arte Cruzando Fronteiras - Gerda Alexander e a Multiplicidade da Atuação Profisional em Eutonia / Art Crossing Borders - Gerda Alexander and the Multiplicity of the Professional Activity in Eutony
Master's research. Programa de Pós Graduação em Dança da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (PPG-Dan/UFRJ), 2021-2023.
A somatic congress in the 1950s? An overview of the First International Congress on Release of Tension and Re-Education of Functional Movement
In this article I present historical information in the form of a first-person fictional narrative based on factual evidence and descriptions from actual attendees in order to offer an immersive experience of the event, recognizing it as the first collective effort for Somatics as a field early in the 1950s. Journal of Dance & Somatic Practices, Volume 15, Issue 2 © 2023 Intellect Ltd.
The somatic field and its challenges in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Hybrid session about the work with Somatics and dance in the context of Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro at the 6th Dance and Somatic Practices Conference of the Centre for Dance Research (C-Dare), Coventry University, under the advising of prof. Dr. Lígia Tourinho. Participant support costs subsidised by Fundação Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ). Registration fees subsidised by the JDSP Equity, Diversity and Inclusion policies - presential participation. Coventry (UK), July 2023.
Entre Espécies / Between Species
Workshop of interspecies-oriented movement scores
- Research group on Contemporary Performative Practices at Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO), by invitation of prof. Dr. Tania Alice, January 2023;
- Espaço Mova. Rio de Janeiro (BRA), November 2022.
Untouchable Human
Audiovisual session with horses at Rancho São Miguel, in Atibaia/SP, directed by Dani Lopes and filmed by Hugo Gallo. Atibaia (BRA), August 2022.
Workshop with JoAnna Mendl Shaw
Production of workshop with dancer and choreographer JoAnna Mendl Shaw (USA) about her authorial method of dance and composition between species "Physical Listening". Escola Centauro de Equitação / Equoterapia Rio, Rio de Janeiro (BRA), June 2022.
Entre palcos, ruas e hospitais - A transdisciplinaridade radical de Gerda Alexander na criação da Eutonia / Between stages, streets and hospitals - The radical transdisciplinarity of Gerda Alexander in the creation of Eutony
Online session about the transdisciplinarity of the work of Gerda Alexander in the creation of Eutony at the 7th National Meeting of Dance Researchers by ANDA - Associação Nacional de Pesquisadores em Dança. Online, June 2022.
O Uso de Bambus entre Bichos / The use of bamboo between animals
Live with Guadalupe Rausch for Instagram profile @InterspeciesSomatics. June 2022.
Mulheres artistas à vista - Uma visita às fotos públicas de Gerda Alexander / Women Artists in Sight - A visit to Gerda Alexander's public photos
Analysis session of public photos by Gerda Alexander at the 5th International Seminar Desfazendo Gênero ("Undoing Gender"), observing aspects such as symbolic annihilation and historical revisionism. Online, November 2021.
Creativity and the Wholeness of Life Through the Experience in Eutony
Interview given to Brian Siddhartha Ingle about the interweaving between creativity and everyday life through the perspective of Eutony at the international conference Somatic Movement Summit. Online, April 2021.
Moving with horses - Reflections on an interspecies somatic experience
Session about my first impressions of working with horses as eutonist at BODYIQ 2021 of Somatische Akademie Berlin. Online, November 2021.
Eutony in Quarantine
Solidary group classes offered since the COVID-19 lockdown in online project led by the Associação Brasileira de Eutonia and Instituto Brasileiro de Eutonia. Online, 2020-2022.
Allan Kaplan and Sue Davidoff in "A Delicate Activism", p. 22
