Amor Fati
SP Brutalista
Transforming body into dance
Season 1 - home
"Transforming Body into Dance" is a durational artistic project.
The first season addressed the sense of "house/home". In December 2018, I moved from São Paulo (BRA) to Espaço Transformando, an independent artist-run space in the island of Florianópolis (BRA). What started as a site-specific research at Espaço Transformando became an itinerant experience, and I lived in several environments of artistic dwelling as ateliers, residencies and artists' communities 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 dance performances, installations, workshops, jams, interviews and talk circles.
The first phase of the project ended with an online jam in August 19th, 2020, after 600 days. In the middle of quarantine, 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.
For Mrs. Madalena, From a bridge in a foreign land - The video is a video letter to my grandmother on top of 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 - The 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 - The 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 - The 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 - The interactive performance had the participation of the audience holding a large fabric with a seam in the middle, which I positioned myself under. 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 - This was a proposal for the public 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 20 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 - This was a 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.
Season 2 - work
The second season started on September 2019 for exploring the sense of "work" through two references:
One reference is the work of Gerda Alexander, creator of Eutony. I conducted a Master's research bridging the centenary gap between Gerda Alexander's artistic formation and first professional 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 elaborated in partnership with eutonists, translators and related researchers from Brazil, Germany, Denmark, Argentina and Luxembourg.
The other reference is interspecies movement. I came into regular contact with horses during COVID-19 lockdown throught the work in therapeutic horseback riding, and 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 an interspecies perspective. 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 elaborated through interviews, workshops, lectures, audiovisual works and the Instagram account @InterspeciesSomatics.
"moving towards the world with what I've learned to do"
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 at Schumacher College, Dartington (UK), May 2024.
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), September 2021 until August 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 C-Dare at Coventry University - presential participation. Coventry (UK), July 2023.
Entre Espécies ("Between Species") - Workshop of movement scores between species offered in studio at 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) at Escola Centauro de Equitação / Equoterapia Rio about her authorial method of dance and composition between species "Physical Listening". 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.
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.
