Hi!

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I'm Débora Oliveira, and I'm an Eutonist, artist and dance researcher.

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Since September 2021 I have been developing my Master's studies at Post Graduate Program in Dance by Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (PPGDan-UFRJ). With the project "When art crosses borders - Gerda Alexander and the transdisciplinarity of Eutony", I am mapping Gerda Alexander's training and how her collaboration with arts, educational institutions and with doctors and health centers took place. Gerda Alexander's research culminated in the creation of Eutony, a transdisciplinary body practice focused on neuromuscular tonus, in which I studied at the professional training school in São Paulo, the Instituto Brasileiro de Eutonia (IBE).

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In the recent months, I established many partnerships for spending the last semester of my Master's studies in Europe. Through contact with Cultural Institute of Denmark in Brazil, I met the teacher Ph.D. Charlotte Svendler Nielsen, who is part of the Embodiment, Learning and Social Change Research Group at the University of Copenhagen. She will accompany the final writing of my Master's thesis!  

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A second partnership will be for a scholar visit at the Ostbayerische Technische Hochschule - Regensburg, Germany. Prof. Renate Kühnel, responsible for the graduation course in Social Work oriented towards Music and Movement, is a Eurhythmics teacher, the same method that Gerda Alexander studied. Prof. Renate will receive me in the first week of the trip for conversations and to take classes at the university's undergraduate course as an invited researcher.

Another partnership is with Royal Archives of Denmark (Rigsarkivet). I had been authorized to catalog Gerda Alexander's private archive in March 2020, before the COVID-19 outbreak, and was informed that the authorization is still valid for me and I can start when I arrive.  

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Two weeks ago, I was approved with a group of researchers from UFRJ to be a speaker at international congress "Dance and Somatic Practices Conference" at Coventry University, in England, between July 13 and 16, 2023. The congress is organized by the Center for Dance Research (C-Dare), with which I have been in contact since 2019 when I was a speaker in the last edition of the congress and since then dedicated to writing of an article for their international journal. 

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To make all this possible, the trip is planned to start in March 22, 2023 until the end of the congress in England, on July 16, 2023. So far, I've got major sponsorships that will cover most of the expenses. However, I still need a final extra help for minor expenses, such as mandatory European health insurance, local train and bus tickets, and a symbolic amount for the initial expenses. 

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This collective sponsorship is a way of collaborating with the beginning of the final journey of my Master's, and it is also a way of helping to open paths for the doctorate, as some offers are already starting to appear on the horizon. Sponsoring a researcher is investing in paths that are open to everyone. I really believe in this force!