As part of the European project “Clash! When classic and contemporary dance collide and new forms emerge” in which Companhia de Dança de Almada is involved, they are presenting today, 5th of October 2019, a seminar on the importance of festivals in promoting choreographic creation, paving the way for the confrontation between traditional perspectives and more contemporary attitudes in cultural programming.
View the results in our Gallery! http://clashproject.eu/gallery/
This seminar is aimed at dancers, choreographers, producers and anyone interested in the promotion of dance at regional, national and international levels and in exchanging ideas about policies and contexts for the performing arts.
The seminar will be moderated by Katia Mortari, PhD. with presentations by Ana Vitória Freire, PhD., Atanas Maev, Paula Varanda, PhD. and Ana Macara, PhD.
Presentations will be followed by de discussion with the audience.
International research: Communication and innovative skills for marketing upgrade
Atanas Maev |BG|
This presentation will inform you of the results discovered during the laboratories from the currently running two-years-long project CLASH! in which partners from Balleto di Roma (Italy), Companhia de Dança de Almada (Portugal), 420People (Czech Republic), Polish Dance Theatre (Poland) and Derida Dance Center (Bulgaria) exchanged practices concerning their models of work and the experience that they had throughout their active years.
Atanas Maev is Vice Chairman of Art Link Foundation and CEO of Derida Dance Center. He has studied Economics at Karlsruhe Technical University and Plovdiv University and, since 2002, actively works in the field of cultural management. Thanks to his commitment and efforts, Art Link Foundation and Derida Dance Center have been recognized as a reliable and resourceful partner by Bulgarian cultural institutions, sponsoring organizations, international cultural operators and platforms for contemporary performing arts. As a result, Derida Dance Center, represented by Art Link Foundation, has participated in numerous international projects and co-productions such as “Rivers of Europe”, “CLASH!”, “Bulgarian- Israeli co-production between Derida and MASH”, ‘Global practice sharing (GPS) with Movement research NYC” and many others. Additionally, with the help of Derida Dance Centre, he has supported many independent dance and theatre Bulgarian productions and foreign artists in a residency program.
Atanas teaches arts management and leads coaching and internship programs. Between 2016-2018 he was a member of the board of directors of the European platform for contemporary dance “Aerowaves – Dance Across Europe” and in 2018 was a producer of the 7th edition of one of most essential festivals for emerging artists “Spring Forward” by Aerowaves platform and presented TOP20 emerging European choreographer selected by 40 jury members from 35 countries. Recently, Atanas and the Derida team inaugurated the first and only independent stage for dance in Bulgaria – “Stage Derida” in the heart of the city centre of Sofia.
Contemporary Dance under the lens of the Clash! project
Ana Macara |PT|
The clashing issue between tradition and innovation is an old story in the history of dance. In the last decades, the tendency to a fusion between styles seems to have developed and we seem to have the presence of many different dance genres present in the contemporary scene. This makes it difficult to define what is contemporary dance and what we expect from the contemporary dancer and brings challenges to the artistic direction and management of dance companies. These are the topic of research in “CLASH! When classic and contemporary dance collide and new forms emerge” European Project involving companies from Italy, Czech Republic, Poland, Bulgaria, and Portugal. We will present results from the first year of research developed in several laboratories held in the context of this project.
Ana Macara is a researcher at the FMH Centre of the Institute of Ethnomusicology – Centre for Studies in Music and Dance (INET-md). Associate Professor with Aggregation, retired from the Faculty of Human Motricity of the University of Lisbon where, between 1983 and 2015, she taught in the area of Dance.
PhD in Dance, from FMH-UL (1994) and Master in Dance from UNC-Greensboro (1988), postdoctoral at this same US university.
Author of several publications on dance teaching, choreography, and the experience of the dancer.
A former dancer and choreographer, she has directed and worked for different dance companies, choreographed for television shows and multi-media shows.
Since 1992, co-responsible for the “Quinzena de Dança de Almada – International Dance Festival”, of which she is currently Artistic Co-Director.
Dance Festivals in Brazil: Diversity and Pluralism
Ana Vitoria |BR|
Her country, Brazil, is very rich in culture. Specifically, music and dance have favorable spaces for the presentation of innumerable Brazilian talents. Only in terms of folklore they already have a huge wealth of manifestations! However, she will point out in this meeting some relevant dance festivals when we think of the dances considered as academic and their contributions to their followers and professionals, their undeniable diversity and pluralism in a country with a geographical extension of a continent.
Ana Vitória is PhD in Arts by UNIRIO (Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro). Choreographer, Ballerina, Visual Artist and Coordinator of the Postgraduate Course in Body Preparation for the Performing Arts of FAV (Angel Vianna College – Rio de Janeiro). Researcher in Inet-MD – FMH-UL (postdoctoral) and Sens-Lab (Canada / Brazil).
Dancing in pairs, twists and turns of innovation and tradition
Paula Varanda |PT|
In this seminar,she will talk about some festivals in Portugal that gave rise to works where contemporary professional practice meets the universe of social and traditional dance practices in communities. Works such as O Baile, by Aldara Bizarro (produced by Serralves em Festa), Fica no Singelo by Clara Andermatt (produced by Andanças) and the project A Viagem de Filipa Francisco (at the festival Diversos Diversos), are examples of model practices that combine the innovation and tradition allowing renewing languages in the former and re-contextualizing the latter. These festivals have a keen sense of audience development and their programmers value contemporary dance as a means of reflecting our cultural identities.
Paula Varanda holds a doctorate in artistic studies and humanities from Middlesex University in London and has a degree from Escola Superior de Dança in Lisbon. She has coordinated several artistic projects, taught in various institutions and has published work, namely in the field of dance and education and dance and new technologies, highlighting the collaboration with Público (weekly newspaper) as a critic and the book Dançar é Crescer – Aldara Bizarro e Projeto Respira (Caleidoscópio 2012). Until December 2015 she was the artistic director of the Dansul project – dance for the community in southeastern Alentejo – in partnership with four municipalities. She was the Director-General of Arts at the Ministry of Culture (2016-2018). Since 2019 she is an integrated researcher at the Institute of Art History at the New University of Lisbon (IHA_FCSH / UNL).
Moderator:
Katia Mortari, PhD in Dance from Faculdade de Motricidade Humana – University of Lisbon, she was for many years a professor at the State University of Londrina CEF/EMH in Brazil, where she has always taught in the area of dance. Researcher at the Human Motricity Studies and Research Group, author of several publications on dance and human motricity.
Clash Project Facebook
Co-funded by the