HAU 3, April 17th, 5:00 – 7:00 pm

Dance Today – The Traces of Tradition

Moderator: Dr. Cláudio Cajaiba

The influence of tradition on contemporary artistic work will be described on the basis of research on the memory of dance in Pernambuco, particularly the city of Recife. An understanding of the RecorDança archive, founded in 2003, as well as of the 32-year history of the Balé Popular do Recife ensemble will serve as a background for the debate.

t3Balé Popular do Recife – Heritage and Ancestry.

Christianne Galdino (Recife) is a journalist and dance scholar, producer of the Grupo Experimental ensemble, editor and dance critic for the magazine Continente Multicultural (Ed. CEPE). She is a specialist for the relationship between traditional and contemporary dance as well as popular dance forms. She is the author of „Balé Popular do Recife: a escrita de uma dança“ (Balé Popular do Recife: A Dance’s Handwriting), Ed. Bagaço, 2008. She is a board member of the Movimento Dança Recife association.

The Balé Popular do Recife, active for the last 32 years, developed and taught the Brasílica technique. On the basis of an overview of the ensemble’s history and the Brasílica technique, the dialogue between traditional and contemporary dance will be described. In the process, the multi-faceted forms that originated there will also be highlighted. For some of these dance forms Pernambuco’s choreographic work and dance education are well known. To understand this phenomenon more fully, one began to uncover the memory of local stage dance. Thus the founding of the Balé Popular do Recife in 1977 was made possible. An analysis of the most important past members demonstrates how this ensemble’s work continues to have an effect and be productive. Here the historical importance of the Balé Popular do Recife and its work became clear. As a source of impulses for artists of popular culture, it contributes to the vibrancy of local culture in society and is an important foundation for the establishing of many new groups and dance ensembles.

t1Popular Dances in New Contexts: Different Forms of Integrating Popular Culture into Epic Works.

Roberta Ramos (Recife) received her PhD in Literature from the Federal University of Pernambuco UFPE. She is coordinator of the RecorDança archive, co-worker of the Movimento Dança Recife association and on the editorial board of Idança. She is the author of the dissertation „Deslocamentos Armoriais: da afirmação épica do popular na “Nação Castanha” de Ariano Suassuna ao corpo-história do Grupo Grial“ (Emblematic Shifts: On the Epic Integration of the Popular in “Nação Castanha” by Ariano Suassuna and the Physical History of the Grupo Grial Ensemble”).

The integration of popular identities in epic works is, according to Canclini, bound to the application of popular elements; they are then used as a secure base in discourses about nationality in inventing tradition. This use of popular culture can be seen as being productive, for example when it makes constitutive parts of the epic genre available, as theorists such as Michail Bachtin and Èdouard Glissant suggest. The use of popular dances in (social and scenic) contexts, where their presence was not intended, also allows one to discuss the aspect of integration of popular culture into epic works. To do so, the lecturer will present a number of discursive and formal examples from the Brazilian context. The examples demonstrate a high or less high level of integration into the epic. It will be shown that dance’s less epic elements introduce more performativity.