Dance not dance – archaeologies of new dance in Portugal
(Re)performances, films and talks
30 Oct 2023– 04 Feb 2024 / Free admission
This (re)performances, films and talks series offers an embodied journey through different manifestations of dance that have marked the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, aiming to frame what was referred to as Nova Dança Portuguesa [New Portuguese Dance] in the 1990s.
Curated by João dos Santos Martins, Ana Bigotte Vieira, Carlos Manuel Oliveira and Ana Dinger, this series is divided into ten thematic sessions, taking place at Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation between October 30, 2023, and February 4, 2024.
In each session, one, a pair or a set of choreographic works from different moments in time is performed, including some absolute premieres and the reenactment of past works which are not in circulation anymore, proposing relationships of proximity and distance between them. Their presentation depends on a new transmission process or original research based on scarce archival material.
Each performance is followed by a conversation about the work and the problems raised by its re-performance or transmission. The screening of three films entirely constructed from archival images and an international conference further amplify the ways by which these performances broaden our interpretation of the 20th century embodied experience.
PROGRAMME
The century in 10 sessions and 15 dances
Free admission to all events, except for the performance Idiota, by Marlene Monteiro Freitas. Some events may require ticket collection on the same day at the box office.
Past events
30 Oct 2023 / The Portuguese do not have a body
In The Portuguese do not have a body, the place of the body in the Portuguese society is questioned, spanning an arc between early 20th-century modernism and the 1990s, when Nova Dança Portuguesa [New Portuguese Dance] emerged.
05 Nov 2023 / Free dances
In Free dances, the eurhythmics of the 1920s-1930s and artistic nudes of past and present are revisited. What might free dance look like today? How does today’s use of nudity on stage echo that from the start of the century?
12 Nov 2023 / Revolution-school
Revolution-school reflects on what school is for and the place of art in the education of tomorrow.
15 Nov 2023 / Unequal subjects
Unequal subjects addresses the place of women in society in general and in Portugal in particular.
03 Dec 2023 / Il Faut Danser Portugal
Il Faut Danser Portugal questions the terms “Portugality” and “dance”, both as how they are envisioned by institutional power – particularly state power – and enacted by artists.
10 Dec 2023 / Ballet Gulbenkian: Variations
Ballet Gulbenkian: Variations provides a new life to a completely forgotten choreographic work, rediscovered in the archive of the now extinct but once well known Ballet Gulbenkian.
17 Dec 2023 / Expanded choreography
Expanded choreography revisits a collective project based on openness and experimentation, set in motion by Paula Massano in the 1980s.
09 & 10 Jan + 04 Feb 2024 / Unearthing memories of dance
Unearthing memories of dance addresses the emergence of black bodies within the country’s dance history. It also provides the theme for revisiting the recent past and its colonial ghosts.
17 Jan 2024 / These bodies that occupy us
These bodies that occupy us brings into discussion preconceived ideas about the body, the organism, life, performance and dance.
Collaboration