The Creative Process of an experimental Dance Company: The “People who Dance” Group
In October, 1998 a group of six college students, five male and one female, from the Physical Education course, proposed that I led a physical activity during the lunch break, a period that, for them, could be used more usefully. The process was started with workshops on creative movement, improvisation and then we moved on to working on different levels of composition. The movement phrases commenced with the introduction of short choreographies in order to work memory retention in terms of movements.
The first rehearsals then got started at an experimental level for a piece that would become our first production: Caminha and the Dream of the Spices Route. This dance piece attempted to portray in seven scenes the Portuguese achievement in navigation. The year 2000 marked the commemoration of the 500 years that Pedro Álvares Cabral, the navigator, on his way to India, due to a route deviation, had his fleet reach the coast of the land, which came to be known as Brazil.
The dance piece was conceived from the excerpts of the letter that Pedro Vaz de Caminha wrote to notify the king Dom Manuel about the “discovery” of the Land of Vera Cruz, the first identification to the territory just - found by the Portuguese navigators.
The Dance Group performed the work a good number of times during the first semester of 1999 and was invited to open the First International Congress in Human Kinetics, in Lisbon.
On the second semester of the same year, with a cast of six male students and eight female ones, we developed another work more elaborated that explored the different forms that war assumes in our daily lives. The reception of It is all the Same War was excellent and with that project we were able to integrate for the first time on campus the senior students from the Artistic Education Course to create the stage design. The interdisciplinary perspective also included a photographic essay, models for the diverse scenery proposals, graphic design, light and sound design.
The third dance project of the “People who Dance” Group was Pop, Popcorn during the fist semester of 2000. The cast included of seven male students and eight female ones. The various choreographed scenes illustrated aspects from the popular music. This work took the dance troupe to the several places in Portugal both as invitation by the private Host College Network where we were based on and also by some the cultural department of municipalities.
The dance production by the title of Horizons was presented in the second semester of 2000. The cast of seven female students portrayed the choreography travelling, discoveries of new cultures and the horizons of the mind that expands due to new experiences. This project, one more time, applied the interdisciplinary methodology that incorporated the Artistic Education course as for the proposal of creation of models for scenery design as well as the coming together of carpenters, sound engineers, professors who recorded texts that served as transitions. In all, fifty people were involved in this production.
Abstract was the next production that the “People that Dance” Group brought to the stage. This dance production was the result of a research project concerning the non-narrative movement. The perspective dealing with movement and composition that George Balanchine (1904-1983) defended served as “theoretical framework” for this work. Balanchine believed that music ought to lead the body movement flow. George Balanchine, Maurice Béjart, Sir Frederick Ashton (1904-1988), Paul Taylor and Pina Bausch have always been the main references to me as how to deal with movement in dance. I have learned plenty, both from attending performances of their choreographies to the analysis of the inner structure and composition of a number of pieces by those creators. Along my professional career I have used example of their works in classroom as didactical material for the History of Dance classes as well as in technique sessions.
Abstract, did not only serve as research project dealing with movement starting from a Romantic Dance pose to develop the dance in a deconstruction of the rigid structure that the ballet technique may represent. It was also my first experience in working movement of dance for toe shoes. This aspect made me work the body movement in a way that was experimental as well, since I had to take into consideration a technique I admired, had tried on myself during my dance training to really feel how someone on point shoes balances her/his body differently. It was a very special moment for me in regards to dance education.
The work that closed the history of the “People who Dance” Group was A New Season. It was our exit from of the stage, the farewell to some students who completed their college education and had been with the group from the very beginning. The metaphor of a new “season” also meant a look towards an alternative to growth. That was also the time to show gratefulness and recognition of a period. The new perspective pointed us to a new dynamics of performances based on exploring the creative capacities of the students from that moment on. Leading and living thoroughly the creative process exploring my own capacities taught me to invert the situation and help students find that creative seed inside them. My work from then on was to facilitate the learning through a creative approach.
The “People that Dance” Group looked for a complement in the areas of Artistic Expressions and didactics through the human body, the basic elements for future educators. I have received along the years feedback from many who took part in the dance group and were working as educators. A comment heard several times related to how t the experience of being on stage had helped them in terms of posture, projection, and discipline in the classroom and how to suggest more creative classes. There was always a curiosity in knowing the reason of those young people who to chose to change the lunch break to learn choreographies but also to perceive in a better way how that experience influenced their lives. Some of the testimonials I was able to collect at the time will be presented further in this text.
Totalling all the people, from students to others, who were involved in the productions from 1988 up to 2002 I can list below:
15 male students who participated as dancers;
25 female students who participated as dancers;
3 musicians;
3 photographers (all students who had used the documentation of the rehearsals for school and exposition project);
1 musicologist;
5 stage managers (students);
3 make up artists (a teacher and two apprentice students);
3 sound engineers (a professor and two students);
2 camera operators (students enrolled in Social and Cultural Management course)
2 classes of Artistic Education course (total of 60 students)
After each performance of a new production of the “People who Dance” Group, colleagues and students from other courses alike wanted to know when the next performance and new work would be. It was rewarding for each one of us to hear this type of questioning, since it was the proof to legitimize our proposal to bring art to perform by students, and not by “professional artists” and the recognition of Dance within a college context.
Everything I have related here would not be possible without the devotion of the participants who trusted me in terms of the didactical-pedagogical orientation that I tried to pass on through Dance and Creative Movement. I must acknowledge also the support that the Dance group received from the Directors of the Piaget Institute at Almada Campus as well as from the administrative body between 1998 and 2002.
It had been a personal dream of mine to be able to direct a university experimental dance group. That dream came through and modified not only my life but also of those who got involved in several of our projects. On the social perspective it is relevant to point out that there was a significant transformation in the concept of the man who dances and does not lose his masculinity because of that physical activity. On the opposite: the courage of the male students in displaying their talent and attempt to do something new on stage modified the way of thinking of many other students that along the years attended the performances. The cultural activity the Dance group started on that college campus also helped to establish a culture of performances that ranged from theatre to popular and classical music presentations.
Francislei T. Moreira
Text published in: The Voice of the Sight, year III - N. º.36, June of 2001, Lisbon, Piaget Institute (revised in March, 2007).
In October, 1998 a group of six college students, five male and one female, from the Physical Education course, proposed that I led a physical activity during the lunch break, a period that, for them, could be used more usefully. The process was started with workshops on creative movement, improvisation and then we moved on to working on different levels of composition. The movement phrases commenced with the introduction of short choreographies in order to work memory retention in terms of movements.
The first rehearsals then got started at an experimental level for a piece that would become our first production: Caminha and the Dream of the Spices Route. This dance piece attempted to portray in seven scenes the Portuguese achievement in navigation. The year 2000 marked the commemoration of the 500 years that Pedro Álvares Cabral, the navigator, on his way to India, due to a route deviation, had his fleet reach the coast of the land, which came to be known as Brazil.
The dance piece was conceived from the excerpts of the letter that Pedro Vaz de Caminha wrote to notify the king Dom Manuel about the “discovery” of the Land of Vera Cruz, the first identification to the territory just - found by the Portuguese navigators.
The Dance Group performed the work a good number of times during the first semester of 1999 and was invited to open the First International Congress in Human Kinetics, in Lisbon.
On the second semester of the same year, with a cast of six male students and eight female ones, we developed another work more elaborated that explored the different forms that war assumes in our daily lives. The reception of It is all the Same War was excellent and with that project we were able to integrate for the first time on campus the senior students from the Artistic Education Course to create the stage design. The interdisciplinary perspective also included a photographic essay, models for the diverse scenery proposals, graphic design, light and sound design.
The third dance project of the “People who Dance” Group was Pop, Popcorn during the fist semester of 2000. The cast included of seven male students and eight female ones. The various choreographed scenes illustrated aspects from the popular music. This work took the dance troupe to the several places in Portugal both as invitation by the private Host College Network where we were based on and also by some the cultural department of municipalities.
The dance production by the title of Horizons was presented in the second semester of 2000. The cast of seven female students portrayed the choreography travelling, discoveries of new cultures and the horizons of the mind that expands due to new experiences. This project, one more time, applied the interdisciplinary methodology that incorporated the Artistic Education course as for the proposal of creation of models for scenery design as well as the coming together of carpenters, sound engineers, professors who recorded texts that served as transitions. In all, fifty people were involved in this production.
Abstract was the next production that the “People that Dance” Group brought to the stage. This dance production was the result of a research project concerning the non-narrative movement. The perspective dealing with movement and composition that George Balanchine (1904-1983) defended served as “theoretical framework” for this work. Balanchine believed that music ought to lead the body movement flow. George Balanchine, Maurice Béjart, Sir Frederick Ashton (1904-1988), Paul Taylor and Pina Bausch have always been the main references to me as how to deal with movement in dance. I have learned plenty, both from attending performances of their choreographies to the analysis of the inner structure and composition of a number of pieces by those creators. Along my professional career I have used example of their works in classroom as didactical material for the History of Dance classes as well as in technique sessions.
Abstract, did not only serve as research project dealing with movement starting from a Romantic Dance pose to develop the dance in a deconstruction of the rigid structure that the ballet technique may represent. It was also my first experience in working movement of dance for toe shoes. This aspect made me work the body movement in a way that was experimental as well, since I had to take into consideration a technique I admired, had tried on myself during my dance training to really feel how someone on point shoes balances her/his body differently. It was a very special moment for me in regards to dance education.
The work that closed the history of the “People who Dance” Group was A New Season. It was our exit from of the stage, the farewell to some students who completed their college education and had been with the group from the very beginning. The metaphor of a new “season” also meant a look towards an alternative to growth. That was also the time to show gratefulness and recognition of a period. The new perspective pointed us to a new dynamics of performances based on exploring the creative capacities of the students from that moment on. Leading and living thoroughly the creative process exploring my own capacities taught me to invert the situation and help students find that creative seed inside them. My work from then on was to facilitate the learning through a creative approach.
The “People that Dance” Group looked for a complement in the areas of Artistic Expressions and didactics through the human body, the basic elements for future educators. I have received along the years feedback from many who took part in the dance group and were working as educators. A comment heard several times related to how t the experience of being on stage had helped them in terms of posture, projection, and discipline in the classroom and how to suggest more creative classes. There was always a curiosity in knowing the reason of those young people who to chose to change the lunch break to learn choreographies but also to perceive in a better way how that experience influenced their lives. Some of the testimonials I was able to collect at the time will be presented further in this text.
Totalling all the people, from students to others, who were involved in the productions from 1988 up to 2002 I can list below:
15 male students who participated as dancers;
25 female students who participated as dancers;
3 musicians;
3 photographers (all students who had used the documentation of the rehearsals for school and exposition project);
1 musicologist;
5 stage managers (students);
3 make up artists (a teacher and two apprentice students);
3 sound engineers (a professor and two students);
2 camera operators (students enrolled in Social and Cultural Management course)
2 classes of Artistic Education course (total of 60 students)
After each performance of a new production of the “People who Dance” Group, colleagues and students from other courses alike wanted to know when the next performance and new work would be. It was rewarding for each one of us to hear this type of questioning, since it was the proof to legitimize our proposal to bring art to perform by students, and not by “professional artists” and the recognition of Dance within a college context.
Everything I have related here would not be possible without the devotion of the participants who trusted me in terms of the didactical-pedagogical orientation that I tried to pass on through Dance and Creative Movement. I must acknowledge also the support that the Dance group received from the Directors of the Piaget Institute at Almada Campus as well as from the administrative body between 1998 and 2002.
It had been a personal dream of mine to be able to direct a university experimental dance group. That dream came through and modified not only my life but also of those who got involved in several of our projects. On the social perspective it is relevant to point out that there was a significant transformation in the concept of the man who dances and does not lose his masculinity because of that physical activity. On the opposite: the courage of the male students in displaying their talent and attempt to do something new on stage modified the way of thinking of many other students that along the years attended the performances. The cultural activity the Dance group started on that college campus also helped to establish a culture of performances that ranged from theatre to popular and classical music presentations.
Francislei T. Moreira
Text published in: The Voice of the Sight, year III - N. º.36, June of 2001, Lisbon, Piaget Institute (revised in March, 2007).
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