ABOUT
​​Quando alguma coisa é alguma coisa,
deixa logo de ser as outras todas, e isso é uma pena.
O que é preciso é ser tudo ao mesmo tempo.
(Agostinho da Silva)


​THE PATH OF SOUND, THE VOICE OF GESTURE

​After the study of formal communication, through specializing in foreign languages and literatures, I began focusing on the expression of gesture as a broader means of communication and connection with myself and others. That became the thread of my artistic career, started in 1991 with Flamenco and Spanish Classical Ballet at the Célia Neves School (Lisbon).

Not long after I started studying dance in Portugal, Spain and Italy, I began questioning the conventional dance teaching methods. Getting into contact with contemporary dance and meeting the methodolgy of Yumma Mudra, founder of the Danza Duende International School, not long after, supported even further this growing need to deconstruct and research deeper into the artistic expression. In this context I started exploring movement improvisation and choreographic, rhythmic and musical composition, as well as the relationship between sound and vibration with the body with several teachers of the Centro em Movimento and Fórum Dança (Lisbon), some of which were Sofia Neuparth, Peter-Michael Dietz, Amélia Bentes, Jessica Henou, Céu Dória, Howard Sonenklar, Margarida Mestre, Zé Carvalho and Carlos Zíngaro.  Among the new practices I got in touch with, I highlight Feldenkrais, Hands-on and Body-Mind-Centering, as well as Tai Chi (Xuan Wu and Mohamed Youssouf) and Kung-Fu (Guilherme Luz and Mohamed Youssouf), Theater Nô (Masato Matsuura) and Butô (with the late Kō Murobushi). I also began studying Yoga (Beatriz Katchi) and was introduced to the Buddhist meditation practice (Tsering Paldron, Yumma Mudra). I later studied movement for theatre with Félix Lozano and lindy-hop with Abeth Farag. 

This was a very rich cultural period in Portugal. We were in the early 2000's, a time where many non-European dances arrived in the country. Int this context, I had the opportunity to study intensively Middle-Eastern dance and percussion, particuarly the darbuka, to which I deeply devoted myself to for some years. I had done early studies of piano, guitar and singing as a child and a young adult, but rhythm and percussion were a pending old love. This was also the period when I met Yumma Mudra, an encounter wich was decisive in my artistic career. Yumma brought the skill, the knowledge and the technique of the Russian Ballets, along with the authentic non-apologetic expression of the Romani dances to art. She was creating the foundations of the Danza Duende International Network, a training which I followed since its very beginnings. Yumma Mudra is a dancer inspired by the traditions of the wisdom dakinis, one who gathers in her art the keys to work on the transmutation of emotions, the awareness of space and the union of the masculine with the feminine. Author of the book "La Voie Qui Danse", she is also a teacher of Intuitive Dharma Studies.

​We might describe Danza Duende© as the art of creating "fields of wisdom", in which life, dance and art are approached in a conscious interdependence: life is seen as our greatest work of art. A certified instructor in Danza Duende, in 2015 and 2017 I facilitated the Dragon Retreat: a 7 day intensive training in nature, developed as one of the most important basic pillars of the Danza Duende school.  The Dragon Retreat is a preparation for the Cycle of the Dragon, the 1st of the 3 Cycles that conform the University of Choreosophy. The UC (Univeristy of Choreosophy) is a three-year training platform, which brings together the tools of Danza Duende with those of Michel Raji's choreosophic breath work. ​With a Sufi heritage, Michel Raji is an international renowed French artist of Moroccan Berber origin, who has joined Danza Duende and created with Yumma Mudra the University of Choreosphy. M.Raji, draws his geographic map in his own "dancing path" - Choreosophy - through what he has called the Sensorium. Sensorium is a permanent laboratory that allows us to dive deep into time, in awareness of space. It is an artistic quest of the "in--dancend" being, in which the act of dancing becomes a path of knowledge through a unique approach to breath work. A journey into "listening" to ourselves and the alter in deep interdependence, so that we become that which we already are and thus may spontaneously manifest the symbolic dimension of our human nature. 

Gipsy Duende is a branch of the Danza Duende network. It is inspired by traditional Romani dances as the art of transforming suffering by surrendering to the present moment. It is about discovering the spontaneous joy of our authentic movement and about recovering the freshness and sincerity of our gesture within a group synergy. In this context, I specialized in dance, music and rhythms of the Romani culture of several European countries (read more about my journey with Flamenco and Romani Dances here). 

​Apart from my dance career as a performer, teacher and choreographer, I have also been working as a translator and conference interpreter for almost thirty years, having recently translated the first three chapters of Luc Bigé's "La Symbologie du Corps Humain" into Portuguese.  As an interpreter, I highlight my collaboration in the 6th Transnational Meeting of Horizon Programmes on Gypsies and Nomads (Porto, 1994), in the I European Forum of Gypsy Women (Seville, 2007) and in the Conference: Romani Art in Europe - Gypsy Culture and Art in Portugal and Europe (Idanha-a-Nova, 2010).​