EXTENDED BIO EXTENSA
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NUMA PROCURA CONTÍNUA Após a realização de estudos académicos em Línguas e Literaturas, tornou-se premente debruçar-me na expressão do gesto como veículo mais lato de comunicação. Este tornou-se o fio condutor do meu percurso na dança, iniciada em 1991 com o Flamenco e o ballet clássico espanhol na escola Célia Neves (Lisboa).
Depois de Portugal, foi em Espanha e em Itália onde prossegui o estudo do Flamenco, tendo ido viver para Inglaterra pouco tempo depois. Preparava-me para me apresentar aos exames para intérprete do Parlamento, em Bruxelas, enquanto aperfeiçoava o estudo da cultura e língua inglesas. No entanto, não foi na Bélgica onde fiquei, mas novamente em Portugal, onde a carreira de tradutora-intérprete se foi desdobrando ao longo dos anos, a par do estudo contínuo da dança. Mas urgia agora lançar-me na exploração do movimento desde novos prismas, desconstruindo, dissecando, renovando sentires e colocando-me de novo num lugar de começo. Foi assim que fui parar ao C.E.M., o espaço experimental, por excelência, de Lisboa, onde estudei movimento, improvisação e composição coreográfica, rítmica e musical, bem como a relação entre som e corpo, corpo-matéria, com Sofia Neuparth, Peter-Michael Dietz, Amélia Bentes, Jessica Henou, Céu Dória, Howard Sonenklar, Margarida Mestre, Zé Carvalho e Carlos Zíngaro. Entre as práticas propostas nesta exploração, incluíam-se o Feldenkrais, o Hands-on e o Body-Mind-Centering, que mais tarde se vieram a complementar, noutros contextos, com o Tai Chi (mestres Xuan Wu e Mohamed Youssouf) o Kung-Fu (mestres Guilherme Luz e Mohamed Youssouf), e o Butô (com o falecido Kō Murobushi). Mais tarde viria a estudar também no Fórum Dança e ainda no SOU - Movimento e Arte com Félix Lozano. Curiosamente foi enquanto estudava no CEM que vi um poster a anunciar aulas de Dança Oriental com Prisa Diedrich. Na altura soava-me a algo extremamente exótico e irresistível, pelo que pouco tempo depois lá estava eu a descobrir mais outro universo paralelo e distante que se coadunava bastante bem, a meu ver, com o estudo da dança contemporânea e enfim, com tudo. Foram vários anos de estudos desta grande arte com diferentes professores, no decurso dos quais vim a conhecer Myriam Szabo e a sua inovadora e incipiente escola Danza Duende: Dançar a vida. (em construção...) |
AN ONGOING SEARCH 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 felt the need to start exploring less conventional methods of teaching and transmission, and to look for ways of deconstructing movement. Getting to know contemporary dance and, almost simultaneously, the methodology of Danza Duende: Dancing our Lives' school, seemed to fill this growing need to research more deeply the fundamentals of artistic expression. In this context I started exploring movement improvisation and choreographic, rhythmic and musical composition, as well as the relationship between sound and body, with several teachers at the Centro em Movimento and the Fórum Dança, in 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 in these classes were Feldenkrais, Hands-on and Body-Mind-Centering, later beautifully complemented in other contexts wih the study of Tai Chi (masters Xuan Wu and Mohamed Youssouf) and Kung-Fu (masters Guilherme Luz and Mohamed Youssouf), Theater Nô (Masato Matsuura) and Butô (with the late Kō Murobushi). Attending Félix Lozano's Movement for Theatre classes also helped me undesrtand a great deal about working with intention, instinct and energy in performing situations. The early 2000's were a very rich period in Portugal, culturally speaking, a time where many non-European dances arrived in the country. In this context, I had the opportunity to study intensively Middle-Eastern dance and percussion, particularly 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. I studied Middle-Eastern dance, as well, with artists such as Prisca Diedrich, Shokry Mohamed, Nur Bau, Tânia Luíz, Eva Chacón, Fadua Chuffi and Annie Nganou, in Portugal and Spain. However, I was now feeling again the need to explore other layers of my being and my experience of the body, the mind and the soul. This led me to study Yoga with Beatriz Katchi, creator of Integral Yoga in Portugal, who introduced me to the Buddhist meditation practice, through Tsering Paldron, a Portuguese Buddhist Nun, who she used to invite to her classes. This was also the period when I met Franco-Hungarian dancer Yumma Mudra, founder of the Danza Duende International School, an encounter wich was extremely important in my experience and understanding of art. 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 performing. By that time she was creating the foundations of the Danza Duende School, a training which I followed since its very beginnings. She was inspired by the tradition of the wisdom dakinis, according to the Tibetan cosmovision, and the work of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, gathering in her art important keys and tools to work on the understanding and transforming of one's emotions. The work on perceptions based on an awareness of space practice along with a non-dual approach to art were other important elements in her work. Yumma, thus, introduced me to the Dharma. Bringing a more sacred meaning to dance and art seemed to be the missing key I had been longing for since a long time. A certified instructor in Danza Duende, I started teaching Gipsy Duende in Portugal and other countries of Europe in 2003, following an invitation by Yumma, and in 2015 I started facilitating one week retreats in nature with my colleague Carolina Fonseca. In the context of my studies of Gypsy Duende, I specialized in dances and rhythms of the Romani culture of several European countries (read more about my journey with Flamenco and Romani Dances here). In 2017 the Danza Duende School was reformed, on the occasion of the invitation of artist Michel Raji as guest teacher. M. Raji brought Sensorium, a unique approach to breath work, based on his cultural bereber sufi heritage and bio-cartograhpy. Together, Yumma and Raji founded the University of Choreosophy, structured in three years of studies, bringing together the tools of Danza Duende and those of Michel Raji's Choreosophy: a training I completed in 2021. Apart from my dance career as a performer, teacher and choreographer, I have also been working as a translator and conference interpreter for thirty years now, having recently translated the first three chapters of Luc Bigé's "La Symbologie du Corps Humain" into Portuguese. As an interpreter, I have worked in the most varied contexts, conferences, forums and world summits, but I wish to highlight my collaboration in the 6th Transnational Meeting of Horizon Programmes on Romani People and Nomads (Porto, 1994), in the I European Forum of Romani Women (Seville, 2007) and in the Conference: Romani Art in Europe - Romani Culture and Art in Portugal and Europe (Idanha-a-Nova, 2010). Born to a Spanish mother and a Portuguese father, who in turn was born in Mozambique to a Portuguese mother and a father of Luso-Goan heritage, I have always felt as a daughter of the world and struggled with the pressure of having to justify a sort of mutliple-faced career, multifaced choices, passions and "identities". Along the years, the more I study art and dance, the more I struggle with names, predefined styles and expressions. I consider myself an eternal apprentice and the passion to continue learning from other beings, artists and cultures keeps on bringing me back to my own path with increased joy. I have recently started studying Somatic Movement with Teresa Prima, I attend contemporary dance classes regularly with Aldara Bizarro and have started to study Persian dances with Kathoon Fallah. A magical journey. In times like those we are living, we are to appreciate life more than ever, to give and receive more than ever, to expand and cultivate the sources of passion, generosity, joy and light with our fellow beings. We "inter-are", as our late beloved Thích Nhất Hạnh used to say. Dance has the power to connect the human being to the cosmos and his/her divine source. It is a tremendous tool for self-healing and for the celebration of the simplest and simultaneously deepest aspects of life, the reflection of the eternal and cyclical movement of all phenomena, to the rhythm of the individual and collective melody... A ritual of life and death, but also - as in a very ancient past - as daily as the rising and the setting of the sun. |
