Thinking a study plan is always a conflict between the ideal and the possible, between a certain imposition of a way of seeing and being in the world, and the creation of conditions to originate other worlds. In the words of Rabindranath Tagore, education is of no use but to respond and to rid ourselves of the “suicidal aggressiveness of collective selfishness”. This program is no more than that. Focused on experimentation, it will seek to challenge the paradigms of contemporary dance and choreography through the activation of a critical and discursive positioning, although always committed to these practices. But this program is mainly thought of as a protected time and place to encourage all participants to develop and analyze their artistic practice in a collective environment, intellectual and artistically stimulating.
In this program classes are not distinguished between ‘technical’, ‘research’ or other. We assume that there can be no distinction between practical and theoretical knowledge and that it is this division that induces an alienation in the work itself. The program is based solely on the proposals of the artists and speakers who will spend time with the participants, enhancing common experiences of questioning and transformation. The invited speakers share the need to demystify the body/head, action/thought, practice/theory dichotomies, seeking to articulate discourse and practice as integral parts and members of ways of making and thinking, and not as opposite poles.
We believe in the practice of dance as a support for artistic practice that is in permanent dialogue with other supports and with the genealogies of the history of art in general. We will seek a dialogue with these various ‘supports’ and with the agents who practice them, through visits to local artists’ studios and partnerships with surrounding structures and institutions who establish bridges with the local artistic context. And as art making is always in dialogue with its ways of apprehension, the program is continually reinforced with visits to exhibitions, film screening, going to shows and conferences of agents from various domains.
We believe that part of the artistic labor is necessarily self-taught. In this sense, we will privilege the cultivation of a space for sharing, collaboration and group work in order to build common knowledge and experiences that encourage participants to deepen their practices, individually or collectively. During the duration of the program, studios will be available so that participants can develop their work whose processes will be shared over six months. At the end of the cycle all participants should publicly present their work, articulating thus, as Rancière says, “the ways of doing, their corresponding forms of visibility and the possible ways of thinking their relations”.
– João dos Santos Martins