Doutorada em estudos artísticos pela Middlesex University (Londres) e licenciada pela Escola Superior de Dança de Lisboa. É autora de mais de 20 artigos científicos e de cultura e três livros: 70 críticas de dança (Caleidoscópio 2020) - escritas para o Jornal Público; Dançar é Crescer – Aldara Bizarro e o Projeto Respira (2012); e NuKreBaiNaBuOnda (Alkantara, 2010). Dirigiu o projecto Dansul – dança para a comunidade no sudeste alentejano (2008-2015). Foi Directora Geral das Artes (Ministério da Cultura-2016-2018) e desde 2019 é investigadora do Instituto de História da Arte e Professora no Mestrado em Artes Cénicas (FCSH/NOVA). Dirige desde 2020 a Companhia Maior. Em 2023 começou a ensinar no Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa - licenciaturas de Dança e Teatro.
Dancers and professionals with disabilities are agents that presently ensure the diversity of dance in Portugal. The theoretical discourse on dance and disability has stressed the political power of bodies and works that address difference due to physical or intellectual disabilities, highlighting their role in dismantling cultural constructs that stigmatize individuals within society. However, in theatrical dance, the conventional body is built under ideals of perfection that reflect a hegemonic power in the arts, that comes from the privileged classes, and that has revealed to be exclusive and prejudiced. Using referential work in performance studies that focus on theatrical practices and dance in particular, this essay seeks an affective and analytical engagement with dancers Mickaella Dantas and Diana Niepce. On the one hand, I wish to show the quality of their performance and discourses, where disability is overcome without being neutralized nor spectacularized, thus seeking to understand their contribution to the language, processes, and themes of contemporary dance. On the other hand, I intend to frame their choreographic practices within the academic discourse on performance and disability.
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Dantas, M. (2021). Composing a physicality: How dance shaped this artist’s relationship to her prosthesis, opening up a new range of movement. Dance Magazine, 95(5), 38–43. https://www.dancemagazine.com/dancing-with-a-prosthesis/
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Julidans. (2023, maio 3). Diana Niepce - The Other Side of Dance [Video]. Canal Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/823288055
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Whatley, S. (2007). Dance and disability: The dancer, the viewer and the presumption of difference. Research in Dance Education, 8(1), 5–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/14647890701272639