Associate Professor and Researcher at the Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM). Completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Faculty of Human Kinetics, University of Lisbon, in 2024, and at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) in 2011. Holds a Ph.D. in Performing Arts from the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), a Master's degree in Arts/Dance from New York University (NYU), United States, and a Bachelor's degree in Social Communication from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUC-RS). Dance researcher with training at the School of American Ballet and Joffrey Ballet School, both in New York, and professional experience with the Pennsylvania Ballet, Berlin Opera Ballet, and Röthlisberger Dance Company. Participated in an online performance with Cim Companhia de Dança.
Assistant Professor and Researcher at the Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM). Currently pursuing a postdoctoral fellowship in the Graduate Program in Dance at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). Holds a Ph.D. and a Master’s degree in Performing Arts from the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) and a Bachelor's degree in Performing Arts from the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO). Trained as a director and performer in the Dancer-Researcher-Performer (Bailarino-Pesquisador-Intérprete – BPI) Method, participating as a researcher in the BPI Research Group at UNICAMP. Coordinates the BPI Laboratory at UFSM, conducts research within GrupAR (Ancestralities in Networks at UFRJ), and is a member of the International Network for Studies on Presence at UFRGS. His research focuses on Brazilian cultures and diversities, ancestral, Afro-diasporic, and Indigenous perspectives, fostering counter-colonial dialogues to rethink dance creation and education.
Pena [Pitiful Feathers] is one of the outcomes of a postdoctoral research project developed at the Human Kinetics Faculty, University of Lisbon, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Elisabete Monteiro. Entitled Possible Ballet, the study proposes improvisation practices based on the principles of movement and the structure of a ballet class, allowing each individual to approach the technique according to their own possibilities and interests, through the translation, adaptation, and reinvention of movements. This approach emerges from a long-standing engagement with ballet technique in a professional dance trajectory that includes training at the School of American Ballet and the Joffrey Ballet School, as well as professional experience with major companies such as the Berlin Opera Ballet and the Pennsylvannia Ballet—institutions that uphold an aesthetic of the able-bodied dance (Albright, 1997). Furthermore, the research also draws on disability studies, informed by the lived experience of a stroke, leading to a critical re-evaluation of values and perspectives related to dance and participation in scenic projects involving mixed-ability casts. The deepening of Possible Ballet procedures, not only as a pedagogical approach but also as a creative device, contributes to the field of disability studies and expands the poetic potential of this proposal, which adopts practice-based research as its methodological approach. The creative process of the scenic proposal Pitiful Feathers—the focus selected for this text—puts into action the exercise of thinking the space as a space for propositions (Teixeira, 2011). It also responds to calls by various authors for aesthetic innovation in ballet and contributes to the confrontation of the symbolic and ideological meanings assigned to the disabled body in contemporary culture (Albright, 2001). Given its relationship with canonical works of the classical ballet repertoire, It aligns with what Midgelow (2007) refers to as reworking.
References
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Albright, A. C. (1997). Choreographing difference: The body and identity in contemporary dance. Wesleyan University Press.
Albright, A. C. (2001). Strategic abilities: Negotiating the disabled body in dance. In A. Dils & A. C. Albright (Eds.), Moving history/dance cultures: A dance history reader (pp. 56–70). Wesleyan University Press.
Alencar, J. (2020). Drag cisne: Barbie & balé. In R. Ferreira & E. Santos (Eds.), Pesquisa em balé no Brasil – panoramas sobre história, ensino e cena (pp. 155–165). Editora IFG.
Brown, D. (2014). Ballet, Why and How?: on the role of classical ballet in dance education. Arnhem:ArtEZ Press.
Gleich, J., & Faulkner, M. (2021). Ballet at the margins: Karole Armitage and Bronislava Nijinska. In K. Farrugia-Kriel & J. N. Jensen (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of contemporary ballet (pp. 62-80). Oxford University Press.
Hermans, C. (2016). Differences in itself: Redefining disability through dance. Social Inclusion, 4(4), 160–167. https://doi.org/10.17645/si.v4i4.699
Kuppers, P. (2003). Disability and contemporary performance: bodies on edge. Routledge.
Midgelow, V. (2007). Reworking the ballet: Counter-narratives and alternative bodies. Routledge.
Ritenburg, H. M. (2010). Frozen landscapes: A Foucauldian genealogy of the ideal ballet dancer’s body. Research in Dance Education, 11(1), 71–85. https://doi.org/10.1080/14647891003671775
Rodrigues, G. E. F. (2003). O método BPI (bailarino-pesquisador-intérprete) e o desenvolvimento da imagem corporal: Reflexões que consideram o discurso de bailarinas que vivenciaram um processo criativo baseado neste método [Tese de doutoramento, Universidade Estadual de Campinas]. Repositório da UNICAMP. https://doi.org/10.47749/T/UNICAMP.2003.289138
Rosa, P. S. da. (2022). Estética do (Im)Possível: A deficiência como potência na criação cênica [Dissertação de mestrado, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul]. Lume Repositório Digital. http://hdl.handle.net/10183/246206
Teixeira, C. (2011). Deficiência em cena. Editora Ideia.
Zeller, J. (2021). ‘Can you feel it?’: Pioneering pedagogies that challenge ballet’s authoritarian traditions. In A. Akinleye (Ed.), (Re:) claiming ballet (pp. 172–188). Intellect Books.
