Tell us about your dance studies.
I stared to study dance when I was 13 years old in Barbacena State Minas
Gerais in Brazil. My first dance classes were classical ballet with Myriam Mockdece at the State of Minas Gerais. She introduced me to the Royal Academy of Dance method. Marianne Mockdece as well introduced me other dance techniques like release technique, Limon technique and floor work. Following my wish to become a teacher I met my mentor Luiz Carlos Nogueira (ARAD), at the State of Sao Paulo and then completed the Teaching Certificate Program RAD as a classical ballet teacher.
I later studied at the Palucca University of Dance and graduated with a MA of Arts Choreography. I was awarded a Scholarship for the Six Weeks School Program at American Dance Festival at the Durham University in the USA. Following this I was supported by DAAD/German Academic Exchange Service award as an outstanding foreign student in Germany and also received a scholarship from the Saxony Ministry for Education in order to complete my pedagogic and artistic master degree at the Palucca University, under the mentorship of Jason Beechey.
Tell us about your career as a dancer.
In Brazil I starting performing classical and contemporary repertoires for different schools, in various competitions across the country. This allowed me to gain a lot of stage experience and I then began to collaborate with Grupo AME de DANCA and create small pieces. In Germany, I continued to work as a dancer for in several theatres, projects and companies in NRW and Saxony. I have worked as a performer/mover for different directors in mixed-abled contexts such as UN-LABEL COMPANY and have developed parallel my own projects in Galeries, Museums, Site-specific locations and for festivals across Europe.
When did you move to Germany and why?
In 2002 I was in London to receive my certificate from the Royal Academy of Dance and I was offered a one year teacher contract at a dance school in the Münsterland Region. I was very interested in learning another culture and a second language so I accepted the position. And I’m still in Germany! Why? Maybe because it should be like this. Here my family grows, I made new, wonderful friends, I’ve gotten
to know myself in another context. I have been able to develop, not just my work and my art, but myself and strengthen my identity.
Why did you start choreographing? And what was your first creation?
Before I started formal dance training, as a young boy around 10 Years old, I organized events in my neighbourhood where I choreographed cat walk type of shows. Choreographing seemed to come naturally to me! My official debut as a choreographer was in 2001 for the Musical SER MINAS TAO GERAIS with the singer Milton Nascimento, Grupo Ponto de Partida and 40 children from the Meninos de Aracuaí. The Musical toured across Brazil, was made into a DVD, and was invited to a Festival at Champes de Elysee in Paris. Subsequently I received many invitations from other directors and choreographers and decided to study choreography and composition.
My first creation was BACH-BACENA - Just a little bit (A) Normal for the Dance Company of Theatre Görlitz. The piece became part of the company’s repertoire and was also acquired as repertoire for the Brazilian company Grupo Primeiro Ato.
Reflecting on my choreographic journey leads me to realise that I am often choreographing unconsciously. Choreographic strategies are integrated in my routine and daily activities. Extracting pictures around me, creating metaphors through movements in time and space is a way to make my life softer and to escape to other realities. Choreographing is inherent to me.
From where you take inspiration for your creations?
There is no one way or method to be inspired. For me, being inspired means being open, and being aware of events around me. Very often simple matches of colours, words, movements, statements and nature inspires me. Cinema, Museums, Galleries and even hardware stores are places where I love to spend time. There, I have the feeling I prepare the foundations of my creativity.
Further sources of inspiration come from different philosophers like Foucault and Rancière, or from scientific theories like entropy, heterotopias, dystopias, dichotomies. Often sociological developments generate a need in me to explore breaking taboos and open discourses through non-verbal and body languages.
Additionally, classical and contemporary musical composers/compositions can underline or support my inspirations and wrap together the fragments in my mind of time, space, metaphors, feelings and statements.
Your first time as a director was at Landesbühnen Sachsen. How was it?
It was a very important, challenging and incredible experience in my life. After working as a freelancer, making the decision to come back to the state theatre system in another position wasn’t easy. In the past I had seen how hierarchical creative and administrative systems influenced creation and productions. However I felt I had grown a lot and was optimistic about taking small steps within the system to open the processes of creating and producing dance.
The pandemic turned out to be advantageous for me as it provided me opportunities to take unconventional pathways through productions, projects and administration in the fairly rigid state theatre system. I was very lucky to have the backing of the Intendant, Manuel Schöbel, who supported me in implementing my visions of audience and ensemble accessibility and diversity, site-specific and digital projects around Saxony,
expanding horizons for new concepts for audience development and cooperations with other houses like Festspielhaus Hellerau. In partnership with Kulturstiftung des Bundes, we created and produced mixed-abled productions and new formats like relaxed performances as well as education programs for employers. What we achieved in just two years (realistically planned for 5 years) was really incredible! I’m so grateful for the opportunity and time I spent with this important theatre of saxony.
Now you are directing the ballet ensemble in Regensburg, how is it?
Theatre Regensburg and the city of Regensburg has been an absolute gift for me. I am very happy with ensemble of versatile, diverse and talented dancers/performers. It is a pleasure and honour for me to share so many processes, experiences and productions with them. Our production Dance LAB, will be produced now for the third season in a row. This format gives the dancers the chance to choreograph and present their own work with my mentorship and the support of a professional team. It is great to see the young choreographers experimenting and developing their own choreographic language.
I am also very much enjoying collaborating with other departments such as the Drama, Youth theatre and Musical departments, where our collaborations have proved to be fruitful not only for us as artists, but also for audiences. We have a close connection to our audience which I believe is quite unique. Regensburg audiences are enthusiastic and passionate about dance and over the last two seasons we have enjoyed very well sold performances.
The work together with Intendant Sebastian Rietschel is rewarding and fulfilling. Together we are creating and producing a wide range of theatre productions which go beyond traditional theatre performances. We are producing works for public spaces and for children and youths. We are creating works that are sustainable, interdisciplinary and we are developing strategies for more accessibility in our performances by holding audio description and sign language workshops as well as offering relaxed performances formats.
It is extremely pleasing to see our efforts coming to fruition and that the high expectations are being met with an extremely high standard of productions. We have won an number awards including Germany Broadway Awards for the my Solo Performance I PLAY D(E)AD.
As of next season Theater Regensburg will be promoted to a Staatstheater. It is an exciting achievement for the theatre, and the city of Regensburg, and will see the dance company expand from 10 to 12 full time dancers. Considering the current situation where many cultural systems and institutions face budget and funding cuts, this is a happy triumph for the dance scene in Bavaria.
Overall there are very exciting things happening here and I believe our future as a Staatstheater is going to be exceptional!
What are you looking for from your dancers?
I look for very diverse ways of performing dance, performances and other languages. The career as a dancer can be short and sometimes perhaps not very healthy. The intensity or sometimes the obsession
about technique and dance codes can break the artistic process and create dancers who are like robots and machines, just reproducing steps. I believe that artists need to be hard workers with strong personalities and have a passion for their art and way of expressing. A technical standard is the base which I expect from a dancer. From here I am interested how technical skills can be developed though an artistic process and can support the final product. It is also very important for me how people work together. I ask my dancers to understand the various roles within the company/production, to recognise we are a team striving towards a goal, however we are also individuals with individual goals, issues, wishes. I aim to consider all these parameters to create a safe, concentrated and respectful environment. Being professional, patient, passionate, empathetic and collaborative is what I’m looking for in dancers.
Tell us about your next projects.
I am very much looking forward to my next project, EINE WINTERREISE. The work will be a piece for 10 dancers and 1 Tenor with the Philharmonic Orchestra Regensburg led by the wonderful Tom Woods. The piece will be performed on the main stage at Bismarckplatz, a great privilege and affords us many technical possibilities. We have an amazing stage and costume design created by Kristopher Kempf. Kristopher has designed a very mobile stage which will require the performers to be very flexible and question how they can approach simple parameters like travel, sliding, running, jumping. The piece will examine the inside and outside spaces of humans traveling between life and death.
The premiere for the piece is 15th of March.
Following this I have a project called PASSAGEN a dance intervention in public spaces in Regensburg.
The work should take the dance company out of our comfort zone and close to the audience. This will aim to integrate architectures and bodies in a kind of mobile performative installation in many beautiful places in Regensburg and surrounds, intending to connect with audiences who might otherwise have less contact with dance, theatre and even art.
What do you think about the German dance scene?
It’s wonderful and almost incredible how many possibilities dance artists have in Germany. Germany is very unique in the way of how dance is supported and how the audience consume dance. There is a huge
spectrum of dance languages, formats, institutions and ways of making and producing dance. From education and exchange programs through to professional fields for independent artists up to big institutions like
state theatres, the dance scene in Germany is so diverse. However, I do see gaps within these different structures and areas to be improved. For example, mixed-abled professional artists and companies are still not adequately supported and there is not really an opening in the big institutions for non-normative bodies and disabled artists. Small and very slow steps are happening but I believe we are still very far away from
satisfactory accessibility in dance.
Every year you organize a dance gala for Aids, tell us more about it.
Yes. This is a tradition in Regensburg which I have had the honour to curate and support. The first AIDS Tanz Gala was held 21 years ago following the idea of director Ricardo Fernando (now director of dance in Augsburg). The gala is a special event in the Regensburg calendar and brings international artists together for one evening of dance in Regensburg, tickets always sell out very quickly! The gala is a collaboration between the Jazz Club Regensburg, the AIDS Beratungsstelle Oberpfalz and the Theatre Regensburg. Additional supporters and sponsors always make this evening a magical moment for the audience, for the guests and of course for the institutions who we a raising funds for. I always love to see how this event highlights how dance connects us and how it can transform realities.
What are you doing when you are not working
Trying to empty my mind by hiking, traveling, visiting exhibitions, watching movies, cooking and of course spending time with my kids and friends. Spending time by myself and with nature makes me happier and helps me avoid letting my work define me. I realised early on in my career that it is important to understand that my art and my work are part of me, part of my life, but it are not all of me. My art should never be absolute. Otherwise I get dry, frustrated, bitter, and sad. And my art should be there to make me happy and fulfilled.