Artistic and Teaching Philosophy

Education is the core of my art, just like good educators are at the heart of transformative and innovative dance. As a progressive educator from the Bazilian Amazon, I come from a school of thought informed by Paulo Freire’s work and my ancestors’ artistic activism. Like Freire, I defend that “Education either functions as an instrument to bring about conformity or freedom.” I use dance as the language through which we can understand freedom as a result of an equitable society. Movement thus becomes a catalyst to disrupt the predatory systems that push us away from our humanity. Those ideas are the driving force of my pedagogy which works towards transformative relationships, healthy flow instead of hustle,  and creative, sustainable futures. In order words, I actively engage with anti-racist, culturally relevant, and multicultural strategies in the classroom and in any space where learning happens.

While living in the Brazilian Amazon, I had the opportunity to shape the identity of a dance space from scratch as a founding member of Companhia e Escola Mirai de Dança (Mirai Dance Company and School). From these experiences, I started Cuíra (“curious” or “itchy”), an interdisciplinary methodology of movement storytelling that informs my collaborative processes. We investigate the cultures that compose our identities and the stories, myths, and legends that form so much of our imagination. In my pedagogy, movement and storytelling center the body as a sentient archive that brings education back to our bodies and disrupts cartesian thinking. That approach welcomes and values the stories of underserved populations to honor our intersectionalities and build allyship in the classroom.

Whether teaching composition, contemporary, Waacking, Hip Hop or improvisation, I invite students to explore the dynamic between body and culture through interdisciplinary ethnographic research. Because I understand dance as a social science and an art form, I offer students strategies for seeing and analyzing movement as a source of inquiry. In that respect, I present the Klauss Vianna Technique, which prioritizes movement investigation to build a healthy foundation that embraces the complexity of the body as a cultural agent. That appears when students align specific vocabularies with the techniques they have acquired outside the dance room. I use examples from ordinary moments, such as holding our core to avoid being propelled forward when the bus stops suddenly, leaping over a puddle, or picking up an infant from the floor. Using those examples parallel to specific dance vocabulary makes it easier for students to understand dance as part of a human experience beyond entertainment.

To honor my commitment to my multicultural and anti-racist philosophy, one of my strategies is to discuss cultural appropriation and appreciation and how that has appeared in western dance history. Students and I discuss how the former phenomenon connects to systemic inequality, racism, and predatory systems. Fomenting this discussion is part of building a healthy environment that also includes understanding positionality. I create a space where all voices are heard and held accountable through community agreements that vary from class to class. That philosophy also inspires how we assess each other (students and educators) through individualized planning, self, and collaborative “grading.” My students know they will become leaders in their learning experience as soon they step into the classroom. They will physically challenge, mentally inspire, and emotionally embrace one another. That is one of the ways that I help them to forge sustainable paths through art and become agents of transformative change in their communities.