Evolving an arts culture and deepening dance — reflections in Brazil
Continued study is important in the Rejoice! Company. For my 2023 summer research, I immersed myself in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, along with Rejoice Artistic Director Oluyinka Akinjiola, hosted by Viver Brasil via their “Dancing at the Source” program.
“It’s not enough to practice our art, we need to be talking about it”. That quote stuck with me. It’s from one of the many great teaching artists I met in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. It describes the perspective of many scholarly artists I met there. They are not just practicing their art at high levels, they are working to continue, uplift, and evolve the art and culture via discourse and language. This is one of many takeaways from my time in Salvador.
What is culture? Lately, I’m working with this definition: the shared meaning of social practices and local phenomena. Meaning can be subjective. It starts with the individual’s felt experience. If I reflect, I can interpret the meaning of club dancing to me. Put language to the emotion, to the feeling. If I share my interpretation with collaborators, they may resonate with it, providing us with a shared interpretation. We can share understanding of what it means to gather and dance like we do. This is so important because it creates a shared motivation to continue. It creates a shared perspective to evolve from. This is one of my biggest take-aways from Salvador. It speaks to how I can help deepen and support the cultures I’m a part of here in Portland. Also, how Rejoice can further imbue our movements with meaning.
In Salvador, the practice of interpreting experience empowered dance teachers to convey the emotional context and meaning of Brazilian dances. Teachers tried their best to create context for the dances in our class room (through live drumming and stories). They would also describe the meaning of each movement. For example, our teacher Vera Passos wasn’t just lifting an arm, she was holding Oxum’s mirror, looking into it, admiring herself. This admiration was also a distraction. She was seeing behind her in the mirror, checking for threats. This meaning was all present in her face, her energy, her movement qualities. The meaning of Vera’s arm could change from day to day, because her inner-world is always changing. Interpreting the meaning of the movement helped students share a motivation for the movement. This is why it’s important to continue talking about meaning, and continue talking about the felt experience of our artistic practices. Meaning is not static. It’s fully present, and as ever changing as our feelings.
Meaning can follow movement, but movement can also follow meaning. Sometimes our teachers would lead us in movements of their vernacular and then interpret for us after. That interpretation could differ day to day. Maybe they started moving to the drums in a way that felt connected and harmonious. Then, to take us with them, they had to interpret their own movement. They have to ask themselves questions like, “Why am I moving like this? Why does this feel good? What story could this be a part of?” Other times, they would start by telling us a religious story from Candomblé, or describing the scene of a Maracatú parade. They would communicate the feeling of those spaces through facial expressions, emotional energy, and movement. Then, they would facilitate us to move with that feeling. In this way, the movement followed the meaning.
Interpreting our world helps create culture. Every measurable thing — a movement, a rhythm — has an internal immeasurable correlate: an emotion, an energy, a significance. It is important that we find these correlations, that we imbue our world with meaning. Meaning cannot be found with scientific tools, it can only be interpreted through dialogue. As Ken Wilbur says in A Brief History of Everything, “a brain can be imaged and analyzed for all of its measurable properties (physical, chemical, electrical, etc) but we still won’t know what thought is inside.” The inner world of people is only discoverable through dialogue and interpretation. We have to meet. We have to share our feelings and thoughts, through words, feelings, and through art. Meaning gives us purpose, motivation, and spiritually connects us to the physical.
The Afro-Brazilian dances we were learning in a studio, all originate in a meaningful cultural context. There’s a specific energy accompanying and motivating each dance. In Salvador, I had the fortune to attend two Candomblé ceremonies. One was a Caboclo ceremony and one was for the birth of Exu, where many Orixas manifested. Seeing the original context of dances we were learning in class, provided a deeper understanding of the meaning of these dances. I could feel the energy behind the movement, the emotion, the significance. Now, when I dance samba de Caboclo, I carry that experience with me. I can draw upon the emotional and spiritual context of experiences.
Moving forward, I’m still digesting my learnings from Salvador, Bahia, Brasil. In Portland, in my artistic communities, I’m looking forward to interpreting my experiences more. To understand what these social gatherings mean to me. What I feel in those spaces. I hope to engage others with dialogue about what our art means to them, what our gathering means to them. Gradually, we may build a shared meaning and strengthen our culture. I also desire to imbue my choreography and movements with more meaning. Giving each lift of an arm as much significance as Vera’s.
Links
- Viver Brasil — www.viverbrasil.com
- Dancing at the Source — www.viverbrasil.com/dancing-at-the-source
