As others are pushing boundaries, can I push mine and be a dance artist? This video is part  of that challenge.

My phD research is about “The choreographer as an author: Portuguese contemporary dance in 21th century through the analyses of processes”.

As I began to investigate, I began to think about the old ghost of the "virtuous" and how this might function as an impediment. However, dance has developed in different directions and contemporary European dance has much to say about these other ways of thinking about dance and the relationships it can establish with other artistic forms, with people, with politics. Choreographers such as Boriz Charmatz, Xavier Le Roy, Jérôme Bel, Jonathan Burrows, Mette Ingvartsen, Martin Nachbar, João Fiadeiro, Luís Marrafa, Vera Mantero, just to mention some, have been working on testing the limits of dance and presenting new possibilities.

As Burt puts it by referring to a work by Xavier Le Roy and others: "If one goes regularly to see new European experimental dance performances, one gets used to encountering works that, like Sans titre (2014), does not look like dance and do not seem to be concerned with presenting the conventional dance movement as such.” (Burt 2017 p.3)

Kolb gave me another idea when she states: "Audience participation in theater is perceived by some as a pedagogical instrument and form of artistic activism that is intented to empower oppressed groups of the population by transforming them into creative agents." (Kolb 2013 p .33) And while Kolb takes a critical stance on this claim, which I endorse, I thought I might give the idea an opportunity. Although I do not belong to an oppressed group I would like to test this possibility of empowerment, of transition between the role of the spectator and the role of the artist.

So, following Espinosa's doubt, what would my body be capable of doing? I intend to share the experiences between the idea of ​​experimental dance, far from the virtuoso and the idea that I can emancipate myself and become a creative agent, on a small scale, certainly, breaking or playing with Foucauld's idea of “​​dispositif”. The “dispositif” been the the said and the unsaid that regulates our actions (1954-1988 p.299).

The methodology will be a mimesis of a creative process in contemporary choreography, using the theoretical references and also some choreoghrafical references, playing with Lepecki's concept of "re-enactment", this not as a replica but as a new interpretation of something already existing. As if re-enactments were the most radical gesture an author can make in a world already so full of works.

Being an experimental work the result is naturally unpredictable, otherwise it would have no interest at all. In spite of this it can be said that the proposed methodology will result in a kind of assemblage that makes some relationships between different ways of seeing dance.

Burt, Ramsey (2017). Ungoverning Dance Contemporary European Theatre Dance and the Commons. New York: Oxford University Press. Espinosa, Bento de (1992). Ética. Lisboa. Relógio d’Água. Foucault, Michel (1954-1988). Dits et écrits III 1976-1979. Paris. Éditions Gallimard. Klein, Gabriele (2012). Labour, Life, Art. On the social antthropology of labour in Performance Researc On Labour & Performance, 2012 pp. 4-13. Volume 17. Nº 6. December. London: Routledge. Kolb, Alexandra (2013). Current Trends in Contemporary Choreography: A political critique in Dance Research Journal 45/3 December 2013 p.31-52. Kunst, Bojana (2015). Artist at work. Proximity of Art and Capitalism. Winchester: Zero Books. Lepecki, André (2016). Singularities. Dance in the Age of Performance. London: Routledge. Vujanovic, Ana (2012). Critical Performance Studies A Pactical response to the celebration of new modes of work in performing arts in Performance Researc On Labour & Performance, 2012 pp. 63-71. Volume 17. Nº 6. December. London: Routledge.