Since I was a child, I expressed myself through dance. I remember dancing forró at home, with my grandmother’s friends, at birthday parties. I also enjoyed doing dance covers of Brazilian songs. I participated in an Axé music group when I was eight years old. The Axé rhythm, which is characterized by sensuality and the sway of the body, for many at that time was not a suitable type of dance for men. (What is being a man?) That’s when I felt the first traumas in relation to this form of expression. I experienced many instances of homophobia before I broke with this style and migrated to breakdancing when I was 10 years old.

But I didn’t fit into this modality. It belongs to a very macho world, in which I couldn’t connect with the guys who were older than me. Later I discovered urban dance, where I could express myself more freely. The first group I was part of was BnG (Boys and Girls) in Planaltina–DF, where I was able to dedicate myself and live intensely in the movement of urban dance, together with this group, participating in festivals and local competitions in Brasília and its surroundings.

When Mário Serdan took over directing the group, the demands increased and the intensity of training and competitions also increased, reaching a professional level, with training every day of the week, sometimes more than 10 hours a day. This helped me a lot technically, but also created traumas and blockages in this means of expression without my noticing. At the age of 15, in parallel, I joined a contemporary dance company directed by choreographer Alexandre Reis, in Brasília, where I was able to reconnect little by little to a less technical and more meaningful rhythm and dance style. Soon after, I finished my cycle in the BnG group and was accepted at Tribo Cia de Dança, also in Brasília. The group was at that time considered one of the best street dance/jazz groups in the city. I stayed with them for 3 years.

These two new experiences added a lot to my technique, but other fears and blockages were created by the demanding level of competitions and comparisons, to the point of destroying my confidence in my dancing.

At 19, I moved to São Paulo and, until I was 24, I had no connection with the dance world. But there was something wrong: my body and heart were missing something, which I gradually realized was the desire to go back to dancing. Some friends had become teachers and were giving workshops in São Paulo, so I decided to try to return. The first class was enough for the fears and insecurities to come to the surface, blocking my movements and spontaneity. I tried more classes, but there was an energy of competition in the dance studios that scared me.

In 2018, I had a revealing experience during an event called SAIA PRA SANTA, on the outskirts of São Paulo. It was something totally new, something I’d never experienced. We were there, in a group of 20 people, all together to express ourselves freely, to dance with movements that had not been predetermined. We weren’t comparing, we weren’t competing, we were just dancing from the inside out. There were seven days of programming very well thought out by the project’s creators, in which the participants had the opportunity to rediscover themselves in various ways, with a lot of emotion, healing, and lightness. After this experience, I tried to sustain the practice of dance in my life, but I was already determined not to attend workshops in traditional dance studios anymore. To my surprise, in 2019, I received an invitation to return to SAIA PRA SANTA III again, an experience which gave definitive confirmation of the importance of this means of expression in my life. During this edition, many things happened in group classes, but I also had individual experiences in the midst of nature, almost inexplicable, through which I could see the blossoming of my inner dance. At that moment, fear and insecurity died to give birth to trust, the intuitive way, and the free movement of the body.

From then on, dance established a priority place within my means of artistic expression. But the only way to sustain this pillar is through practice. Practicing brings new fruits, self-understanding, and connections that grow stronger and more inexplicable. Today, nature has been my great stage. Alone with it, I can connect with the seas, rivers, forests, lands, and animals, creating moments of intimacy that I sometimes share with the world…or not.

FLIGHT: Dance manifested during artistic residency in the TECNO BARCA III project in the Bailique Region – Amapa Brazil, July 2019. Photos by: Thales Lima

Surrender: Dance manifested during artistic residency in Bahia – Salvador, Brazil with support from Casa di MARÉ . December 2020. Photos by: Engels Miranda

Ode to Atlântica
An evocation of dance and mystery

After a long and intense period of living in large  cities, I returned to  Brazil in search of my sacred cradle: the  forests and the rivers. In this reunion, I, the forces of  nature, and the grand mystery overrun our boundaries in a communion which generates new encounters,  movements, and sensations.
Brazil, north coast / Boiçucanga Photos: Arthur Macfadem.