Gabriela Holanda

Presentation/Mini-bio:

Gabriela Holanda is a dancer, performer, custom designer, researcher and art educator. Master (Federal University of Bahia, 2019) and bachelor (Federal University of Pernambuco, 2014) in Performing Arts, has been drawn to contemporary dance, performance, theater, somatic education and ecology. The artist-researcher is the creator of Sopro d’água, a performing project in which, through compositions and ecoperformance, photo performance and contemporary dance, highlights from the environmental and water existence of the human being until the contemporary environmental collapse. Today she develops the project Memórias de um ex-rio (Memories of a former river),where ecoperformance and documentary meet. As a teacher she has founded Oficina Corpo-Ambiente em Fluxo, proposing composite investigations about the relation between body and environment, ecoperformance and composition sited at the place. As an artist she worked in many dance productions, theater and audiovisual. Between 2011 and 2017 she acted as a performer/actress and dancer at Grupo Totem. As a researcher Gabriela has contributed in groups at the Federal University of Bahia, such as: CORPOLUMEN, a network of studies of the body, image and dance creation (coordinated by Daniela Guimarães); GIPE-CORPO (coordinated by Leonardo Sebiane).

About her work:

Sopro d’Água (In-person or Online)

It transpires our aquatic and environmental dimension, going through ancestral memories to the urgency of the hidric matter. The performance conceives water as a geo ancestral materiality that allows the intercommunication of bodies, times and spaces, supporting itself on the understanding that we are water. When pulsing the environmental existence in the scene, through the materiality of the body, a question arises: what is the place of the water in a society merging with environmental collapse? Processual creation in dance, Sopro D'Água engendered unfoldings: show, ecoperformance, photo performance and academic research. Sopro D'Água's version in dance show format was shown in 2019, right after its research conclusion (Sopro d'água: body-environment in flow, creating (de)compositions in dance), developed during the Masters in Performing Arts at the Federal University of Bahia. The performance has already been presented in Festivals such as: FETEAG 2019, Janeiro de Grandes Espetáculos 2021, FETEAG Digital 2020 (online version) and Janeiro Sem Censura 2021 (online version). Today Sopro d'Água can be performed in two formats to meet the audience: spectacle (in-person or on-line) and photo performance exhibition (in-person or on-line). The creation for stages was conceived in a dialogue with Daniela Guimarães (stage direction) and Thiago Neves (original soundtrack, live). The exhibition and photo performance was developed in partnership with two photographers: Thais Lima and Aline van der Linden.

Oficina Corpo-Ambiente em Fluxo (in-person or online)

An ecoperformance workshop based on the investigation of composite transdisciplinary strategies, through the connection between the body and the environment, a composition situated on the location and artvisim. The workshop aims to research and disseminate ways of composing boosted by the flow between the body and the environment, expanding the body conscience and socio-environment of the one who performs to the composite possibilities of the location: body and environment, body and community, body and place, body and city. Throughout the formation practical and theoretical problems related to the Ecoperformance will be pointed out, from the scenic composition from the bibulous relation between body and environment, until the discussion of artivism and the approach of the performative action and political one, amidst the social-environmental policies. From a practice that embraced ecoperformance to contemporary art principles, ecossomatic, ecofeminism and somatic-performative approach, we will experience the perception of the body in motion, in-sync with the environment, stimulating each student/creator to investigate their own copositive strategies, on the place and/or environment they live. Propelled by the memory and affective relation with the location and the socio environmental matters that happen in their community or in their personal history, students will be encouraged to develop composite cells. The workshop was conceived by Gabriela Holanda, supported in her artistic/academic research, and can be configured in various sizes from 6 hours to 20 hours, in-person or online. The formation can be developed only with Gabriela Holanda, or with a transdisciplinary staff with: Milena Marques (voice-movement), José Cirilo (performative word) and Thiago Neves (sonority). This workshop was also developed online, through the Training and Research Bill LAB-PE (Aldir Blanc) between February and March, 2021/