Dance not dance — Archaeologies of new dance in Portugal — offers an embodied journey through different manifestations of dance that have marked the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century.

As the result of a long collaborative research, this performance cycle and exhibition were curated through a process of gathering various archival materials (audiovisual records, photographs, posters, publications, ephemera, scores…), framed within a comprehensive view of social and cultural shifts and discussions regarding what constitutes dance. As a frequent contributor to the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, I was responsible for photographing all rehearsals and performances, preserving the creative process and the impermanence of movement.

The program concluded with the exhibition, held from 15 November 2024 to 13 January 2025, accompanied by the release of a catalog. This exhibition marked the end of a two-year initiative structured around three key axes: a series of (re)performances, films, and talks. Each axis explored the 20th and early 21st centuries, challenging linear narratives of time and offering diverse perspectives on the history of dance, with each component reflecting and echoing the others.

If the New Dance of the late 1980s and early 1990s is a moment, as André Lepecki says, when ‘dancing bodies reflecting the nervousness of history’ emerge, this exhibition takes it as a starting point to interrogate that nervousness through experiences that alter what is understood by dance and destabilise notions of the body (and its representations) in society.

ORIGINAL TITLEDança Não Dança

CURATORSAna Bigotte Vieira
Ana Dinger
Carlos Oliveira
João dos Santos Martins

EXHIBITION DESIGNRomain Guillet
Sarah Vadé