vaniagala: December 2007

Saturday, December 29, 2007

"Western dance scholars have not used the word ethnic in its objective sense; they have used it as a euphemism for such old fashioned terms as "heathen", "pagan", "savage", or the more recent term "exotic". ...
[D]ue to the social climate which rejects the connotations with which our former words for "they" were invested, and because of a certain sophistication assumed by the apologists for the "they", English-speaking scholars were hard -pressed to find designations for the kinds of non-Western dance which they wished to discuss. "

in "An Anthropologist Looks at Ballet as a Form of Ethnic Dance" by Joann Kealiinohomoku

Thursday, December 06, 2007

"Everybody wants to be perfect, often forgetting that perfection is based on marvelous mistakes"

written on the wall between 1998-2000 EDDC (Arnhem)

Vania Gala

Vânia Gala is a choreographer and researcher based in London. She holds a BA in Dance from EDDC (European Dance Development Center, Arnhem) and Master of Arts in Choreography with Distinction (Trinity Laban). She is a PhD candidate at Kingston University and a PASS studentship awardee. Gala’s research, choreographies and "conversational performances" explore the critical potential of opacity and withdrawal in choreography in the present time. Latest performative interventions include the give&take series at Tate Modern and Mesa para Práticas de Cabeça para Baixo ou de Pernas para o Ar at Museum of Modern Art Calouste Gulbenkian (2019). Collaborations as performer have involved Les Ballets C. de La B., Constanza Macras and Sonia Boyce. She has collaborated as a choreographer with visual artists Sonia Boyce, Harold Hoffeh and Griot theatre company.. Commissions include “Cooling Down Signs” a Pan- European commission by Beyond Front@ performed at Dance Week Festival (HR), D.I.D (AT), Front@ Festival (SI), Bakelit (HU). In 2019 she was awarded Best Choreography Award by Theatre Guide Awards (Portugal) for her collaboration with GRIOT. Her choreographic work has been performed in Angola, Portugal, Norway, Germany, Ireland, UK, Russian Federation and Austria. In 2005 she was awarded with “Best Female Performance” at the Dublin Fringe Festival, was part of Aerowaves Festival at the Place, London and of the 1st Triennial of Luanda (Angola). In 2007 she performed at the 1st African Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Vânia Gala has supervised MA and MFA dissertations (practice-based, practice-as-research and fully written) and has taught practice released based technique, Composition Modules and Choreography. Prior to Trinity Laban Conservatoire for Music and Dance she taught undergraduate modules at Northampton and Kingston Universities.