ABOUT

Brazilian choreographer and performer Joao holds an MA in Choreography from the Palucca University in Germany (2020). His work focuses primarily on the theme of communication, making use of a cynical, witty, absurd voice to create dance that comments on his understanding of our times.

 

Approaching Choreography as the organization of space, Joao's practice of movement generation integrates with other performative elements such as spoken word, the manipulation of the setting design and theatre. He merges his work as a dance artist with his previous education in theatre that he received in Brazil.

 

Joao looks to create onstage events that offer a complexity of inputs and leave plenty of room for doubt. Inspired by John Keats' term negative knowledge - which speaks on the importance of not knowing to remain receptive and aware - Joao creates works with specificity and craft to offer to the audience a moment of uncertainty.

 

 

A graduate from Arts Umbrella Dance (2013) in Vancouver, Canada, Joao danced with the Ballett der Oper Graz, Austria for five years, under Darrel Toulon and later Jörg Weinöhl, and freelanced for institutions such as the Venice Biennale, the Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg and Wen Wei Dance, performing both as a dancer and actor.

 

His focus on the issues of communication as a theme for his creative work started with the solo piece BILDUNG? (2020), for which he created the choreography, sound design and text. That work then developed to his current movement research on the loss of verticality and the motion of demise as a choreographic representation to the phenomenon of post-truth, which Joao has been diving into for the past three years.