Body library: beginning movements and possible horizons for the inclusion of dance works in institutional collections
Dance Group of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte. Dance shows. Dance archive. Dance collection. Dance and memory.
This dissertation aims to reflect on the process of creating a dance collection at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN), from the vast understanding that dance is an area of knowledge inserted in the University, we propose the beginning of a memory for the dance. It presents the choreographic works of the Dance Group of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (GDUFRN) as artistic dance works resulting from body research, laboratories and body studies, carried out by its components. It understands the GDUFRN shows as artistic and cultural heritage worthy of preservation and dissemination, over thirty years of existence, via a university extension project. Part of the most recent work by GDUFRN – “(Des)Caminhos” – as a potential show to be studied and made available in UFRN's Acervus system. It discusses the philosophy and memory of dance, highlighting their understandings and differences to highlight what is possible to keep from this ephemeral art. It considers the historical concern of preserving the artistic performances of the performing arts in contrast to what is possible to archive in dance. It highlights the urgency of building a dance collection based on national and institutional cultural policies. Through the reports of the dancers-performers-creators of GDUFRN and other materials linked to the event, using Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological-existentialist methodology as a guideline, for understanding the body as a carrier of knowledge and dance as a phenomenon intertwined with experience. of the subject in its time, in which we are also objects. As a result, the access points and specific characteristics are highlighted for dance to occupy the collections, concluding that there is a possible path to the beginning of the memory of dance at UFRN, through a live and interconnected archive, linked to the University.