crianças na escola / Foto divulgação

Alagoas, 2007, the second graduation dance course in the northeastern region of Brazil was established, after the creation of the UFBA dance university course in the 1950’s. This conquest raises a series of responsibilities and worries for us. One of them is the perspective of a working field for the students the come out of this graduation. Therefore, the debate about the teaching of dance in schools has had great urgency among us.

Within the wide and complex universe that involves the debates about dance teaching in schools, I intend to deal with some issues related to the context of the state of Alagoas in particular. I place the discussion around the research I develop about the teaching/learning process of Brazilian dances and the possibilities for the school to act as social mediator through such process.
I start from the observation of the Alagoas answer to an elementary question that is part of countless inquiries that permeate the reflections about the teaching of dance: Which dance to teach?

In Alagoas, the so-called folk dances (the ones I refer to as Brazilian dances) are usually defended as indispensable in schools. The discourses in defense of the presence of Brazilian dances in schools are normally justified by the fact that these dances are considered to represent our “cultural roots”. By practicing them, the school would be fulfilling its role of “rescuing tradition” and thus “strengthening the cultural identity”, locally, regionally and nationally.

From such panorama and identifying the way the presence of Brazilian dances in the schools in Alagoas takes place, I ask myself if this way fulfills the goals of the speeches justifying the indispensable presence in school and which notion of tradition and identity such speeches convey.

In Alagoas the occasional presence of Brazilian dances in schools is common, that is, they appear in commemorative events like traditional parties or the month of folklore, for example. This occasional way answers the aspect of the dance practice, of action constituted by the apprehension of a repertory of pre-existing movements. Sometimes, besides the participation in rehearsals, students are asked to do bibliogra¬phic research about the historical aspects of theses dances or the teacher reads reference texts for the audience during the student’s performance.

The reading of theoretical references seems to denote the attempt to give a more profound quality to the relationship established by the dance being performed. However, it can be noted that the historical perspective employed carries a notion of tradition attached to an idea of immutability and stagnation.

How could the child and the youth thus identify with something that is part of a past that does not communicate with dynamics of their contemporary world?

It seems urgent to reflect upon the concept of tradition to, in this manner, find a place that removes the “smell of mould” of Brazilian dances. A place that is distant from the idea that they are activities of the elderly, guardians of our memory and our past and that, for a reason we don´t know quite well which is, we must help keep preserved and unaltered throughout time.

The same worry is present when it comes to thinking about memory. Inserted in the flow of the contemporary and the dynamic peculiar to the new universes with which one relates to, as it happens in the tourist universe, memory has become a “value” and thus the objects one usually connects to (popular culture, particular historical events, characters, etc) are equally subject to the same logics of the circumstances.

It may seem elementary to draw attention to those aspects but, overall, in the context of the schools of Alagoas this is still a string to harp. We must still awake to the need of transformation for the permanence of a tradition, getting us closer to the idea that there is no life without movement, the nature of which engenders in itself the overcoming of the idea that opposites are antonyms. To move forward in the notion of time/space and admit the interrelation between permanence and change. This perspective seems to configure a circular drawing opposed to the linearity brought to us by the notion of a past and an infinite future (would the predominance of circles in traditional dances be a synthetic sign of this perspective?). Therein, the need to consider the contradictory and complementary aspects between tradition and rupture is evident so we can enter into the complexity of the relationships between permanence and change in the contemporary world, above all if we wish to discuss the idea of identities.

Hall (2004) explores the idea that “modern identities are being “decentered”, that is, dislocates or fragmented”. His debate brings to surface dialectical aspects about the notion of decentering that aid the reflection upon the globalization phenomenon in order to analyze it in its contradictory aspects, because, if at first the perspective of homogenization of identities is suggested, on the other hand, the global phenomenon has also brought the tendency to value the local aspects.

When the discussions about the effects of the notorious globalization seem tedious and redundant, as the schools of Alagoas approach traditional dances they are still following the tracks of the “romantic folkloric” perspective. To bring a more concrete approximation of this dialectic notion of the globalization phenomenon proposed by Hall, I use the example of mangue beat[1], which clearly shows the tendency of valuing local culture without denying access to universal culture.

The mangue movement, as it foments the reciprocal influence between knowledge produced in different historical, social and cultural contexts, in a continuous feedback, works at the same time as a kind of social mediator, catalyzing the “modernization of tradition” bringing together different generations, social classes and ways of operating art.

The muticultural nature of the above mentioned example could lead to the debate about the issue of global cultural markets. That is not my intention here, although, it is important to draw attention to the fact that teachers should not alienate themselves in the idea that such markets, founded around the notion of multiculturalism are “… based on an etnodivertsity valued as being simultaneously pacific, humanist and unanimously ‘global’”. (LEPECKI, 2003). On the contrary, it´s up to the teacher to pay attention to the new layers of the “colonizing” processes existing in the globalized world, which would be an important aspect to consider when it comes to the importance of the practice of Brazilian dances in schools. My aim is to also use the example of the mangue movement to reflect upon the relationship of the school with artistic knowledge produced in society.

How does the relationship between school and art produced outside take place? Why not see in the relationship with artistic movement, with artists, their work and poetics the possibility to extract subsidies for the creation of alternatives for a real approximation of children and youths with the cultural tradition of their country and region? Why not think about significant experiences that reach not only the discourse level unattached to experience as to make sure that the practice, the reflection, contextualization are intertwined in the dance learning-teaching process, allowing the construction of senses and thus re-signifying these dances in the contemporary world?

When I referred to a real approximation I pointed to an interest for dance in the sense of the pleasure and curiosity the relationship with this manifestation can arouse, of the production of knowledge that an approach that interrelates making and reflecting can bring and the possibility of this experience interfering in the perception of the world.

For the teaching of dance to be effective it´s important to start out from artistic experience or the universe of aesthetic appreciation of a group of students: “only then this learning would become something more that a cultural collage without contextual support” (BARBOSA 2000:171).

It would be limiting and simplifying to think, for example, that because a child comes from Alagoas, Coco (one of the traditional dances from Alagoas) would be a dance which he or she would identify with. We must consider the importance of knowing the immediate social practice of the student in relation to with the proposed content (Coco, for instance) and also listen to them about the practices that depend on their social relationships as a whole, ie his immediate social practice (GASPARIN, 2002).

Now it´s important to draw attention to two specific cases in the observed context: that of children and youths who do not have an approximation with traditional dances from Alagoas and those who inhabit the same communities of the dance groups and sometimes belong to the same families of the leaders of such groups. In the last case, although the children and youths belong to the community, this does not always mean that they are part of the groups. It does not always mean there is a given identification, specially when it comes to teenagers. Wouldn´t it be up to schools to interfere in this communication process between different age groups, mediating this communication and valuing the personal history of the student?

Thinking about the issue of identification seems to be important to reflect upon the valuing process of cultural identities. The very reality mentioned above shows that to identify with something it’s not enough to have access. On the other hand, access and contact are the basis for identification, therefore, it´s necessary to provide it to students. The issue proposed here falls upon the way how access to traditional dances is provided in the schools of Alagoas.

As we said before, it’s common in our local reality for teachers to validate the quality of their work in relation to their preoccupation with historical information about dance. Far from denying the importance of that, we want to once again draw attention to how it´s done.

Let´s look at a very characteristic example: here in the state of Maceió, it´s common for children and youths to have information that Coco is (or was) danced on the occasion of plastering the walls of houses with mud, in the rural area. This information is given by the teacher who believes that it´s essential to bring historical references about the origins of this traditional dance. What identification can a child or youth have with this peculiarity of the history of Coco? How can this information be transformed in knowledge so that, from that point, the students can find some relationship as to contextualize this dance? How can this peculiar characteristic of Coco give rise to reflections related to the reality of the students?

I launch here some propositions thinking in establishing relationships with:
- Structural aspects of dance – observing the attitude and the economy principle of effort present in the corporal technique used, the instrumental use of the body both in dance (in the coco dance the dancer is also a percussionist in the sense that the sound of tapping structures the dance’s rhythmic base) and in the action of handling the mud to build the floor of the house.
- Social- affective and political aspects – the form of social organization where a collective action for the construction of an individual asset, reflecting upon the forms of human relations and production in current society, ethical, moral issues, etc.

We could think of a series of other examples where the teacher could make use of the creative ability towards the transformation of something that is occasional into something that is a process, information into knowledge, as to broaden the perspectives about the theoretical knowledge in which it stops being only “an understanding of what is happening” and starts being “a guide for action” (CORAZZA: 1991, 90). So that each student and the school as a whole become an agent in the process of valuing our country’s cultural memory, in this specific case, of traditional dances. And thus, by interrelating theory and practice create a real meaning to justify the importance of Brazilian dances in school.

What I have as basic presupposition for the elaboration of a methodological proposal for teaching Brazilian dances in school is that they must be both means and end: means to acquire knowledge, abilities and capacities related to the essential elements of dance language in general (body, space, dynamics, relationships), besides allowing historical and social-cultural knowledge through the body; and end because it aims at the learning of specific repertory of these dances.

I believe it´s possible to lead our children and youth into realizing that “…things that belong to our traditions and seem to be an obvious reality can instead reveal themselves to be a knot of unexplored problems.” (Barba:1994). By manipulating these knots we can make discoveries about ourselves and about the world and there is still a possibility of finding in the obvious things something unviversal.

When young artists from Pernambuco established the mangue beat movement, they triggered the continuous communication and feedback between social classes and diverse artistic knowledge. At the same time new artistic objects surfaced, filled with a universal nature based on local cultures, which gave national and international visibility to artists from Pernambuco, traditional manifestations also changed, both aesthetically and quantitatively in terms of creation of new groups and increase in the number of members in existing groups.

This kind of communication go beyond mere broadcasting, configuring its inclusive quality, as the tradition artist become part of the artistic and cultural circuit both locally and nationally and internationally, putting its practice and place within society in a different dimension; putting also in another dimension the interest and recognition of the importance of manifestations of popular tradition for future generations, for the children of masters and members of communities, up to whom is the continuation of tradition, in a more direct way.

The role of school as social mediator must be considered in terms of fomenting communication between students and local popular traditions through “a profound communication”, in the conception of Martin-Barbero (2003), assuming the conflicts implicated in every communication of this kind in terms of possibilities for cultural transformation.

From such perspective, it seems urgent to take schools from Alagoas out of the role of collaborator in the process of “preserving our folklore” and placing it in the realm of social mediation in promoting communication between different knowledge produced by society.

Thus, I think the essential question wouldn´t be which dance to teach in school, but for whom, why and how to teach. And that, as we make choices, we must seek coherence in the construction of teaching/learning with the following fundamental premises: the construction of meanings, the relationship of pleasure and production of knowledge.

[1] The mangue beat movement emerged in the city of Recife in the beginning of the 90’s lead by artists like Chico Science and Fred “Zero Quatro”. It gained national and international notoriety specially with the band Chico Science e Nação Zumbi, in their CD Da lama ao caos.

REFERENCES
BARBA, Eugênio. A Canoa de Papel – Tratado de Antropologia Teatral. São Paulo: HUCITEC, 1994.

BARBOSA, Ana Mae. John Dewey e o ensino da arte no Brasil. 5. ed. São Paulo: Cortez, 2000.

CORAZZA, S.M. (1991) “Manifesto por uma dida – lé-tica”. Contexto e Educação, Ijuí,vol. 6,n. 22,pp. 83-99, abr.-jun.

GASPARIN, João Luiz. Uma Didática para a Pedagogia Histórico-Crítica. Campinas _ SP: Autores Associados,2002. (Coleção Educação Contemporânea).191p.

HALL, Stuart. A identidade cultural na pós-modernidade. Rio de Janeiro: DP & A, 2004.

LEPECKI, André. O Corpo Colonizado. Gesto: Revista do Centro Coreográfico – Rio de Janeiro, n°2. julho, 2003.

MAGNANI, J.G.Cantor. Festa no pedaço. Cultura Popular e Lazer na Cidade. São Paulo: Brasiliense, 1984.

MARTÍN-BARBERO. J. Globalização comunicacional e transformação cultural. In MORAES, Denis (organizado por). Por uma outra comunicação. Mídia, mundialização cultural e poder. Rio de Janeiro: Record, 2003.

Telma César is from Alagoana, nas a master degree in Arts/Dance from Unicamp, professor and coordinator of the Universidade Federal de Alagoas Graduation Course in Dance