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Encontro da RSD – Encerramento em clima de balanço e propostas para 2010

Those who decide to follow the path of professional dance and establish their own company must keep in mind that achieving the much idealized sustainability is not an easy task. Nowadays, it´s not enough to be a good dancer or choreographer, it also takes some knowledge of production, press relations, accounting… The search for answers and solutions for these professionals was the focus of the latest edition of the Dance Economy seminar in Bahia, on Thursday (15/09), opening the program of the Plataforma Internacional de Dança (PID – “International Dance Platform”), in the city of Salvador.

The seminar was produced in partnership with Sebrae, Funceb and Panorama de Dança festival (which produced the seminar in Rio de Janeiro, in 2008) and it also touched on important issues to think about the sustainability of the companies. “The desire for organization among artists in Bahia and the interest in building something consistent grabbed our attention”, said Richard Alves, coordinator of Sebrae’s Creative Economy department. Eduardo Bonito, Marcelo Sena and Andréa Bardawill were also present at the roundtable in the first round of the seminar.

The director of Panorama de Dança festival, Eduardo Bonito, reminded us that one of the most discussed subjects during the seminar in Rio was the high number of informality among dance artists. That leads to a series of problems, including the lack of static data about those professionals. “I realized that during the festival. There is a lack of professional organization and we asked ourselves how we could help. We have no data about our own reality, there are gaps. And if we can´t measure whether or not there´s been some change, we can´t see if we have moved forward”, Eduardo analyses.

In his opinion, the main challenge of the meetings is to find an efficient way to map the dance area. And, from that point on, to think about public policies that cover this group. “How many are we? How are we organized? Which dance are we talking about? We must know ourselves better”, he said.

The lack of statistical data about dance professionals has also been approached by Marcelo Sena, from Movimento Dança Recife. “When we seek dialogue with politicians we must have numbers. Without them, our words are fragile, they lose legitimacy. The economy is not that autonomous, we have to go through public policy to reach financing”, he argues, pointing out that economy and politics always go together. “We need to know how things work so we can find approach strategies and know when to speak.

According to researcher Andréa Bardawill, the need for sustainability has been causing the emergence of the mutidisciplinary artist, who unfolds into multiple functions within the company. “We must understand the laws of the market, the economical laws, but we must also show that we know a lot of things exactly because we are artists. We have to acknowledge the dimension of our political power. We have to make creativity work for us”.

In the second round of the seminar, dancer Thaís Bandeira talked about her experience with Sua Cia. in search of sustainability. “The desire for independence made us look for other ways to survive. We gave up having experienced people working for us and we had a call for entries for unexperienced producers, someone who could helps us fill out applications. It worked, they are with us to this day”, Thaís celebrates. “But until then, we did everything”.

Lúcia Mattos, Thais Bandeira e Eduardo Bonito / Foto: Isabella Motta

At this point, the debate concentrated mainly on the research presented by the head of Cultural Promotions of Secretaria de Cultura da Bahia (“Bahia Culture Secretary”), Carlos Paiva. He showed data taken from the National Household Sample Survey (PNAD) and the Annual Relation of Social Information (Rais) about the cultural area in the state. Within the numbers, for instance, we find that Rais only counted 809 people working in artistic and entertainment activities in Bahia, which sparked worries about informality among culture professionals.

On November 9, 10 and 11, the debate about Dance Economy continues in Rio de Janeiro, during Panorama de Dance. To find out more about what was discussed in the first edition of the seminar, click here.

On Wednesday (16/09), the 8th Meeting of Red Sudamericana de Danza begins, within the PID program. Starting off the activities – which will be followed closely by idança – the workshop Ideas, herramientas y nuevas tecnologías para el trabajo em red will take place from 9h to 12h and from 14h to 17h, at UFBA’s Teatro do Movimento/Escola de Dança (Avenida Ademar de Barros s/nº, Ondina). In the evening, Grupo Xis will perform Os 3 audíveis and Federica Folco and Josie Cáceres will perform Maravillosa.