DANCE ARCHIVE 

Contemporary dance and pop culture have long been directly related to each other. Both are influenced by each other’s codes, aesthetics and interests.

In the founding phase of modern dance cabarets, variety theaters and nightclubs in large urban and suburban centers – then regarded as part of pop culture – played a crucial role in its development. Many artists in the first half of the 20th century focused their attention on various manifestations of early mass culture so that the line between “popular” and “artistic” dance was somewhat blurred. Both genres went through a significant structural change in the course of the so-called modern turn.

For this workshop, the choreographer Renan Martins (BR/PT/DE) suggests the participant to visit their own dancearchive as a way to decolonize the hierarchy present within our dance knowledge. Starting from folk and Brazilian street dances and coordination exercises, to going towards and as far as 90s and 2000s MTV music videos, the goal is to access a dance that ignites nostalgia, collective power and transformation. 

The products and effects of pop culture are considered as a kind of choreographic material; a resource that Renan Martins, in his search for new forms of movement and body expressions, wants to use freely. For him, pop culture is like a statement, a transformative instrument to rethink dance reception. He doesn’t consider pop culture a banal phenomenon but a unifying force capable of bringing different people together. Contemporary dance is not indifferent to pop culture. Both have their roots in modernity.

Photo: Linda Prusova

Renan Martins is a Brazilian choreographer and performer based between Porto and Heidelberg. He started his artistic path as a young actor in Rio de Janeiro and at the age of 17 moved to Europe to study contemporary dance. He graduated from both SEAD (Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance) and P.A.R.T.S (Performing Arts Research and Training Studios) where he started developing his choreographic work. His very first full evening piece “Let Me Die In My Footsteps” was chosen by Aerowaves as one of the top works of 2016. Since then he has been making work, performing and touring in various cities in Europe and Brazil.

Parallel to his choreographic practice, he has also been a performer for Iztok Kovac, Marysia Stoklosa, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Alexandra Waierstall, Ceren Oran, Daniel Linehan and Peter Savel.

Renan Martins is an active teacher sharing his work in various dance schools, festivals and companies around Europe and Brazil such as Impulstanz, B12, Danish National School of Performing Arts, Antwerp Royal Conservatory, Centro de Artes da Maré/Lia Rodrigues and P.A.R.T.S., to name a few.

Since 2013 he has been a member of Damaged Goods Meg Stuart performing in “Violet”, “Atelier III”, “Projecting [Space[“ and most recently “CASCADE”. In 2021 he became part of a research project on diversity and inclusion together with the faculty of P.A.R.T.S. (BE), Manufacture (CH) and SKH (SK).