1. About the Program
The Dance Graduate Program (PPGDança) is a dance research program hosted by the Dance School of the Federal University of Bahia/Brazil (UFBA). Taking into consideration the continuous and growing demand for advanced qualification in Dance graduate studies, the program seeks to consolidate Dance as a specific area of knowledge. PPGDança offers master’s and Ph.D. courses and welcomes researchers for post-doctoral studies, post-doctoral internships or as visiting professors. It is organized according to these lines of research:
1. Dance, Body and Cognition;
2. Artistic processes and configurations
3. Dance and Educational and Cultural Mediation in Dance;
4. Dance and the African Diaspora: poetic, political, educational and epistemic
expressions.
These lines of research comprise the specificities of the bibliographical, artistic and technical academic production of faculty, their partnerships and their specific pre-established dialogues with other groups and researchers from UFBA and other national or foreign institutions.
PPGDança is constituted through ties to the UFBA Institutional Development Plan (PDI), the Academic Teaching Council (CAE) and the Pro-Rectory of Research and Graduate Programs, as well as criteria of CAPES, the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel, a governmental agency of the Brazilian Ministry of Education for graduate courses. It has, nevertheless, its specificities and dialogues with other graduate programs from other areas of knowledge. In accordance with the values of the Federal University of Bahia, the course is public, free of charge, inclusive and of quality standards. The insertion of PPGDança impacts the intellectual, artistic, technical and bibliographic aspects of society with its research.
PPGDança has a wide variety of productions and scopes of activity, with a local, regional and national scope. The program also works harder to grow in the international scene.
We strive for excellence with a Dance that is dedicated to all numerous manifestations, social classes, genders, sexualities, ethnicities and other kinds of intersectionality. A Dance which values the quality of the research and produces knowledge that is primed to stand against discrimination or prejudice of any kind.
PPGDança is made up of research in artistic enacting, didactic-pedagogical contexts with a corpus of theories able to broach corporal and cognitive, aesthetic and compositional, historical and cultural processes. With the body as the nucleus of cognition, communication and evolution imbricated in the active cultural systems, we understand dance as a setting that potentializes these processes and makes them explicit.
Given the interdisciplinary characteristics of the Arts and Dance, the propositions of the Master’s and Doctorate programs span a range of theoretical approaches.
PPGDança welcomes conceptual and epistemological approaches from various areas of knowledge in order to potentialize and aggregate the complexities and peculiarities relative to the specific subjects of Dance. Up to the present moment our processes and results have been involved with themes that we deem “research attracting”, the likes of which, in multiple and differing contexts, are:
1. Corporal, educational, cultural, artistic policies
2. Disabilities, Accessibility
3. Hybridism, Miscegenation, Ethnicities
4. Body Cognitions, Actions for Knowledge
5. Native Peoples, Cosmoperceptions, Cultures
6. Gender, Sexuality, and other kinds of Intersectionality
7. The Use of Dance in Education
8. Performativity, Indisciplinarities
9. Afrodiaspora Aesthetics/Poetics
10. Creative Processes, Dramaturgy, Procedures
11. Criticality, Dance Criticism
12. Militancy, Activism in Dance, Artivism
13. Technopoetics, Intermediality
14. Regional | (Trans)national territoriality, Cultures | Dances | Cultural
Manifestations
15. Stories, Historiography, Repertoires
PPGDança, thus incorporates nuclear conceptual presuppositions that postulate a closer relation among Dance, Arts, various cultural processes, and the Sciences, in order to understand dances as a form of cognition. Also, our mission is founded on the coherence between lines of work, courses, groups and research projects of the faculty, which gives us an edge in the field of Dance.
PPGDança has advanced to contribute to the consolidation of Dance as a specific area of knowledge, constantly updating and distinguishing itself in the Brazilian context as well as the global Arts and Dance systems.
We are open to knowledge, and are rigorous in relation to bibliographical, artistic and technical productions. With reverence and respect towards the tradition and history of dances, we apply ourselves onto contemporary thinking as a form of constant critical research.
We commit to an admission process that follows the policy of quotas as well as merit, and recognize the vulnerability of trans people, people with disabilities, indigenous peoples and quilombolas.
Consequently, we seek to help such students remain in their studies through the distribution of scholarships that strive to repair the immense inequality when it comes to admission into a Graduate Dance Program.
The creation and implementation of the country’s first Master’s Program focused on Dance, by the Dance School of the Federal University of Bahia in 2006, was a result of many optimal factors. There was favorable academic, administrative and institutional infrastructure. Up to April 2021, the program has granted a total of 194 Master’s. The Graduate Dance Program’s dissertations, articles and books can be accessed through the link https://repositorio.ufba.br/ri/. Search on: “Comunidades do Repositório”- “Escola de Dança”.
The Doctorate in Dance Program was approved by the Academic Council of the Federal University of Bahia and the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) in 2018. On the 18th of February 2019, PPGDança consolidated its maturity by starting the academic year with the first doctoral level dance program in Brazil and Latin America. Considering the specifics of public and private institutions on a global scale, it became the only public and free of charge graduate course in the world to the present date. The novelty of this course brings the program, staff, faculty, students and the university great satisfaction for it illustrates a strength and growth that as a whole reaffirms a formative space and the relevance of production in the area of Dance.
By the approval of the Doctorate program of PPGDança there were no others notably focused on Dance. This resulted in a great number of researchers specializing in the Arts or other areas with compatible proposals with Dance. It is possible to note a strengthening of Dance in its various forms of expression when observing the graduates of the course. Many already have doctorate degrees and work as university professors. There is also a significant number of graduates active in the Basic Education of Brazilian cities and capitals and a great many, with advanced research, working with the arts in a national and international setting. It is also worth noting a vertical research predominance, as most alumni are Ph.D. candidates.
PPGDança historically marks the importance of conducting research in the area. For 15 years (completed at the start of 2021) there have been annual research seminars with visiting researchers, presentations given by faculty research groups and student research groups, artwork, annual evaluations and self-evaluations.
2.Infrastructure
The School of Dance has two main buildings and two theaters with great infrastructure. PPGDança has its own floor in one of the buildings housing its classrooms, staff room, academic coordination and administration office and meeting room. Regarding facilities and equipment, they are as follows:
Laboratory of Poetry, Somatic and Kinesiology-LabSomatica
1. Motion Capture Lab-MOCAP
2. Performing Arts Lab- Theater of Movement
3. Scenic Arts Investigation Lab-Experimental Theater
4. Laboratory of Advanced Research of the Body- LAPAC
5. Sound and Image Lab (LAPAC annex)
6. Grad Classroom- Room 9
7. Academic Sector
8. PPGDança Coordination Office
9. UFBA Memorial Dance Lab
10. Audio Description Equipment
11. Admission and Course Descriptions
3. Admission and Course Descriptions
The admission process for the Master’s and Doctorate programs take place annually, with the regulations releasing in October through the following link: http://www.ppgdanca.dan.ufba.br/ The Master’s program has 25 spots and the Doctorate program 13 spots, with a possibility of more spots in 2022. Thirty percent of the openings are reserved for quota candidates. There is also a reserve for trans, indigenous, imigrants and quilombola candidates as well as candidates with disabilities.
The steps of the admission process are the following:
Project proposal for the Master’s program and a project for the Doctorate program
1. Résumé (Curriculum Vitae for international candidates and Lattes curriculum for
Brazilians)
2. Written exam
3. Oral exam
4. Foreign Language Proficiency Test (qualifying exam)
The results of the admission process will be released on the website or by e-mail. Non-resident international applicants, when admitted, must turn in their CPF (Brazilian Individual Registry Identification), student visa and their National Registration for Foreigners-RNE within a 40-day period after registration. Applicants that are from MERCOSUL countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay) and invited countries (Colombia, Peru and Venezuela) do not need a student visa.
3. Curriculum and Course Description of Master’s and Doctorate Programs
3.1 Master’s in Dance - Course Components
The student has 24 months in accordance with PPGDança to finish the course. It’s necessary to complete the three compulsory disciplines and compulsory activities and two elective disciplines.
Compulsory Disciplines
Project Planning
Dance Research Methodologies
Advanced Seminars
Electives
Kinesiology and Dance
Monitoring Artistic Residency
Analysis of Dance Configurations
Dance and Cognition- Techniques of the Body
Traditional Dances- Evolving Patterns
Ethnography of Dance
The Contemporary Body in the Arts of the Current Body
Technological Poetics of Dance
Evolutionary Processes of Dance
Contemporary Themes in Dance
Compulsory Activities
Participation in Research Groups
Guided Research
Guided Research Seminars
Thesis Project
Final Project
3.2 Doctorate Degree - Course Components
The student has 48 months in accordance with PPGDança to finish the course. It’s necessary to complete the three compulsory disciplines and compulsory activities and three elective disciplines
Compulsory Disciplines
Dance Research
Dance Lab
Advanced Research Seminars
Electives
Cognition and Learning
Laboratory of Cognitive Movement
Laboratory of Dance, Body and Materialities
Biopolitics
Laboratory of Corpocidade - Bodicity Lab
Space-time and Performativity
Digital Poetics and Interfaces
Artistic Education Policies and Processes in Dance
Laboratory of the Body and Traditional Dances
Policies for the Arts and Dance
Dance and “Africanity”: Educational, Poetic and Political perspectives
Laboratory of Lab of Contextual Transversalities
Compulsory Activities
Guided Research
Guided Teaching Internship
Participation in Research Groups
Qualification Exam
Dissertation
Electives common to both Courses
Artistic Residency Monitoring
Analysis of Dance Configurations
Dance and Cognition- Techniques of the Body
Ethnography of Dance
Technological Poetics of Dance
Evolutionary Processes of Dance
Contemporary Themes of Dance
4. Academic Personnel
Information regarding possible advisors can be found on the site through the tab “Academic Personnel”. Click “Lattes link”.
5. Lines of Research
Line 1- Dance, Body and Cognition
Syllabus: The purpose is to understand dance as a cognitive action of the body in its relational, communicational and systemic fluxes as well as in political and biopolitical contexts. We are interested in investigating memories, gestures, images, different ways of organizing movement, composition strategies, improvisation and performance and artistic and pedagogical procedures.
Line 2- Artistic Processes and Configurations in Dance
Our studies are dedicated to the characterization and critical analysis of both the processes involved in the compositional practice of dance and the resulting artistic configurations considered within the contextual articulations, technological interfaces, political and aesthetic implications.
Line 3- Cultural and Educational Mediation in Dance
Studies that create a dialogue between dance and other areas of knowledge using an inter and transdisciplinary perspective. Our investigations approach conceptions, compositions and political, cultural and educational implications, in different contexts that develop and mediate processes and forms of organization in Dance.
4 - Dance and the African Diaspora: Poetic, political, educational and epistemic forms of expression
It gathers research that approaches the production of dance in diaspora territories. It promotes the development of critical knowledge regarding creation and know-how of pan African dances conceived as political poeticism that articulate and intersect afro-diasporic ways of life, traditions, aesthetics, corporeality and worldviews. It also acts in agreement with critical reflections of research dedicated to the experimentation of dance creation procedures, the elaboration and constitution of training, the analysis of corporeal techniques and its specificities, the strategies of cultural and artistic production, the affirmative and ethnoracial representation policies in the arts field, the creation of one’s own epistemologies, the process of structuring and spreading of learning methodologies and pedagogies, the dialogues and mediations between tradition and the contemporary, the ties between memory and ancestrality, as well as the possible correlation of these themes in diaspora territories of Brazil and outside of its borders.
6.Research Groups
1. Eletrico- Cyberdance Research Group
Foundation: Jan.01.2001
First leader: Ludmilla Pimentel
Second leader: Mirella Misi
Scope of Study: The “Eletrico- Cyberdance Research Group” was developed by the school of Dance’s LAPAC (Laboratory of Advanced Research on the Body). Our group’s main research object is contemporary dance interfaced with the language of analogical and digital technology, either being interactive or not.
This group aims to fill an existing gap in research and undergraduate studies regarding the subject, with the objective of deepening and constructing specific knowledge regarding dance and new technologies, observing, but also producing these new contemporary hybrid forms; inserting and contextualizing the School of Dance in the technological and digital setting which we live in.
The group has as its goal theory based production linked to matters related to Cyberculture and Cyberdance as well as choreographing for videos, installations and shows.
2- Coadaptive Lab Research Group- LabZat
Foundation: 2006
First Leader: Fabiana Dultra Britto
Second Leader: Adriana Bittencourt Machado
Since 2006, the group has focused on the study of the co-implied relations between academic research and artistic practice in Dance. Founded when Dance was inserted in the Brazilian academic graduate system, it historically and critically situates historical, epistemic, methodological and conceptual aspects which are enveloped in what have been four hypotheses thus far: of similarity, of specificity, of contradiction and of co-implication.
3- PROCEDA- Policies, Educational and Corporographic Processes in Dance
Foundation: 2007
First Leader: Lúcia Matos
Second Leader: Cecília Accioly4
Created in 2007 by Professor Leda Iannitelly, PROCEDA has three main areas of interest: corporographic processes, educational processes in dance and public policies.
Over the course of thirteen years, we hold a total of twenty-five thesis defenses, six monographs, twenty degree final projects, fourteen works of scientific initiation, and two permanence scholarships.
The researcher Leda Iannitelly produced ten shows, two of which received prizes in competitions, with national and international presentations and an arts residency in the USA.
5- Corponectives/Bodilyconnectives in Dance
Foundation: August 2010
First Leader: Lenira Peral Rengel
Second Leader: Amanda da Silva Pinto
CORPONECTIVES in Dance is organized around a multiplicity of connections and the unyielding relations between them, united by the common, non-dualistic (corponective) and non-dichotomous understanding of the body.
The thematic, conceptual and methodological nature of Corponectives’ actions converge in the sense of ‘is to’ (the / symbol), for a singularity only has effective action when not in isolation. The academic works of the group propose the connection of the system University/Society as coexistence and an overlap of research/education/extension.
Corponectives’ lines of research have terminology that position the bodies in concreteness; terminology of action and theory; terminology with dance; terminology in the artistic and educational scenes; and virtual and in person terminology, placed in a scientific and cognitive nucleus situated in epistemologies of non-hegemonic cultures.
This nucleus flows through interest hubs such as the arts, bodies/context, electronic devices, enacting, education/learning encompassing all ages, philosophies, contemporary thoughts, situational political ethics.
6- UMBIGADA- Dance, Culture and Contemporaneity Research Group- GPDACCO
Foundation: 2012
First Leader: Daniela Amoroso
Second Leader: Denilson Neves
UMBIGADA- Dance, Culture and Contemporaneity Research Group- GPDACCO started as an UFBA School of Dance research group under the guidance of Professor Daniela Maria Amoroso. In 2012 and 2014, the following research project was ‘Aesthetic Configurations of Dance in Brazil- the body in the context of tradition and contemporaneity’, which has been awarded three scientific initiation scholarships from PIBIC (Scientific Initiation Institutional Scholarship Program). In 2015, from Daniela Amoroso’s post-doc research, the following project: ‘From miudinho to umbigada- the creative processes in dance through the study of the steps and gestures of samba in the Reconcavo Baiano region’.
In 2017, the group had two PIBIC scholarship students linked to the research project. In September 2019, we started two research projects. The first, for which Professor Daniela Amoroso received the CAPES-PRINT research grant, was titled “The women dance from miduinho to pizzica: interculturality, gestures and poetics in worship, parties and healing rituals”. The second, tied to the doctoral research project of Denny Neves, “Rapadura, Urucum, and Dendê: Procedures of Choreography in Dance”, already has two completed creative processes: “Abois” and “Chão ser Tão”.
Currently, the group focuses its studies in the broader area of Arts, specifically in the area of Brazilian traditional dances. The repercussion of a research group dedicated to the study of traditional dances, whether rural, urban, festive or ritualistic, is the amalgamation of academic research that helps cement an epistemology that is still fragile in the broad spectrum of the Arts. In other words, it is about the understanding of the aesthetic and poetics of tradition, relative to dance and interdiscipline.
UMBIGADA welcomes the creative processes originated from traditional aesthetics that differ but also dialogue with the aesthetics of modern and contemporary dance.
7- Gira Group: Studies of Indigenous Cultures and Traditional and Afro-Brazilian
repertoires.
Foundation: 2017
First Leader: Amélia Vitória de Souza Conrado
Second Leader: Fernando Marques Camargo Ferraz
The group fosters academic production regarding the arts and indigenous peoples, traditional culture and the African diaspora. It analyses the unfolding of these subjects in the area of education and the arts and their intercessions and translations in contemporary times.
The group is interested in producing, registering and spreading poetic, ethic, educational and political knowledge shared by the communities in this field. Our purpose is also to investigate episteme of traditional and indigenous peoples’ culture as well as the intercession of these in institutional curricula. The group incorporates studies of know-how and creations produced by the pan African diaspora aesthetic in the field of dance and its historical, philosophical and anthropological correlations.
It gathers professors with national and international Ph.Ds. and master’s, as well as doctoral, master’s, professional master’s, and scientific initiation students (undergrad) along with artists and independent researchers into two lines of research: line 1- ‘traditional dances and indigenous cultures: artistic-pedagogical intercessions, translations and production of knowledge. Line 2- black political poeticism and mediations between tradition and contemporaneity.
8- ENTRE Research Group: The Arts and Entwinements
Foundation: 2017
First Leader: Rita Ferreira Aquino
Second Leader: Ana Elisabeth Simões Brandão
The ENTRE Research group’s objective is to develop theory and practice based multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary investigations in the Arts field.
These investigations would broach matters relating to artistic creation, education, the curriculum, mediation, curation, and social participation.
The group’s principles are: dialogism, cooperation, collaboration, complementarity and solidarity. The group’s developed activities promote the integration between education, research and outreach, uniting the Graduate and Undergraduate programs with the objective of acting in tandem with artistic, community, formal and nonformal education settings, in order to qualify individuals and contribute to a more critical society with an emancipatory perspective.
9- Agora Research Group: Ways of Life in Dance
Foundation: 2018
First leader: Gilsamara Moura
Second Leader: Márcia Virgínia Mignac da Silva
The group aims to welcome research related to Dance, Art, Cognition and Politics under the Greek concept of Agora, which denotes a meeting, assembly, a public space, or a vast location like a small city within the constellation of UFBA. The group endeavors to unite artists, researchers, students, individuals involved in Culture, and the community in general, contributing to academic qualification and increasing research and studies in the field of Dance so as to aid its expansion in the area. As part of the Federal University of Bahia, an institution with 3 distinct undergraduate courses (including a distance learning modality) and a specialization, Master’s and Doctorate Degree program in Dance, we intend to meet the demands of researchers, managers, and artists from other institutions for future collaborations.
10- CORPOLUMEN Research Group: Study Network of the Body, Imagery and
Creation in Dance
Foundation: July 2018
First Leader: Daniela Bemfica Guimarães
CORPOLUMEN research group works with the interaction between education, research and outreach. Our focus is on artistic-academic production in Dance, linked to the undergraduate and graduate programs and artists in general, with an interest in investigating Scenic Improv, Dance and Audiovisual Media (Cinema/Video), and Somatic Education. In an opened environment for reflection and theoretical and practical academic production, Corpolumen carries out the following actions: study meetings, creative spaces, workshops, movie development, study sessions and weekly practices, publications, research and conception of didactic materials, translation of texts and books pertinent to the group’s topics and events joining the University and Society.
11- PORRA - Ways of (Re)Knowing Yourself in Dance
In Brazil, the word "Porra" is a widely used expression in everyday life. It echoes through the streets, communities, institutions, and informal conversations—spoken by people of all backgrounds, from the wealthy to the working class, from black men to white women, from the LGBTQI+ community to those who use sign language. It functions as an interjection, a noun, even a subject—sometimes, it even marks a destination: "vá pra porra!" Despite its widespread use, the word "porra" remains a vulgar term, often deemed inappropriate in formal settings, around children, or in academic discourse. Yet, language is more than just words—it carries culture, resistance, and ways of knowing. The PORRA Research Group embraces this spirit to challenge conventional academic norms. It seeks to create space for research, artistic expression, pedagogical innovation, and non-Cartesian epistemologies—exploring new ways of understanding and recognizing oneself through dance. With a bold and unapologetic approach, this research group seeks to redefine how knowledge moves, circulates, and transforms within the academic world.
12- ART: Dance, Cognition, Creation
Foundation: 2023
First Leader: Fátima Wachowicz
The GP ARTE: Dance, Cognition, and Creation research group offers two intertwined lines of study, focusing on human cognitive abilities and artistic creative processes. Current discussions on contemporary works emerge from the dialogue and reflection between these fields of knowledge. In this way, this research group aims to contribute to both interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary studies, fostering the development of collective research as well as individual skills. By developing analytical strategies and constructing new perspectives that expand research in Dance, Creative Processes, and Cognition, the group's work undoubtedly have a meaningful impact on academic and artistic productions and discussions. It develops analytical strategies and foster new perspectives for research in Dance, Creative Processes, and Cognition.
7. An Invitation
The abundance of the various accents of spoken Portuguese in Brazil culminates in the voices and dance of PPGDança. We have students from all over Brazil and Latin America. We invite you to study with us and enrich your academic, professional, artistic and/or technical gain with updated pedagogical tools adapted to the reality of dance, promoting a closer relationship between the university and external public. You will study lines of thought that recognize theory and practice as coexisting instances in the process of producing knowledge of dance. You will study (if it is part of your research), an investigative methodology of traditional dances, Indigenous dances and Afro Brazilian dances through a theoretical approach that differs from folklorism and mystification. PPGDança incorporates artistic practices in the development of academic research. This is done through an innovative guided study method of the shared creative processes.
8. Residence and Other Information
The School of Dance is located in the Ondina campus of the Federal University of Bahia, a beautiful part of Salvador. The neighborhood of Ondina has drugstores, grocery stores, eateries, bus stops that lead to the metro station and various other locations.
Many students share the apartments they rent near campus. There are hotels, flats and rooms for rent very close to campus. Check the tab “Location” on the site.
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