Não ver e ser visto em dança: análise comparativa entre o Potlach Grupo de Dança e a Associação / Cia. de Ballet de Cegos

Abstract

This study analyzes, in a comparative basis, two different approaches to dancing with visually disabled people (blind or quasi-blind). The approaches are led by two different groups: Associação/Cia de Ballet de Cegos, run by Fernanda Bianchini, in São Paulo city and Potlach Grupo de Dança, run by Ida Mara Freire, in Florianópolis, Santa Catarina state. To reflect on both dancing processes meant understanding their methodologies and their aesthetic parameters. Firs, I carried out a bibliography review on the subject of dance and visual disability. Then I initiated an internet research looking for Brazilian dance companies which would work with visually disabled people. The comparative study was based on the literature produced by the chosen companies managers Freire and Biachini -, on in-depth interviews and on selected videos of the groups presentations. It was also necessary to understand the historical context of the beginning of the inclusive dancing. The study found out that the way to approach the body with blindness is strongly related to the aesthetical conception of the professionals responsible for the dancing companies. Thus, the presence of bodies with blindness or quasi-blindness in the dance scene may result in the maintenance of a traditional aesthetics, through the overcoming of limits imposed by the disability, as much as in a different aesthetics, based on the show of sensory and perceptive singularities of each body, blind or otherwise. The coexistence of the approaches studied gives evidence to the outstanding feature of contemporary dancing: diversity.