The Center for World Arts (CWA) welcomes choreographer and performer Juliana Azoubel, professor of dance, Dance Education Program, School of Fine Arts, Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil. The CWA and the School of Theatre + Dance have enjoyed a wonderful friendship with Azoubel for almost two decades. Azoubel is a UF alum (BFA Dance Performance 2001; MALAS 2007) and has guested with us on multiple occasions since 1998. Highlights of Azoubel's visit include lectures and lab classes in World Dance and Ethnomusicology.
“Pontos de contato,” Azoubel’s performance-research project, explores multiple layers of contemporary Brazilian identities through staged and site-specific performance.
"The project’s relevance to the current climate in the United States strikes me as profound," Azoubel said. "Its message of humanity deftly inserts shared delight and warm surprise into quotidian life. As dance and music arise in unexpected places, the project creates co-participants in beauty as it unfolds. As in the United States, many other American communities seek to build bridges of empathy, tolerance, and respect in moments of anxiety and turbulence. I am confident that 'Pontos de contato' will seed collaborations between MINAS and UF in the fertile soil of shared human encounter and in the collective will of diverse communities to heal."
We are deeply grateful for the support of the School of Theatre + Dance, the Center for Latin American Studies, and the School of Music in this fall’s research exchange between the Center for World Arts and the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais.
Azoubel will perform in ensemble on October 21 at 8:00 pm at the Bo Diddley Community Plaza with Jacaré Brazil, directed by Larry Crook and Welson Tremura, and Agbedidi, directed by Mohamed DaCosta. The performance is sponsored by the City of Gainesville and is free and open to the public. Learn more about the event here.
