Isaura Oliveira is a dancer, actress, dance
teacher, and choreographer. She holds a BFA in Dance Performance from
the School of Dance of the Federal University of Bahia, Brazil, where
she worked for fifteen years as a performer, researcher, educator, and
choreographer.
Ms. Oliveira was born in Salvador-Bahia, the
cradle of African Brazilian culture, where the African traditions and
the arts are constantly maintained and nourished. She maintains a
continuous link between her spiritual background, Candomblé, and
the development of her work.
Some results of her research have been the
creation and production of various documentaries including the video
Kubungula (1989), several lectures, her solo performance Malinke
(1988), and various other works. She is the Founder and Artistic
Director of the Compania de Danca Negra da Bahia (The Company of Black
Dance of Bahia - 1993).
She appeared in a PBS and BBC-TV documentary,
Dancing #5: New Worlds, New Forms (1993), invited to represent
Brazilian dance through her classes and interviews.
While Oliveira's work as a performer and
choreographer demonstrates deep ties to the language of contemporary
dance and experimental theater, the concept and narrative of her
creations are genuinely rooted in her religion and culture. In 1996,
the Northwestern University in Illinois invited Isaura to participate
in the Annual Performance Studies Conference. Since then she has taught
and performed in many universities in the USA such as the University of
Wisconsin, UMASS Boston, Brown University, Radcliffe, Hampshire and
Smith Colleges.
Currently she is guest choreographer and Brazilian
culture consultant at Wellesley College, and on the faculty for the
Dance Complex in Cambridge and the Adventure After School program in
Malden. At MIT, through the Music and Theater Arts Department, she will
teaching Afro-Brazilian Dance (Special Topics in Drama 21M.851) for the
Spring 2001 semester. Isaura continues her stage work, presently
working on Ancestrais (Ancestors), a work-in-progress, a solo of body
and voice. The first public performance of Ancestrais was presented at
the Cantar de Costa Festival in Genoa, Italy.
Ms. Oliveira is interested in increasing cultural
and educational exchanges with universities, cultural institutions,
researchers, and performance artists.
