© Maria Alzamora
Artist statement
As a child I was always dreaming on fictional stories that I could use to express situations that I had in my everyday life. This feeling of sharing to connect with people, sharing in order to unwrap difficulties and to transform them into an artistic piece was very powerful to me. I can look back now and see that what was more important when writing short stories or performing, was communication.
As an adult, working in the artistic performative sphere, I feel again the power of body language in connection to emotions and political discourses. And I see how people is affected and they can change when they connect with their own stories or with their own creativity when seeing or participating in performances.
I have studied in different fields, as I have always been a person with different interests. I have a Bachelor in Journalism and BA in Humanities in Universitat Pompeu Fabra de Barcelona. I graduated with Master of Theatre Studies in Institut del Teatre de Barcelona and Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. From the investigation of this Master I have published a chapter in the book ‘Quan arriba el Silenci’ ed. Punctum, 2016 in collaboration with the contemporary dance company Mal Pelo. I also published a poetry book called ‘Miopies’ (2019, ed. Tremendes). That’s why I feel a strong connection between thinking and dancing.
I studied the professional contemporary dance studies in Cobosmika (Palamós-Girona), SEEDS Blueprogram 2020-21. I did several courses in Tic Tac Art Centre in Brussels with Thomas Hauert and Julyen Hamilton, I joined Performact School Intensive course (Portugal), I did for four consecutive years the courses in l’Animal a l’esquena (Celrà). And I attended intensive education like P.A.R.T.S. Summer School (Brussels) and Orian Theatre Dance Company’s Summer School (París).
As an artist I have developed a specific methodology that works with instant composition and community creation processes. I have a special affinity for those dance projects that are more than just a choreography.
I learn this other way of creating a dance piece that is not only based in settled scenes and already done choreographies, when collaborating with Bystrom-Källblad (Sweden) or Jocelyn Cottencin (Fr). They offer a playground for artists but also for the public to relate to their work with humor and active minds. Collaborating with these pieces has helped me to develop this deeper understanding of what performance is in a broad and open sense, and how we can engage the public to participate in it and feel part of it.
Motivations when creating:
I understand my relationship with dance as a connection of metaphors and images that I can translate it her in body language or spoken language. With the objective of communicate and engage with the audience, always sharing a common place. But for me is also very important to have ethics in my aesthetics, that’s why I like to call ‘dance activism’ to my creations, because they are always related to the feeling of responsibility towards the public and the creation itself. Artists are communicators and I love to share information and to create from (and with) a collective mind (community projects, documentary theatre, and so on).
I see art as a powerful social tool for change. I work with children in public schools and teenagers in high schools. I am involved in different educative artistic and social projects that claim art as a way to understand ourselves and to relate to the world and society we live in.
For me, create has a strong value in society. Is the common ground where people can share their doubts, desires, reflections and we can all see with perspective what makes ourselves in relation to each other.
The MA program also guided me and gave me visibility within the visual arts field, which was a gift because I could learn how they were facing similar conceptual and artistic issues. Now that I am learning to play piano is also opening up other ways to approach similar issues: those of composing with a given code. My current interest is to learn and observe the relations between the rules and principles of a given language: dance, music and literature, and play with the different composition strategies of each language. This new research will guide toward a new production to be premiered in February 2024 at Mercat de les Flors.
International career:
Applying for Stronger Peripheries means that I would get the chance to open my work to different parts of Europe. My work and collaborations with other international artists has helped me to have a look into Europe’s way of creation. To gain another resources and styles that are more known in other countries and which enriches my work. But this international connections did not help me to project my own projects. For the moment, I have been working with international choreographers and creators, and I have a strong willing to pursue a career that can travel over Catalunya and Spain to be more strong and open. For that reason I am in constant collaboration with Rodin Kauffman building a bridge in the Pyrinees-Occitanie regions.
I am also thinking of doing a specialization: Exerce Master in Centre Nationale de la Danse in Montpellier, which will help me to deepen my own artistic language and methodology. Moreover, for applying to that Master is necessary to have a strong and robust artistic-dance work. And this is what I am to achieve.