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Theory Course

Aesthetics: Writings and Testimonies

21, 28 Apr, 5, 12, 19, 26 May 2025

Mondays 06:00 – 08:30 p.m.

ar.co – Centro de Arte & Comunicação Visual

“Letters that are not mailed cease to be missives for possible friends; they turn into archived things” (Peter Sloterdijk, 2000)*. The writings and testimonies of and about artists, in their most varied forms – diaries, letters, lessons, and reflections – allow us to explore the theme of the creative process and its aesthetic and philosophical reflection, crossing in a non-linear way different generations, epochs and artistic movements (approaching the cases of romanticism, modernity, modernism, postmodernism, and contemporary art). Instead of becoming “archived objects”, the writings become messages for their recipients and “possible friends”.  *Sloterdijk, Peter. Rules for the Human Zoo: a response to the Letter on Humanism, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 2009, volume 27, pp. 12 – 28.

Price:
140€ + 14€ (inscription) + 2,50€ (insurance)    
Where & Organization:
ar.co Centro de Arte & Comunicação Visual
Antigo Mercado de Xabregas, Rua Gualdim Pais, 1900-255, Lisboa
Phone: (+351) 21 880 10 10
Email: secretaria@arco.pt
Website: www.arco.pt
Calendar: https://calendar.time.ly/m7mslltt/event/67518921
Photo credit: Hélder Folgado.Elementos VIII, 2019. Vídeo, 05´14min.

Theory Course

Aesthetics: Experience and Experimentation

4, 11, 18 November, 2, 9, 16 Dec 2024 2024

Mondays 06:00 – 08:30 p.m.

ar.co – Centro de Arte & Comunicação Visual

In the creative act, as in its reception, aesthetic experience tends to exceed the limits of perceptibility. Following the path of the philosopher Gilles Deleuze’s transcendental empiricism, the course will approach this fact from the point of view of an aesthetics of the virtual as it can amplify the perception of forms through the forces that trigger, populate and express them. This course focuses on studying three main axes – sensation, space, and time – and establishing connections with other authors’ different artistic processes and philosophical thoughts that support the meaning that crosses them. By following the future orientation that seems to define modern and contemporary art, the course also seeks to think about the potency of art in transforming the world.

Price:
140€ + 14€ (inscription) + 2,50€ (insurance)    
Where & Organization:
ar.co Centro de Arte & Comunicação Visual
Antigo Mercado de Xabregas, Rua Gualdim Pais, 1900-255, Lisboa
Phone: (+351) 21 880 10 10
Email: secretaria@arco.pt
Website: www.arco.pt
Calendar: https://calendar.time.ly/m7mslltt/event/67518912
Photo credit: Hélder Folgado. Elementos VIII, 2019. Vídeo, 05´14min.

Professorship

Theories and practices of the body
Master in Theatre /Performing Arts, Theatre and Community
Doctorate in Performing Arts and the Moving Image

07 October 2023 – 31 January 2024

Wednesdays 02:00 – 05:00 p.m.

Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema – Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa

As part of a collaboration in the M.A. in Theatre /Performing Arts and the Doctorate in Performing Arts and the Moving Image, these sessions follow the project of a movement and philosophy laboratory in which a series of collective practices are convoked such as reading, moving, reflecting, dialoguing, and writing. We will approach the themes of the presence of the body and duration as tools for research are transmitted and experimented with. The appearance of gestures, words, and thoughts compose different modes of research-creation in the field of the performing arts.

Where & Organization:
Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema – Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa
Avenida Marquês de Pombal, 22 B
2700-571 Amadora
Phone: (+351) 214 989 400, (+351) 965 912 370, (+351) 910 510 304
Email: estc@estc.ipl.pt
Website: https://www.estc.ipl.pt/doutoramento_artes_artes_perf_im_mov
Photo credit: Rosemary Butcher & Sam Williams

Professorship

Embodied practices
Bachelor in Theatre /Acting

01 October 2024 – 30 June 2025

Tuesdays and Thursdays 11:30 a.m. – 01:30 p.m., Fridays 02:30 – 04:30 p.m.

Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema – Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa

The aim of the curricular unit Embodied practice consists of developing movement perception and its expression, convoking different approaches that stem from somatic practices, contemporary dance, and internal martial arts. Throughout experimentation on the relation body-other-space-time, both the training and composition become ways of integrating tools for research and creation, and therefore developing technical and expressive skills. Deep listening of the movement of the body and imagination lead to the recognition of events and their small changes, as we continuously follow the difference of each moment.

Where & Organization:
Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema – Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa
Avenida Marquês de Pombal, 22 B
2700-571 Amadora
Phone: (+351) 214 989 400, (+351) 965 912 370, (+351) 910 510 304
Email: estc@estc.ipl.pt
Website: https://www.estc.ipl.pt/
Photo credit: “At Once”, choreography Deborah Hay (SPCP/2009), solo adaptation Ana Mira in collaboration with Francisco Tropa

Professorship

Body and performativity
Interart Graduate School

01 October 2024 – 31 January 2025

Thursdays 06:00 – 08:00 p.m.

Escola das Artes – Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa

The theoretical-practical curriculum unit “Body and performativity” aims to provide students with research-creation tools and philosophical reflection, focusing on the body and its expression. This curriculum unit emphasizes the relationship between the body, space, time, others, and objects, drawing connections with artistic processes and philosophical ideas from various authors through experimentation, reading, and consultation with archives and documentation. The method employed involves practice as research by integrating theory, philosophy, and embodied practices. The bibliography includes philosophy, performance studies, and performing arts research fields.

Where & Organization:
Escola das Artes – Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa
Rua Fernando Assis Pacheco 207
1350 – 300 Lisboa
Phone: (+351) 213 177 662 
Email: escoladasartes@autonoma.pt
Website (applications now open for academic year 2024/2025): https://escoladasartes.autonoma.pt/candidaturas-abertas-para-pos-graduacao-em-interartes/
Photo credit: AI-generated

Book chapter

Movement and Philosophy Laboratory: A Testimony

APUNTES Y NOTAS DE LA(S) PEDAGOGÍA(S) DE LOS CUERPOS
Mira, Ana, Laboratorio de movimiento y filosofía: un testimonio, In: Casanova, Magdalena; Zuain, Josefina & Vilar, Laura, Apuntes y notas de la(s) pedagogía(s) de los cuerpos: modos de investigación que crean pedagogías, 1a ed, Segunda en Papel /Josefina Zuain, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, 2024, pp. 206-213

In the beginning, there was the memory of haunting when the body that danced became space, even when I could not express it in words. In this drive for space, the feet were already in dialogue with the ground; the spine oscillated in the arc of its imbalance, and the arms lengthened so that the hands could touch the infinity of the distance still to wander. The flexion of the joints led the dancing body to lean over books and the HB pencil to try to sketch the mystery of dance with words. The dancing bodies have a very particular way of thinking.

Organization & Edition:
Segunda En Papel Editora
Av. Belgrano 2049 PB 2 – CABA. Argentina
Email: segundaenpapeleditora@gmail.com
Website: https://linktr.ee/segundaenpapeleditora

Seminar
Experimental Seminar on Philosophy and Literature

28 May 2024
Tuesday 04:00 – 06:00 p.m.
Room SC of Colégio Almada Negreiros and online via Zoom
Nova Institute of Philosophy, School of Social Sciences and Humanities, NOVA University Lisbon

The language of dance: movement and words in Isadora Duncan, Kazuo Ohno and Rosemary Butcher
“Dance, like poetry, restores the density of things just by touching them.”
Fabbri
I propose to start by reading some fragments of the portrait of the American dancer Isadora Duncan (1878-1927) written by Gertrude Stein (1874-1946), the aphorisms uttered by the Japanese dancer Kazuo Ohno (1906-2010) during his workshops and the words spoken by British choreographer and visual artist Rosemary Butcher (1947–2016) in her research and creation processes. In these three case studies, gravity becomes, from my point of view, the element that leaves the mark of the embodied haunting in verbal language and conceptual thought. From the perspective of Kleist (2009) and Fabbri (2009), we will then seek to analyze the role of gravity in the restitution of the body to the language of dance.

Where & Organization:
Room SC of Colégio Almada Negreiros and online via Zoom
Nova Institute of Philosophy
Colégio Almada Negreiros School of Social Sciences and Humanities – NOVA FCSH
Campus of Campolide 1099-032 Lisbon
Phone: (+ 351) 217 908 300 Ext. 40311
Email: ifilnova@fcsh.unl.pt
Website (includes a link to join the session online via Zoom): https://ifilnova.pt/en/events/ana-mira/
Photo credit: Dinis Muacho

Theory Course
Module Philosophy of Art
Complementary Training Course in Philosophy

16, 23 February 2024 (Antonio Cardiello),
1 and 8 March 2024 (Ana Mira)

Fridays 06:00 – 09:00 p.m.

NOVA FCSH | Edificio Torre A – Sala A101

This module focuses on the concept of “witness” in art, in the sense that a creator becomes the spectator of the work as the very condition for the emergence of the image. By convening the research fields of philosophy, aesthetics, poetry, literature, visual arts, and dance, we seek to think about the act of witnessing both the creative process and the reception of the artistic work. 

Price:
75 €* + 7 € (insurance)
* Discounts for students and alumni
Where & Organization:
Centro Luís Krus – Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Av. de Berna, 26 C, 1069-061, Lisboa
Phone:
(+351) 217 908 301
Email:
clk.flv@fcsh.unl.pt
Website:
https://www.fcsh.unl.pt/outros-cursos/curso-complementar-de-formacao-em-filosofia-3/
Photo credit: Lions painted in the Chauvet Cave (Ardèche, France). This is a replica of the Brno Museum Anthropos (Czech Republic) painting. 12 June 2009, Self-photographed, HTO

Book Launch

Rachador, Hélder Folgado

15 October 2023

Sunday 05:30 – 07:30 p.m.

STET – livros e fotografias

The presentation of the book Rachador (Splitter), Hélder Folgado (2019) takes place at the STET bookstore on Sunday afternoon, 15th October 2023. In this gathering, Hélder Folgado, Ana Mira, and Ana Freitas invite the public to reflect upon the hands-on work and stories of the wicker craftsman of Camacha, in Madeira Island. The author’s (Hélder Folgado) tribute to these craftsmen with the text Mão Segura (Held Hand), by António Barros, weave the transmission of gesture and the stories of a place. 

Where & Organization:
STET – livros & fotografias
Rua Actor António Cardoso 12 A (Arroios), 1900-011 Lisboa
Phone: (+351)917520046
Email: stet.info@gmail.com
Website: https://stet-livros-fotografias.com/

Book Chapter

Body and city: a study on the common and the undercommons in the “Ações” by Eleonora Fabião

Mira, Ana, Corpo e cidade: um estudo sobre o comum e os undercommons nas Acções de Eleonora Fabião, In: N. Fonseca, Nuno e Conceição, Nélio (eds.), Planos de pormenor: leituras críticas sobre a experiência da cidade, 1ª ed. Húmus, Lisboa, 2023, pp. 243-260

To reflect philosophically on a particular experience of the body and city, in the present text, we turn to the Ações, by Eleonora Fabião (2008-2015), as we understand that they occupy the city in a different way than that of the prevailing power without submitting, opposing or reacting to it, and consequently expanding it; instead, Ações, by Eleonora Fabião (2008-2015) evade themselves from attempts of capture and appropriation by the prevailing power. As a lens of analysis, the study on the concepts of the common, from the perspective of François Jullien (2008), Roberto Esposito (2010) and Bruno Latour (2011), and the undercommons from Stefano Harney & Fred Moten (2016), held in the second and third part of this text, respectively, represents an approximation movement to the problems of the common, undercommons, and community in the field of performance and philosophy. In the fourth and final part, we seek to understand the experience of the body and city in Eleonora Fabião’s Acções (2008-2015) in light of the concepts previously analyzed.

Organization & Edition:
Instituto de Filosofia da NOVA (IFILNOVA)
Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas Universidade NOVA de Lisboa
Phone: (+ 351) 217 908 300
Email: ifilnova@fcsh.unl.pt
Website: www.ifilnova.pt
Edições Húmus, 2023 & Authors
Phone: (+351) 926 375 305
E-mail: humus@humus.com.pt
Website: www.edicoeshumus.pt
Digital Book: https://ifilnova.pt/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Planos-de-Pormenor-DIGITAL.pdf

Laboratory

Dance and philosophy laboratory: this being that walks, Ana Mira and Emília Pinto de Almeida

13 – 17 September 2022

Saturday 11:30 a.m. – 13:00 p.m. Children /6-12 years old

Tuesday and Wednesday 06:00 – 07:30 p.m. /Adults and children over 10 years old

Porta33

We started with the voice of Alberto Carneiro as we discovered it in the conversation about the exhibition “Os Caminhos da Água e do Corpo sobre a Terra” (“The Paths of Water and the Body on Earth”), which he presented in the early 2000s at Porta33, and which can be heard in the digital archive. Resuming some excerpts from that conversation and some of his writings, we question the relationship between body and space, sometimes through words, sometimes through movement, and sometimes through drawing. Adapting the laboratory to the various groups of children, young people and adults, we start with the circle of knowledge, in which we cross concepts such as experience, path, scale, matter, energy, and creation. From there we will arrive at landscapes to dance to and feelings that they are drawn to. In the volume of listening, we will listen to the perception of the body and space experienced, trying to find out what has changed in the meantime. This laboratory is part of the project Coalesce, in the space of the body in thought: Continuous and collective seminar on drawing, dance and philosophy.

Price:
Price per session 3€ (Free for Drawing Atelier Gatafunhos’ participants)
Where & Organization:
Porta33
Rua do Quebra Costas, 33
9000-034 Funchal – Ilha da Madeira
Phone: (+351) 291 743 038
Email: porta33@porta33.com
Website: https://www.porta33.com/porta33_madeira/eventos/content_eventos/coalescer/coalescer_apresentacao.html

Conference presentation

Isadora Duncan Gertrude Stein Susanne K. Langer, movements of apparition and resistance in dance, poetry and philosophy

International Conference
Life in a state of exception: (dis)obeying in contemporary societies

17 October 2021

Sunday 01:30 p.m.

Teatro Meridional

Gertrude Stein (1874-1946) wrote the prose poem Orta or One Dancing around 1911, a portrait of the American dancer Isadora Duncan (1878-1927), whose expression, Stein believed, integrated dance and thought. Recognizing in some of her contemporaries an integration between sensitivity and intellect, art and life, Stein sought to reach the point of being oneself and to continue being oneself, even if reflected in another, even being like some (Dydo in Stein: 1993).
Stein’s (1993) identification with Duncan appears in the prose poem itself “She went on being one (…) she was then resembling someone, one who was not dancing, one who was writing” while Duncan danced alone in the chorus role, where she herself believed to be the truthful place of dance in her search for freedom in the feminine against the soloist in the patriarchal tradition of western dance.
According to Susanne Langer (1953), the philosophy of art “requires the artist’s point of view to test the power of his concepts” and the philosopher uses what she learns from this “language of the studios” to “build theory”. We invoke our own experience in the practices of movement, reading, reflection and writing as a means to analyse the following: What modes of resistance, in art and in life, do we foresee in Stein’s testimony about Duncan being herself dancing, continuing to be yourself, even if reflected in another, even if you are like some?

Where & Organization:
Centro de Estudos de Teatro (Faculdade de Letras – Universidade de Lisboa) at Teatro Meridional
Rua do Açúcar, 64 Beco da Mitra – Poço do Bispo
1950 – 009 Lisboa
Phone: (+351) 91 999 12 13
Email: bilheteira@teatromeridional.net
Website:https://jogosdeobediencia.com/

Talk

“Porta” by Francisco Janes | Screening and Talk

31 August 2021

Tuesday 09:00 p.m.

Galerias Municipais — Pavilhão Branco

The premiere screening of the film “Porta” by Francisco Janes (produced by PORTA33) marks the closing of the exhibition “On the edge of the landscape comes the world”, which has been organized by Galerias Municipais in partnership with PORTA33 and curated by the Post-Graduate Course in Art Curatorship at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of the NOVA University of Lisbon | Institute of History of Art (NOVA-FCSH). The screening will be followed by a conversation with Ana Mira, Catarina Claro, Carolina Vieira and Hélder Folgado will take place at Pavilhão Branco. The film director Francisco Janes and the directors of PORTA33, Cecília Vieira de Freitas and Maurício Pestana Reis will also be present for the screening and the talk.

Organization:
Galerias Municipais, Porta33 and Post-Graduate Course in Art Curatorship at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of the NOVA University of Lisbon | Institute of History of Art (NOVA-FCSH).
Jardim do Palácio Pimenta,
Campo Grande,
1700-091 Lisboa
Phone: (+351) 215 891 259
Email (booking required): bilheteira@galeriasmunicipais.pt
Website: https://galeriasmunicipais.pt/programa-publico/porta/
Photo credit: Galerias Municipais – Pavilhão Branco

Work session
Degree Zero of the Company | To draw a tangent between Dance and Philosophy

29 May 2021

Saturday 11:00

This is an online event (Zoom)

Ballet Contemporâneo do Norte /Rogério Nuno Costa

In this work session, we will study and discuss the intersections between Dance and Philosophy based on the work of researcher Ana Mira, addressing the areas of the body, movement, dance, philosophy, and aesthetics. This time, “Grau Zero da Companhia” joins the International Festival of Street Arts Imaginarius, in Santa Maria da Feira, which this year takes place in a double format: in-person and online. The working session with Ana Mira will take place in the Zoom Room of the Contemporary Ballet of the North.

Organization:
Ballet Contemporâneo do Norte
Rua São Paulo da Cruz, 12
4520-278 Santa Maria da Feira
Email: bcnproducao@gmail.com
Website:https://www.facebook.com/events/999306503939175?ref=newsfeed

Conference
The body to come
19 May 2021

Wednesday 18:30

This is an online event (Zoom)

Culturgest

“When social distancing transcends metaphor and becomes a physical reality, we are inevitably forced to become accustomed to new constellations of bodies and spaces. The body remains one of the most challenging questions of contemporary life, at a time when there is a record use of antidepressants, nutritional advice and health, and fitness applications, but also when people are resisting the pathologizing of transgender identities, condemning behaviors based on race and learning to cope with the outbreak of the pandemic emergency”.
With Ana Mira, Clara Saraiva, Gisela Casimiro, Gonçalo M. Tavares, João Tavares, Pedro Machado, Sílvia Pinto Coelho
Curators: Andreia Páscoa and Joana Braga
Moderator: Marta Rema

Organization:
Culturgest
Edifício-sede da Caixa Geral de Depósitos
Rua Arco do Cego, 50
1000–300 Lisbon
Phone: (+351) 21 790 51 55
Email: culturgest.bilheteira@cgd.pt
Website: https://www.culturgest.pt/pt/programacao/corpo-por-vir/
Photo credit: Culturgest

Audio Essay

The stroke in minimal gestures

The body to come microsite

Online

Culturgest 

If the shoelace thread is not tied or untied and remains loose, it vibrates in the hands, creates sounds, and follows a trail, wandering with Yves – the teenager in the film “Le Moindre Geste”, by Fernand Deligny, Josée Manenti, and Jean- Pierre Daniel (1971). The trace in minimal gestures seeks to reflect on the forms of existence that are envisaged in that environment amongst beings, objects and the surroundings.

Organization:
Culturgest
Edifício-sede da Caixa Geral de Depósitos
Rua Arco do Cego, 50
1000–300 Lisbon
Phone: (+351) 21 790 51 55
Email: culturgest.bilheteira@cgd.pt
Website: https://www.culturgest.pt/pt/media/o-corpo-por-vir/
Photo credit: “Le Moindre Geste”, Fernand Deligny, Josée Manente and Jean-Pierre Daniel (1971). 

Curation

Coalesce, in the space of the body in thought
Continuous and collective seminar on drawing, dance and philosophy

February 2020 – September 2021

Porta33

Coalesce, in the space of the body in thought is a continuous seminar of drawing, dance and philosophy, particularly on the body, which brings together a group of artists, philosophers, researchers, and teachers. The project will run bi-monthly, between 2020-2021, at Porta33, for a wide audience aged between 3 and 70 years old, with and without experience, also in previous projects of Porta33. Coalesce is a place for experimentation of the body and its philosophical reflection, through embodied practices of movement, drawing, reading, writing, and dialogue developed in a participative and collaborative environment. The nature of this project gives priority to artistic and philosophical research developed through the voice of each of the participants, in a regime of sharing the sensible between life and art. It is intended that the series of practices and theories, in coalescence, encourage the lived experience, the knowledge, and the revelation of oneself. With: Ana Mira, Clara Bevilaqua, Dora Vicente, Emília Pinto de Almeida, Joana Pupo, Manuel Rodrigues, Maria Filomena Molder, Mariana Lemos, Rita Pedro, Sofia Neuparth.
This project is funded by Direção-Geral das Artes – Ministério da Cultura.

Where & Organization:
Porta33
Rua do Quebra Costas, 33, 9000-034 Funchal – Ilha da Madeira
Phone: (+351) 291 743 038
Email: porta33@porta33.com
Website: https://porta33.com/porta33_madeira/eventos/content_eventos/coalescer/coalescer_apresentacao.html
Photo credit: Courtesy of Porta33