COMPANHIA DE DANÇA CONTEMPORÂNEA DE ANGOLA
CONTEMPORARY DANCE COMPANY OF ANGOLA
 
 

ANA CLARA GUERRA MARQUES

In 1970, at 8 years old, she started to learn classical dancing at the Dancing Academy of Luanda (Angola).
In 1975, Angola reaches the independence and all the dancing teachers leave the country. Thus, having completed the First Course of Dance Teachers in 1978 and despite her young age, she is designated to take charge of the sole dancing school in the country, activity she carries out together with dancing education.
Whether through her own activity as a ballet dancer and a choreographer, or through meetings, conferences and workshops she directs, she promotes and defends with perseverance the destiny of dancing as an artistic language in Angola.
In 1990, she completed the dancing high course at the Escola Superior de Dança de Lisboa in Portugal and received a special degree in pedagogies. In 1991, she set up the first professional dancing company in Angola, the "Companhia de Dança Contemporânea".

In 1995, she is granted by the UNAC (Union of Artists and Composers) with the IDENTITY prize.

Pioneering contemporary dance in Angola, she introduced new ways and new concepts in dance performances, as done in Corpusnágua, Solidão, 1 Morto e os Vivos e 5 Estátuas para Masongi, which were held in non-conventional areas, underlining her activity with well-known Angolan writers, painters and sculptors, as Manuel Rui Monteiro, Pepetela, Frederico Ningi, Jorge Gumbe, Francisco Van-Dúnem and António Ole.
Endowed with a strong spirit of observation, as well as a personal and perspicacious criticism about the world and the life, she brings her personality in her creations, thus involving a reading and an assertion of her own style, as it can be noted in some choreographic works she created and run, such as A propósito de Lueji, Mea Culpa, Imagem & Movimento or Uma Frase qualquer... & Outras (frases).

Looking for a diversification of dancing languages, her creations are based on a personal research on traditional and popular dances existing in some regions of Angola, and statuary, gathering all the collected elements to create a personal and contemporary language of Angolan dancing.
The social criticism is another option taken by the choreographer, since dancing is not a passive activity, but a powerful tool of intervention.

Through Palmas, Por Favor !, Neste País..., Agora não dá !, Tou a Bumbar... and Os Quadros do Verso Vetusto, this choreographer takes upon herself her criticism and irreverence towards the system.

As an executive of the Angolan Ministry of Education and Culture, she takes part in the conception and elaboration of academic programs, stressing the importance and the necessity of institutional dancing teaching in Angola.

She still keeps on with the development of her own research and enquiry on existing and extinguishing Angolan traditional dances, for a later technical systemization.

At the present time, she prepares a Master's degree in Anthropology of Space at the Department of Social and Human Sciences of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa.