GRAFIAS DO GESTO LABORATORY
The Grafias do Gesto Laboratory, created in 2012, belonging to the Department of Arts of the Body of EEFD/UFRJ, is coordinated by professors Marcus Machado and Waleska Britto, and figures extension and research students involved.
Its vision is to be a reference center that integrates teaching, research and extension proposals, aimed at the study and use of many ways of movement writing, whether in scientific and artistic production, choreographic creation and clinical practice.
The laboratory's major action focuses on offering courses and developing educational materials in Portuguese for study and research, learning and dissemination of movement writing. The laboratory also stands out for its research in Labanotation and Motif Notation. However, various forms of writing dance scores and movement are also investigated, such as Beauchamp-Feuillet notation, Benesh Movement Notation and SignWriting.
Gilberto de Assis Project: memories of Afro-Brazilian dance
The project intends to study, rescue and disseminate part of the great legacy produced by the Afro-Brazilian dance in our country, through this website to make it accessible to the general public. For this study on Afro-Brazilian dance, privileged actors of this history were invited, that is, the former dancers and students of Professor Gilberto de Assis, a fundamental character in the constitution of this dance. It is intended to create a research through interviews and oral-body history, presenting the set of gestural repertoire of theatrical Afro-Brazilian Dance, as well as the motor and body principles of this technique. Professor Gilberto de Assis is taken as a reference due to his strong and lasting relationship with Professor Mercedes Baptista, considered the creator of Afro-Brazilian Dance in the 1940s. The still alive students of Professor Gilberto de Assis were primordial informants of this rescue, made through interviews and dance workshops with these people. This material collected and studied, from the interviews and workshops, is organized on this website.