Luke Jessop
SAMIR CALIXTO
The Continuous Body
Class:
In this intensive workshop week Calixto will focus on the development of an organic sense of movement through a sensitive approach over articulation and physical awareness, providing technical and compositional tools for dancers and/ or dance professionals. Elements like flow, weight, physical energy and relation with the space are some of the keywords used during the process of nurturing the dancing body. The exercises proposed during the workshop aim to cultivate, while working on technical elements, a very specific, yet flexible dance vocabulary. This approach allows the dancers to identify which mechanisms attend better to their physical demands while building up the movement qualities developed in the training process. The participants will also be led to explore multiple physical textures throughout a series of intensive exercises. From there, they will investigate which elements can have a powerful influence over the movement material, which can be translated into a consciously built dance composition.
Bio:
Samir Calixto was born in São Paulo, Brazil. For his dance solo debut Eros in 1999 he won the first prize at Nascente/ Abril Festival. From this moment on, Samir was involved with multidisciplinary projects connected to his university years as well as a guest artist in outside projects.
While moving to Europe in 2004 - one year after his graduation - Samir made the definitive switch to the dance career, getting in touch with the rich Dutch and European dance scenes, meeting figures who would have a decisive role on furthering his steps. Establishing his freelancing status as a dancer, he had in 2005 his solo Wash Me Up placed as a finalist at the Best Dance Solo Competition in Leipzig (coordinated by Alain Platel). Since then Samir has worked in productions by Korzo Theatre, Danswerkplaats Amsterdam, and others.
For the last years, Samir has mainly developed his own works, establishing himself as one of the main active independent choreographers in The Netherlands.
Since then Korzo Productions - the biggest production house for dance in The Netherlands - has adopted him as one of its house choreographers. Where he premiered with his firs full evening program - the Winterreise Tetralogy - and his full-length piece 4 Seasons. This choreography received a nomination for the "ZWAAN" - the most important Dutch dance prize - as the most impressive choreography of the year.
In 2014 Calixto was the first recipient of the BNG EXCELLENT TALENT DANCE AWARD, a choreography prize for outstanding choreographic talent in The Netherlands.
His latest creations are IN FUGA I, a commission for the Bremen/ Hannover based company Of Curious Nature/ TanzRaum Nord, and SEEKER※SOLO, which marks his farewell as house choreographer at the Korzo Theater in The Netherlands.
His tour experiences include performances in festivals and theaters in Holland, Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Czech Republic, Russia, Switzerland, Canary Islands, Cyprus, Norway, Senegal and South Korea.
From 2021 Calixto launches Matter Affects - an initiative in partnership with Stacz Wihelm, former artistic director of Korzo Theater.
For more information about Samir you can visit: https://www.samircalixto.com/home