Mucíná wa Maputz *she who dances in Maputz*: a study of the ethnographic method in artistic practice research in contemporary dance in Maputo

Author(s)

Marília Clemente Gomes Carneiro

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Faculdade de Educação
• Defense date: 2016-02-25

Examining board members

Marcia Maria Strazzacappa Hernandez; Ana Lúcia Guedes Pinto; Jorge de Albuquerque Vieira; Sandra Meyer Nunes; Rogério Adolfo de Moura

• Advisor: Marcia Maria Strazzacappa Hernandez

Abstract

Mucíná wa Maputz: she who dances in Maputz, translating Changana into English. Mucíná means (s)he who performs contemporary dance (CD). Maputz is the geographic space: contemporary dance places and places in between in Maputo, Mozambique, Africa. Maputo is our destination and in here, readers will find a map and instructions for a sensory dérive (drift) through theaters, rehearsal rooms, and trajectories in an exercise of performative writing that brings them back to their own body moving through a contemporary urban space, through a certain Africa. The purpose of this thesis is to study, from experience, the ethnographic method riveted in the artistic practice of contemporary dance. To narrate and describe those experiences that allow us to comprehend the method. It is thus, a study of the method, a methodology conceptually related to research in artistic practices (Fortin & Gosselin, 2014), which requires that researchers be practitioners of the art. This thesis is meant to contribute to the current effort of developing research methodologies in Dance. Through anthropology, the founding discipline of ethnography, a design was drawn up of the method that defines an insider¿s, albeit foreigner¿s, perspective (Davida, 2012), which brings to question: 1. Which procedures, techniques, and tools are involved in data collection and field opening? 2. What data will the dancer-researcher observe? 3. Which somatic data will appear in the ethnography of dance and, especially, the shape they will take in annotations and their impact on the course of my reflection? 4. How does the method behave in the process of choreographic creation? I present a methodological mounting initiated three years before onsite fieldwork and speak in terms of an ethnographic experiment that spans over the creation of the experimental situation (a contemporary dance artistic residency in Maputo), the methodological design that guided data collection, and the idea of preparatory procedures (scoping study; report on talk repertory; anxiolytic for methodological anxiety; continuation of the artistic practice ¿ dance training, scenic experiments, cultivation of the choreographic garden, pedagogical development; record operationalization). I explore writing as a meta-dance (Sklar, 2000) and the secret strategy of "treating oneself as another" to give voice to different characters. I describe aspects of the experiment in Maputo. The Maputz, the field data collection, takes shape. The methodological dismounting looks into the warping procedures: 1. Document collection; 2. Interviews; 3. Participant observation; and 4. Records. Although the experiment revealed other subjacent, fundamental procedures weaving our field, Participant observation (training practices, creation, and diffusion in contemporary dance) and annotations privileging enriched daily writing are focused. The text explores different styles, but particularly highlights five Creative Analytical Practices Ethnography (Richardson & St. Pierre, 2005), which are interspersed in the dissertation. Finally, two ideas to deal with ethnographic data: 1. A heuristic (Moustakas, 1990) of somatic data [drift data (corpocity), kinesthetic experience (#,b), RSR (Researcher¿s Somatic Responses-intuition)], 2. An analysis bringing the ethnographic experience closer to creation processes. Among my conclusions, I acknowledge that It¿s not the ant that rides on horseback. It is the horse that takes the ant. At the end of the text, readers will know more on contemporary dance in general and Maputo in particular (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 11/17951-2 - An ethnography of contemporary dance in Maputo, Mozambique, Africa.
• Grantee: Marília Clemente Gomes Carneiro
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate