Back in September, during Dublin Fringe Festival, there was one buzzed-out number that many theatre-makers were talking about. As the figure climbed into the hundreds, it kept being mentioned: “Have you heard about the Terra wait-list?”
Although plenty of shows sell out, competition for audiences at the festival is intense. Terra, by the Afro-Brazilian dancer, choreographer, performer and teacher Alessandra Azeviche, was arguably the most in-demand production. Every evening during its five performances, people queued at Project Arts Centre in the hope that they might get lucky and nab a returned ticket.
“There’s a lot for me to unpack, still,” Azeviche says about staging the piece, which was in part about colonisation and countercolonisation. “There’s that tendency of trying to put your whole life into 45 minutes: all your ideas, plans, beliefs; sometimes trying too hard with yourself. It’s not about trying to please people, it’s just that if, for a long time, you don’t have spaces to share, and then you do, it’s like a subconscious survival mechanism: ‘I have to say this all now! Put everything into one basket!’”
Why does she think it was so popular? “I think there was a mix of curiosity and wanting a new perspective,” she says. “When you’re bringing the subject of countercolonising to a country that was colonised, on a subconscious level people can relate. But it’s a superficial thing to go, ‘We have been colonised, too: we know.’ My experience of colonisation is different to yours, but we can find common ground for sure. Sometimes people are looking for something they can relate to instead of being open to something new, another perspective to learn from ...
“It’s complex. It’s not something to ‘get’, it’s to receive, and to sit with someone else’s experience of colonisation in a different body, time, context. For me, having my ancestors from Africa, and having a historical concept of enslavement that travels through my genes, my lineage, my experience, because I’m a dancer I’m talking about embodying a memory of ancestors. What I connect with here [in Ireland] is the oppression from the church within our bodies.”
[ Terra: A dancer – and a planet – trying to get back to certain kind of feelingOpens in new window ]
In Salvador, the capital of the state of Bahia in northeastern Brazil, Azeviche performed and taught capoeira, the Afro-Brazilian art form, which she began to learn when she was 12. At the time she didn’t necessarily engage with its spiritual depth, she says. As a teenager she “was following the format of how education is introduced. You become part of it, but you can’t add meaning to it.
“But when I started to understand it more, and become an adult, I understood how much power capoeira could bring me. In the back of my mind I was being trained to become who I am right now. It wasn’t, like, ‘I want to become a dancer.’ It was more, ‘I am dancing, I am learning.’ My level of consciousness expanded. My critical thinking kicked in: ‘Oh, I’m black. The capoeira was something my ancestors did to protect themselves against the colonisers.’”
[ Beyond bossa nova: São Paulo’s dance ambassadors arrive in IrelandOpens in new window ]
Azeviche, who plans to take Terra on tour in 2025, is studying to become a mindfulness teacher.
“I’m going deep into trauma. In my community we have a lot of trauma, so I can’t just be a dance teacher. I need to know about all these triggers I’m bringing to people, because I’m inviting them to dive into things that have been suppressed and oppressed. On the dance floor that can happen at any point,” she says. “I really need to know how to attend to people.”
In 2021 Azeviche was selected as a participant in Dublin Fringe Festival’s Weft Studio programme, which, with the support of the Arts Council, offers mentorship and development support for emerging and early-career artists of colour. Azeviche also leads Quilombo Terra, Ireland’s first Afro-Brazilian arts performance group, and has worked with the Five Lamps Arts Festival in Dublin.
I’m a power-to-the-people kind of person, so I’m doing what I can with what I have as an artist. It’s about inspiring people by doing
“I’m expanding my vision of starting a movement of countercolonising,” she says.
“I’m very curious about the Irish language. When you dive into it, oh my God, the knowledge, the wisdom. When you’re disconnected from that [language], you have no resources to grow … I’m continuing the process of decolonising myself. Now I’m not even using [the term] ‘decolonising’ … Now you can ‘countercolonise’ by taking actions against the ways the colonisers had. I’m interested in countercolonising by changing me, and trying to express that change through my art.”
But change takes time, she says. “At the end of the day, most of us are very tired yet not finding ways to rest. It’s interesting even to talk about the housing crisis in Ireland, people working day and night to pay the rent, not even having time to stop and think – ‘How can I find other ways?’ – or to start your f***ing revolution.
“I’m a power-to-the-people kind of person, so I’m doing what I can with what I have as an artist. It’s about inspiring people by doing.”
When we speak, Azeviche is at Dance Ireland’s Dublin studios. “I was teaching, sharing with people, raising conversations. For me, when I talk about a way of living, it’s from the time I wake up to the time I go to bed. I’m living what I’m saying. It’s not about, ‘I made a piece,’ because the piece will finish, and I will keep living the way I said on stage. So that’s not a piece. It’s real.”
