Escola de dança do Teatro Guaíra: do curso de danças clássicas à criação do curso superior de dança – 1956-1984

Abstract

The human need to dance has been present since the beginnings of humanity for hunting and fighting in war, for spiritual and/or religious ceremonies, and for other reasons. This primary spontaneous activity starts to be institutionalized so that its constituent elements are understood: the body, the movement, the space, time and their relationships, especially from the 15th century by means of the first dance treats. Guaíra Theater Dance School, created in 1956 in Curitiba, institutionalizes the dancing activity in the State of Paraná as a public and complimentary service aiming at professionalizing the primary activity: dancing. Even though it pioneers the possibility of offering professional education in the field of dancing, the organization of a pedagogical education system is only observed from the 1970‟s onwards. It is important to emphasize that the creation of the Undergraduate Dance Course in Paraná in 1984, the second one in Brazil, did not weaken the continuity of activities at Guaíra Theater Dance School. The aim of this thesis consists in analyzing the path of Guaíra Theater Dance School from 1956 to 1984. The specific objectives were constituted by the following: to know the singularities of the classic ballet; to identify which pedagogical conceptions were present in each historical moment; to restore aspects of the social context and of the dance education in Curitiba before the creation of the school institution into research; and to analyze the pedagogical dance practices adopted by Guaíra Theater Dance School. Works related to the topic were analyzed; documents showing the pedagogical education practice were found in the Public Archive of the State in the room allocated to Guaíra Theater, and also in the School Memory Sector as, for example, printing press in Curitiba from 1950 to 1980, and interviews with students, teachers and former teachers of the school. This work is a study of History of Education linked to Cultural History in the strand of the History of Educational Institutions. The methodology aims at searching, collecting and analyzing the sources through interdisciplinarity or a convergence of subjects and fields of knowledge. The collected sources were analyzed according to the dance education language (MARQUES, 1999) and the History of Educational Institutions (NOSELLA; BUFFA, 2008, 2013) in their social, political, economical and cultural contexts to provide a better understanding of the chosen educational institution. The categories analyzed according to Nosella and Buffa (2013) were the historical context, the evolutional process, the students, the teachers and administrators, the knowledge, the pedagogical practices, and the events. In order to understand the history of this school it was necessary to go back in time and space, to know the aspects of the teaching of dance in Curitiba before the creation of this institution, besides getting to know the singularities of the classic ballet, its beginning, its history and the specific contents of this education. This thesis accepts staging, that is, the show as the peak of the pedagogical practices adopted, which are of fundamental value for the teaching and learning process of a dance school. The experiment in body expressiveness in diverse spaces for different kinds of public is considered one of the pillars for the education of the student-artist-dancer.