Jacare Brazil with Juliana Azoubel at Bo Diddley Plaza

Juliana will perform in ensemble with Jacaré Brazil, directed by Larry Crook and Welson Tremura, and AGBEDIDI, directed by Mohamed DaCosta. The performance is generously sponsored by the City of Gainesville and is free and open to the public.

From Joan Frosch Professor at University of Florida School of Theatre and Dance: Please join me in welcoming Center for World Arts guest artist Juliana Azoubel. It is a pleasure to welcome choreographer and performer Juliana Azoubel, professor of dance, Dance Education Program, School of Fine Arts, Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil. The Center for World Arts, the School of Theatre and Dance and the School of Music have enjoyed a wonderful friendship with Juliana Azoubel for almost two decades. Juliana is a UF alum (BFA Dance Performance 2001; MALAS 2007) and has guested with us on multiple occasions since 1998. Juliana’s visit includes lectures and lab classes in World Dance and Ethnomusicology, along with setting repertory to be presented in performance.

“Pontos de contato,” Juliana’s performance-research project, explores multiple layers of contemporary Brazilian identities through staged and site-specific performance. The project’s relevance to the current climate in the United States strikes me as profound. Its message of humanity deftly inserts shared delight and warm surprise into quotidian life. As dance and music arise in unexpected places, the project creates an unanticipated sharing of beauty as it unfolds. Like many in the United States, communities across the Americas seek to heal themselves and their nations. In myriads of ways, they build bridges of empathy, tolerance, and the trust to encounter, engage, and question. In the simplicity and beauty of the open human encounter, we seek to heal and move forward. I am confident that “Pontos de contato” will seed meaningful collaborations between MINAS and UF in this fertile soil.

We are particularly grateful for the support of the School of Theatre and Dance, the Center for Latin American Studies, and the School of Music in this fall’s exchange between UF and the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais.