Loving diversity

When one dances with difference, the tune is different also. I understood that when I spoke with the man one remembers when speaking of the differences between these men and women who make us shudder, who make us cry, and who show what they are made of.

It has now been going on for sixteen years, this “dancing with difference”. Sixty cities in twenty countries later, the group created by Henrique Amoedo has nothing left to prove to those who watch them and admire them, since that first stage and the announced last performance in difficult times.

Speaking with Amoedo is seeing the emotions of so many years in his eyes, of a work that wasn’t always understood, and through his eyes, see the love held in his soul for those boys and girls that he found one day, here and there, with the help of Ester Vieira. It was one of those twists of fate that placed them in the same room, many years ago, in Porto, where the man that is the face of this group of “different” people was teaching a course. The teacher/actress saw the whole potential of the man who had created a pioneer group in Brazil called “Roda Viva”.

And the whirlwind of his life eventually took him to a lost island, while he completed his masters. He had time to study during the day, while he taught during the evening. And he stayed on. Day after day, week after week, a month after another. He stayed on, with a package of ideas he developed through the months, until he created the dream many people now live. He tells me of his creation, with the pride of one who saw it born and even multiply. Nowadays the project “Dançando com a diference” (dancing with difference) exists elsewhere in Portugal, namely in Santa Maria da Feira and Viseu, almost as if one had created a sort of franchise of the original idea.

I looked up to him with the sort of admiration one looks onto a sculptor, to the work that passes through his mouth as he tells what he did with that group of stars that shine and make our eyes shine.

I went through those years, those shows rehearsed for months on end to make those who believe smile and cry, but especially those, the thousands, who were converted along the way. I look onto a father, in front of me, who speaks of those tens of kids with a tenderness that only a special person like he could have.

Were it not for that, and we would never have, today, what is an internationally acclaimed group due to the recognition of the aesthetical artistic characteristics of those who spend part of their days there.

But the most striking in the group – besides, of course, its main raison d’etre, the artistic factor – is the great concern about the educational and terapeutical aspects, which are worked in the secondary groups associated with this entity. Because despite the fact that they are a “main” group of 21 elements, all the others deserve the same attention and the same care by the task force.

It wasn’t all easy. When I ask what the most difficult moment was, the answer comes slowly, after his gaze wandered by the wall behind me, looking for words. As if the story of the last year was written there. Then, with a sigh that he kept for a few seconds, Henrique raises the matter of “Desafinado”, in Porto Santo, a performance in which he wasn’t present due to other professional chores. Despite being far from them, his thought was always with those people who didn’t know, that day, whether they’d ever step on a stage in their lifes.

It isn’t difficult to understand his pain in the moment he speaks of this past. Of the difficulties he had in going ahead with a project that has, funnily enough, a partnership all ready to go, starting in 2018, to establish an Artistic Occupation Centre, a pioneer in Portugal, that will develop its activity through art of mobility.

But there was another moment, which will accompany him his whole life. That of the group’s first trip, to Brazil, when they took part in an international festival where his origins were also present – Roda Viva. Going back to his country, with a project he was eveloping abroad, meet people he had worked with, was a mix of emotions, but above all it was a moment in which the students understood they weren’t the only ones, and that they weren’t as good as they imagined. They came down to earth, they learned a lot, especially after Amoedo asked a colleague to give his pupils a “real” class, and they understood how far they had still to go.

When he finishes a show he isn’t overly expansive. He doesn’t start kissing and hugging the pupils, he congratulates when he likes it, and remains quiet when he doesn’t. Which is worrying. He takes a lot longer to get to his actors. He prefers to breathe in many times, even though the audience applauded profusely.

In April they will leave home again. They’ll fly to the mainland, and expand their horizons. Blame it on the man who’s always planning, and executing. Who’s always thinking.

foto: GDD

From all these years, he has special memories of the preparing of “Endless”, which lasted two years. It was part of a European project involving partners from other countries, like Germany, Poland, Lithuania and Estonia. The planning of the project stated that each of the partners would handle a different area, with the Madeira group being responsible for the dancing. The theme? The holocaust. They had to visit mythical places, explore the city of Berlin, they had to understand Nazism, and what this all meant for the other partners involved, namely the Poles and the Germans.

“Dançando com a Diferença” isn’t just another group. It’s a name, a brand. For better and for worse, says Henrique. Because it is necessary to sustain the huge weight of the name that is already known. The man who idealized, and who adopted Madeira with the Brazilian heart that hears the people that approach him, sometimes just because he instills the trust that allows them to do it…

Henrique is soft. Like only those who love children can be. Like those who know what they have in their hands, when kids are “taken” from the special education, and made special, when he takes them to a stage and values them. When he treats them as equals within the difference given them by nature, or by destiny. Because together they built the project that, today, teaches us to appreciate difference.

PARTILHAR:

Facebook

Google

Twitter

Linkedin

Print

Email