DANCER AND CHOREOGRAPHER
Marta Cerqueira works, since 2001, as a performer, arts researcher and choreographer. More recently, she has also extended her interests and professional practices to the visual arts (installation).
With a solid background in classical and modern dance, she completed the National Conservatory Dance School course in 2001 (Lisbon) and, after that, she developed, with a fellowship from Instituto Português das Artes do Espectáculo (IPAE), a study program in New York. Within this program, she studied dance techniques and pieces by Martha Graham, Trisha Brown and Merce Cunningham. She continued her training in Berlin and Lisbon - in the latter city shestudied Body and Movement Studies at c.e.m. She had the opportunity to meet several contemporary choreographers and performers at the Choreographic Creation Course at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.
Since the beginning of her career she has been interested in multidisciplinary approaches. Thus, she integrated the projects COLINA04(PT) and Point to Pointe Program, 4th Asia- Europe Dance Forum/06(PL).
In 20 years dedicated exclusively to creating and performing, she has worked with artists from many fields and presented work in Portugal, Spain, France, Switzerland, Germany, Netherlands, Croatia, Serbia, Greece, Lebanon, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Poland, Scotland, Canada, Argentina and Brazil.
In her career, she has had a wide range of experiences, working as a film actress in films by Jeanne Waltz, Manuel Guerra, Tiago Guedes and Frederico Serra; as a guest artist at Chapitô Theatre Company (where she performed and co-created plays of wide international circulation, awarded both nationally and internationally); as an assistant director for Sofia Dias & Vitor Roriz, Marlene Monteiro Freitas and Tânia Carvalho; as performer in video pieces by Kamila Chomicz, Luis da Matta Almeida / Zeppelin Filmes, Alexandro Farto / Vhils and in the performance Extensões do Corpo by the Brazilian visual artist Adriana Barreto.
She is the author of MUTE (2016-18), a dance solo in partnership with composer and visual artist João Bento; SubLinhar (2018-22), a dance solo for children (piece selected by Aerowaves Twenty21); #3Movediço and #4Ar (shows from the collection Dança de Materiais Inertes, in co-creation with pianist and composer Simão Costa).
Dance and Movement are the main engine of her research and way of thinking. Her work covers various forms whose focus is on dance, either through choreography or through other formats close to the visual arts. The artist is interested in the practice of choreographic composition applied not only to the human body, but also to other materials which show a potential in choreography.
