Angolan Contemporary Dance Company - «Art should disturb and unsettle»
«The South
The sun the south the salt
someone's hands in the sun
southern salt in the sun
the sun in the hands of the south
and salt hands in the sun
Southern salt in the hands of the sun
and southern hands in the sun
a salt sun in the south
the sun in the south
the salt in the sun
the salt the sun
and southern hands without sun or salt
For when love finally
in the south in the sun
a handful of salt?»
Ruy Duarte de Carvalho
Founded on December 27, 1991, by choreographer and dancer Ana Clara Guerra Marques, the Contemporary Dance Company of Angola is one of the first groups of its kind to emerge in Africa. Ana Clara's show A Propósito de Lweji was the company's first to take the stage. Today, with around 34 years of activity, CDC Angola has performed dozens of shows in many countries and cities—taking its work to 17 countries and 39 cities, performing before thousands of spectators.
In addition to performing for the public, the company plays an important role in artistic training in Angola, as it runs an arts workshop that links artistic education, the arts, and the community, and is committed to inclusive dance, integrating dancers with physical disabilities (such as dancer Samuel Curti) into its cast.
With a deeply professional, thoughtful, and rigorous approach, CDC Angola works primarily in three areas: first, research and creation based on Angolan masks, dances, and cultural heritage; second, social intervention work, exploring current issues; and third, contemporary choreographic experimentation and research. «It is a somewhat critical company, because I believe that art should not be produced solely for pleasure and entertainment. I think art should disturb and unsettle. Only unease and discomfort can move the artist», argues Ana Clara Guerra Marques. For the choreographer, her mission is precisely this: «to do work that will be valued later and that will serve as a foundation for future generations of artists, because we cannot accept that a dancer is just someone who dances behind a singer or on a television show; a dancer is a thinking being and has much more to offer than mere entertainment.» The main goal of Ana Clara Guerra Marques and the company she directs is to «take dance in Angola to another level», preventing the art form from remaining «stuck in the false, backward, and fallacious idea that in Africa people should limit themselves to traditional culture or dance.»
Paisagens Propícias remains the mirror of this purpose: a mature work that shows that Angola is also developing dance creation at a high professional level. And now, with new seasons (such as O Vendedor de Inutilidades in 2025), CDC Angola reaffirms that contemporaneity, research, and internationalization are an integral part of its identity.