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My name is Maria Silva, I come from Portugal and I live in Belgium. My parents were trying to find me a hobby and I ended up in gymnastics and I really didn’t like it. Then I tried ballet. I started when I was 5. And it when on, and on, and on.

So, I studied from when I was 10 until my 18-year old when I was in Lisbon in the Conservatory practicing classical dance, folk dance, I did a bit of tap dance. And so, after that I moved to Belgium and then that’s when I started contemporary dance. But it was a little bit an accident because I did the audition to the school, but during the audition process, I got to experience contemporary dance. Different kinds, different styles.  And, yeah, I guess, I was already looking for that kind of dance but I hadn’t been exposed to it.

I haven’t thought of giving up but sometimes I am curious to do other things. Once I am at work with people, this keeps me going. So I guess it’s more the gaps in between each work that maybe give me more doubts. The works that I do are so diverse there that at least what I am interested at or what I am searching as a dancer, they are so diverse, and this diversity is so important to me that I keep searching for this to give me perspectives and information from different sources, different perspectives. So, bringing me to research on very different topics. I keep searching for new inputs. From many different sources. It can be music, it can be text, it can be films, it can be concerts.  It depends on so many factors and you have to see things through different angles and be able to act upon the situation itself.

So I have different practices that I change or adapt according to different works I do for different choreographers. But I try to wake up my body at its fullest to be able to have access to what I need for what I am working, to tools or to the openness of curiosity.

Well, I think movement makes meaning to me, but I also give meaning to the movement. So I think it is a constant exchange. I think in dance there is this process of where you search for material and there is this whole part where you structure and work and craft with it, the material will always change. It will always become something else. So then, sometimes, at the process of certain works you have at the end, you go back and you start trying to find the meaning of this material which is different from the source you started from. I think it has to do with this listening aspect. Yeah.,taking the other as the same as we are all made of the same material.

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Interview With Maria Silva Transcript

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