Art Happens

Marco da Silva Ferreira (pt)

Marco da Silva Ferreira (°1986, Santa Maria da Feira) is dancer, choreographer and artistic director of Pensamento Avulso. Marco ​​started his practice of the body through high performance swimming and by getting a degree in physiotherapy. Although he never used the degree in his professional life, it helped him to decide to focus on the body’s practice in the performing arts. His journey to becoming a professional choreographer was made in a self-taught way through dance styles with African-American influences that flowed in an urban context.

Between 2002 and 2010 his focus and lexicons of dance became increasingly diverse and in 2010 he won the television contest So You Think You Can Dance. He debuted as a choreographer with a solo Nevoeiro 21 in 2012 and won prizes the following year with the successor Réplica … éplica … éplica (2013). In a quest for humanity and fraternity, he views his company and his work as an exercise in community. Hu(r)mano (2015) explored this sense of humanity and fraternity further, and has put Ferreira on the map of international dance. He continued this exploration in Brother (2016), which premiered in Teatro Municipal do Porto and was part of Aerowaves Priority Companies (2018) in Sofia and Bisonte (2019), which again premiered in Teatro Municipal do Porto. Between 2018 and 2019 he was an associate artist at Teatro Municipal do Porto and between 2019 and 2021 he was an associate artist at Center chorégraphique national de Caen in Normandie. In 2020 he was invited to build a short piece for the National Ballet Company entitled Corpos de Baille. In 2022 he was invited by the South African dance company Via Katlehong to create Via Injabulo together with choreographer Amala Dijanor. His part of the creation was called forms Inførms.

As an interpreter he worked, among others, with André Mesquita, Hofesh Shechter, Sylvia Rijmer, Tiago Guedes, Victor Hugo Pontes, Paulo Ribeiro, David Marques.
Marco da Silva Ferreira is Associate Artist at la Maison de la danse and la Biennale de la danse de Lyon.