Samuel Samways

I have been teaching Zouk, Tango, samba de gafieira and forró, as well as other Latin American social dance styles, since 2009. Since 2012, I have been working as a dancer in dance companies that use these dances and other partnership techniques to create artistic works and have performed in many theaters in Brazil and abroad. Since 2014 I have been teaching partner dance through an exclusive methodology that breaks with the hierarchical structures of ballroom dancing and its roles defined by gender. I also conducted regular workshops with many themes around partnership dancing and have hosted monthly dance improv jams.

From 2016 to 2018 I was awarded a scholarship, funded by Fapemig, in the artistic research program at CEFART – Center for Artistic and Technological Education, Fundação Clóvis Salgado, in Belo Horizonte, where I developed research in Contemporary Social Dancing and consolidated my methodology in Condução Mútua as a model of opposition to machismo and heteronormativity in traditional social dancing.

In 2017 I created the Terceira Margem dance collective and led regular meetings teaching the method to other dancers while creating artistic works based on this research. The collective develops hybridization techniques between Brazilian and Latin social dances, contact improvisation and contemporary dance. It also proposes strategies for deconstructing stereotypes rooted in the traditional model of ballroom dancing while also preserving the popular culture. Since 2018, I also have been actively involved in researching dance practices that integrates individuals with and without disabilities having volunteered as a teacher for elderly people and people with disabilities in cultural access programs in the city of Belo Horizonte.