Antropologie Yanki
Yanka’s Anthropologies

Summary/Abstract: This article about the Polish dancer Yanka Rudzka attempts an anthropological and historical analysis of the creation of the contemporary art of the dance in Brazil. During the 1950s Rudzka emigrated to Brazil where she was invited to establish the first national dance university in the state of Bahia. Her pioneering project encompassed the techniques of the Expressionistic and Afro dance, an approach that at the time was a genuine sensation. Despite the fact that Rudzka did not hold the post of the course coordinator for long her several years-long presence in Bahia made a significant contribution to the decolonisation of Brazilian art and science. The outcome of in-depth studies conducted by the author in 2014-2015 as part of the Yanka Rudzka Polish-Brazilian project concerning the life and oeuvre of the Polish artist Yanka Rudzka. The text concentrates predominantly on her pioneering approach to creation, merging elements of the contemporary dance and anthropological observation. Within this context Rudzka’s works provided foundations for a new paradigm of the performing arts, based on a creative combination of Afro-Brazilian tradition and modern arts. From the early 1960s such an approach became increasingly popular in north-eastern Brazil and today is one of the dominating aesthetic tendencies in this region. The presented publication was prepared for a research session organised by the author with the cooperation of the School of Dance at the Federal University of Bahia and the VIVADANÇA festival (April 2016). This meeting summed up the oeuvre of the Polish dancer within the context of the history of the performing arts in Brazil.

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