About the Project
This digital archive, entitled Raízes Culturais e Espíritos, will uplift over 40 years of Isaura’s work centered in 4 main categories: street intervention and activism, black and indigenous healing and spirituality, classes/workshops/experiential learning, and her solo performance career. Embedded in her Bahian Brazilian legacy and her family’s cultural and indigenous roots, this archive will work to continuously uplift the voices of black and ingenious art, and will support future collective building and community weaving through Isaura’s work and the work of the larger artistic collective.
About Isaura Oliveira
Isaura Oliveira
Actress, Singer, Dancer, Costume Designer, Dance Teacher
Isaura Oliveira was born and raised in Salvador-Bahia, Brazil. She is an actress, singer, dancer, costume designer, dance teacher, yoga instructor, choreographer, community leader, healer, activist, innovator and visionary. Isaura’s expertise is African Brazilian Cultural Dance. Spirituality and Nature are Isaura’s medicine and The Ancestors are her guides. Isaura holds a BFA from the School of Dance, Federal University of Bahia, and won numerous awards in Brazil, France, and the U.S. She has taught at many Colleges and Universities, such as Smith, UMASS Amherst, Radcliffe, and UC Santa Cruz . Her first one-woman show, Malinke premiered in 1988 at the Festival Cantar da Costa, Italy. Ancentrais, was sponsored and produced by MIT in 1990. Isaura’s works have been documented by PBS and BBC TV. Dancing #5: New Worlds, New Forms, features her, representing Brazilian dance. In the Bay Area, Isaura created “de Corpo e Alma” and “CUBAHIA, meu Amor.” She choreographed for Dimensions Dance Theater. Since returning to Boston in 2019, Maestra Isaura has collaborated with local musicians in dance workshops and performances such as “LEVANTE” (Racines Festival, October, 2020), “MEDICINE everywhere” (2021-2022) and “POWER OF SKIRT” (2021-present). She created the Living Experience Outdoor Program, a healing movement class for BIPOC held in public parks during Covid. She was a Fall ’21 Indigo Artist Alliance artist in residence in Portland Maine and currently a teaching artist at the Dance Complex. She is a nominee for the Boston Foundations Brother Thomas Fellowship.
Photographs
Power of Skirts Collective
The Power of Skirts Collective is a group of self-identified BIPOC women in leadership who have come together to dance with, train under, and support our esteemed teacher and elder, Mestra Isaura Oliveira. Born and raised in Salvador-Bahia, Brazil, she is an actress, singer, dancer, costume designer, dance teacher, yoga instructor, choreographer, community leader, healer, activist, innovator and visionary. Her expertise is African Brazilian Cultural Dance. Spirituality and Nature are Isaura’s medicine and The Ancestors are her guides. Isaura holds a BFA from the School of Dance, Federal University of Bahia, and won numerous awards in Brazil, France, and the U.S. She has taught at many Colleges and Universities, such as Smith, UMASS Amherst, Radcliffe, and UC Santa Cruz. Currently, she is part of the Sustain Movement with Resist, Inc. as her fiscal sponsor.
From all walks of life, we, as aspiring dancers and leaders have found our way into her orbit. We are now a part of her mission: to bring art, joy and healing through dance and nature to our Black and Brown communities in Boston.Power of Skirts was created in 2019, initially as a street parade dance movement flow performance with the intention to celebrate BIPOC women’s leadership. The responses from audiences, organizers and participants were so positive, that we grew into an ongoing training program with our mentor. We workshopped a new choreographic flow for several events around Massachusetts, with the focus of reaching black neighborhoods. Over the years we became the Power of Skirts Collective to focus on healing arts and art-activism. We channel the dance movement of the African Diaspora in Latin America and the Caribbean through skirt dance traditions and music. We invoke Liberation, Healing, Human Rights and Social Justice. Our colorful skirts, our drumming, our voices and our bodies spread Joyful Resistance since 2019. Our Ritual Performances bless the places we dance. We approach nature as sacred. We work together with our unique set of skills and passions to further the vision of Mestra Isaura Oliveira: to bring healing arts to the people.
Living Experience
Mestra Isaura Oliveira’s community leadership is rooted in her Living Experience Outdoor Program. Living Experience was created in 2020 out of the desperate need to hold a safe, healing space for BIPOC people during the Covid-19 lockdown. She took the opportunity to honor nature as the safest place to be together. Mestra Isaura Oliveira taught healing Afro-Brazilian dance movements, and led improvisational singing, yoga, stretching while sunset, and silent walks with Ancestors. Her tradition is steeped in indigenous medicine and spirituality. She took a part of her personal healing/ wellness practice and turned it into a much needed community offering. Over the last four years, we have begun to deepen our training with her. Through the Emerging Practitioner Fellow, will aim to dedicate more time and resources to learning right from the source, and focus on bringing out the memory and the personal indigenous practices of each member. As Mestra always says, “each one of us has ancestors in guidance, we are a channel, as much we ground into nature, we are empowered to inspire many others towards their own healing and liberation.” We will continue training in Afro-Brazilian Dance and Mestra Isaura creative repertoire, collaborate and participate in the advancement of Power of Skirts and Living Experience as public programming to serve our communities as new leaders, and harness our personal and creative strengths through the gift of knowledge and mentorship from our teacher.
Contact us
Email us with any questions or to send us files that you would like to see included on the website.