Celia ARGÜELLO RENA
Dancer
Celia received a grant to participate in the Camping project organized by the Centre National de la Danse.
What is your artistic background ?
I am a dancer and choreographer. I was born in the city of Córdoba, in the north of central Argentina. In 2006 I moved to Buenos Aires where I graduated in Choreographic Composition at the IUNA (National Institute of Art) and studied Contemporary Dance and Theater with national and international teachers. I have collaborated with some of the most productive choreographers on the local scene and I am also working as a choreographer with different theater directors. I was lucky to receive funds and scholarships to develop my own projects in Argentina. I am interested in working with artists from different disciplines and mixing dance with other languages. I also use biographical material and I like to get involved with the political context to develop my own interpretations of reality and generate new ways of seeing it. I am constantly looking for new ways of thinking about movement and the body for my pieces, as well as being a teacher and creator.
How do you see your profession today ?
I would like to be optimistic about my profession. Our working material is something that is always under construction and this implies the possibility of reinventing oneself all the time. It also implies responsibility with the discourse we put into our own body. This idea bothers me and interests me at the same time. Traveling with dance also gave me the opportunity to know other contexts very different from my country. In South America we have a very powerful artistic scene, but we do not have enough resources for all of us. In Argentina, our current government chooses, more and more, to eliminate the culture budget. Our creations and our discourses are crossed with the idea of resistance and crisis. We do it even though it is very difficult to produce, and that makes us strong and united among ourselves, in the best cases. I think that dance is at an interesting moment, I like to see and study how artists develop body strategies to survive in this era of technological virtual reality. I believe that as workers we have a great task to continue to believe in the body as a presence and as a discourse.
How do you see yourself in five years ? In 10 years ?
I hope to continue working in the dance industry until the end of my days or for as long as my desire remains aligned with movement. In five years, I see myself working hard to generate new forms of collaborations between artists, without thinking only about economic survival. I see myself working with other artists and incredible people to create new ways of being in the world. I really like to discover new ideas and new looks, I hope to continue doing that. In 10 years I see myself enjoying all that work and also my personal life. I see myself working to achieve new goals. I hope to witness new states of humanity, with equality for all. For self-employed artists, life and work are always entangled. For many years now in Argentina, we have been fighting for the state to approve a law that recognizes us as dance workers. I would like this law to be approved soon so that dance becomes also a matter of the state.
This interview was conducted in 2017
Photo credit: Céline Anaya Gautier