The Contemporary Dance Group of the Federal University of Bahia - GDC/UFBA was created in 1965 by dancer, choreographer and educator Rolf Gelewski and its a permanent project of the UFBA Dance School.

“Ziriguidum: open ideas for playing and dancing” (2017-2018), with conception and direction by Carmen Paternostro with the participation of the Percussion Nucleus of the UFBA, and the "Trilogy of Dreaming" (2017- 2018) by Daniela Guimarães, were the latest productions developed on site. During the pandemic context, the projects “Suíte Canibal Stories: uma opereta digital em três atos (2020-2021), by Isabelle Cordeiro, and "Mugangas, Pantinhos e Malassombros: rebuliços videocoreográficos em dança” (2020-2021)" by Denny Neves with Daniela Amoroso assistance’s, were developed remotely. Both works made the premiere at UFBA Virtual Congress 2021, together with the film “Ruínas” (2017-2019), by Daniela Guimarães, which are considerate the first audiovisual (video and film) productions of GDC.

In 2021, GDC created, in partnership with Nii/Collaboratorio, the short film SEM CHÃO, conceived and directed by Antrifo Sanches, Alana Falcão, Melissa Figueiredo and Neemias Santana, with scholarship students from Schools of Dance, Music, Theater and Fine Arts in the roles of interpreters-creators and technical team.

Names such as Rolf Gelewski and Clyde Morgan, Roger George, Klauss Vianna, Dulce Aquino, Carmen Paternostro, Márcio Meirelles, Teresinha Argolo, Ivani Santana, Leda Muhana Iannitelli, Gilsamara Moura, Lucas Valentim, Lulu Pugliese, Daniela Guimarães, Marilza Oliveira, Denny Neves, Bel Souza, amongst many other artists, have choreographed more than 40 productions of the GDC repertoire, marking their presence in the Brazilian Scenic Dance, acting in a perspective of overcoming current aesthetic standards and decisively influencing the development of dance art throughout the country.

Thus, we can affirm that the GDC-UFBA not only contributes to the formation of professionals and of an audience for the arts, specifically for dance, but also represents the Institution in local, national and international artistic-cultural programmes, participating in instigating collaborative processes between artists of the dance as well as with those of other areas of arts and knowledge, such as visual arts, cinema, theatre and technology. The GDC's performance also combines the artistic-formative experience with extension and research, developing workshops, seminars, exchanges, exhibitions, among other events.

In this perspective, it is of vital importance to involve the student in choreographic composition laboratories, with the guarantee of orientations committed to the singularity of artistic making, the construction of its creation process and the structuring of the final product. The presence and motivation of the dancers in aesthetic experiments of this nature are stimulated and precipitate the continuation of the permanent programme of Extension of the Contemporary Dance Group.

As a space of intense experimentation, it presents a constellation of diversified and multi-referential creations, embracing artistic-aesthetic proposals from UFBA teachers, students and/or technicians. In certain periods, it was also opened to the participation of artists from outside the University expressing the extensionist nature of UFBA and the project created with the purpose of training, in Salvador/Bahia, both artists and audience for the dance, contributing to the artistic-formative scenario of the city.

The GDC timeline stands out in the 60s with Modern and Experimental Dance and it unfolds in the 70s with the development of artistic research inspired by regional and Afro-Brazilian dance with choreographer Clyde Morgan. In the 80s and 90s the group follows the advances of the Dance School with the creation of the Specialization Courses and its dialogues with artistic creation and Contemporaneity. In the 2000s the group advances in the relationships between body, technology and culture.

The creation of the Contemporary Dance Group of the Federal University of Bahia - GDC/UFBA, in 1965, comes in the flow of a curricular plan, implanted in UFBA, since the middle of the 50's, for the courses of Dance, Music and Theatre, understanding the relevance of the social function of the University for the formation of artists and also of an audience for modern arts. The creation of these courses integrated a bigger plan of cultural updating of the State of Bahia and, especially, of the city of Salvador, in which UFBA has performed significant contribution.

The GDC followed the flow of the Conjunto Contemporâneo de Dança groups (1956-1959), created by Yanka Rudzka, who implements this curricular experience in the Dance School and the succeeding Youth Dance Group, also created by Rolf Gelewski. Also significant are the experiences of students and teachers who have kept the artistic work in groups, in the gaps that exist between the departure and arrival of new directors at the School. The GDC still works in its trajectory in the Dance School of UFBA in coexistence with the Experimental, Odundê, Imagem, TranChan and Grupo X Groups, besides innumerable temporary existence groups that also left their traces in the lives of the artists and of the dance audience.