The Dance Memorial of the Federal University of Bahia has the mission of preserving the memory of the trajectory of the Dance School of UFBA, identifying and affirming the artistic- academic production of the institution and its impacts on the Brazilian Dance scene.

It is understood that a Memorial is not just a place to remember and tell stories: it is a space in which memories are built; a space of creation, since there is a plurality, resulting from the individual singularity, of activating and managing those memories. It is also a place of the present, a place of practical, creative, critical and imaginative triggers, which brings together past and present, therefore, a place also of fiction and friction.

Created at the end of the 1990s by the initiative of Professors Dulce Aquino and Therezinha Argolo, the project is undergoing an updating process. In the medium term, it aims to broaden the scope of its mission, focusing on the trajectory of the Dance in Bahia.

The dialogue with the classroom, extension and research projects and the aim of establishing itself as a platform that welcomes and fosters research and activities within the framework of its mission are among its objectives. Its actions are developed along the following axes: administration;studies and research; and cultural mediation.In its dynamics, it discusses the Dance in its ways of doing and the seams between the memory of past experiences and the present time. The extensionist projects "Cycles of Dance" and "Choreographic Memories" act in the triggering of these processes. In both projects, artistic-academic actions are developed with the participation of teachers, students, technical-administrative staff and egresses of the Dance School.

At the moment, the UFBA Dance Memorial is driven by the researches "Places of Memories and Dance in Bahia: the UFBA Dance School Memorial as a trigger of artistic perceptions and belongings"; "Inventory of Artistic Groups of the UFBA Dance School"; and "Between the personal and the institutional: the collection of the UFBA Dance School".

In this sense, the documents found there, in different media, point out the marks of artistic groups in the design of the Dance School since its creation in 1956. These groups have made a significant contribution, fulfilling the function of acting in the formation of artists and of the audience in Dance, in intense dialogue with society.

Within the framework of the documentation already raised, it is possible to contact Yanka Rudzka's creations in the Contemporary Dance Ensemble (1956-1959) through photographs, programmes and press material. The archives of the GDC - Contemporary Dance Group of UFBA, a permanent project of the Dance School, created by Rolf Gelewski in 1965, can be found in the collection. The GDC- UFBA, still active and it is an intense laboratory of artistic creation. Between the professors who have directed its productions are Dulce Aquino, Laís Góes, Clyde Morgan, Carmen Paternostro, Márcio Meirelles, Therezinha Argolo, Ivani Santana, Leda Muhana, Gilsamara Moura, Lucas Valentim, Lulu Pugliese, Daniela Guimarães.

The archives also show traces of the Youth Dance Group (1961-1965), also created by Rolf Gelewski, and the Experimental Group, created by teacher and choreographer Lia Robatto in 1965 and brought to the Dance School in the mid 70s, where it remained until the 1990s. In addition, it is possible to find part of the collection of Grupo Odundê, created in 1981 through the research " Studies of the Afro-Brazilian Dance Movement" by Professor Conceição Castro, with significant performance in the professionalization of students who were in the first formation of the group. The Grupo Imagem (1990) completes the collection which is in constant updating and expansion and still intends to receive and organize the documentation of groups that were, or still are, in intense dialogue with the School, following the example of the TranChan Group and Group X of Improvisation.

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