In her experience as a choreographer and dancer, Roberta Paixão Cortes often found that dancers would go into the studio with recorded music. In the room, there would be dancing and listening, and eventually, a different idea began to form.
“I wondered what would happen if we all got together and started creating pieces and works where the music and the dance start to communicate way earlier in the game,” says Paixão Cortes.
The idea became Group Acorde, a collaborative dance and live music performance company,founded by Paixão Cortes, Lindsey McGill, Thomas Helton, and Seth Paynter. The company is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year with an evening-length program, titled Gone, at the MATCH.
“The idea was, can we try to approach it as a true collaboration where the dancing and the music communicate? And at times, maybe the musicians would direct the dancers, and at times, the dancers would direct the musicians,” says Paixão Cortes. “That’s how it started.”
It was spring 2016, and that year’s Barnstorm Dance Fest became the site of their first collaboration, “Fear: a work in progress.” Choreographed by Paixão Cortes, the work will return during Gone.
The piece featured the artists exploring their own individual fears, with a title that acknowledged both the process and the vulnerability the new process presented. It was a nod to the fact that the work was ongoing – “It’s always a work in progress,” Paixão Cortes notes – and, as she puts it, “because it was so fearful to do this work this way.”
“I do think that art in itself is a very vulnerable form,” says Paixão Cortes. “I think that the collaboration forces us to speak and to elaborate on ideas with words and elaborate in a way that invites people in, without having to worry about being judged or being wrong. And for artists, sometimes it’s harder to use words. It’s easier to use their language, which is their art medium.”
A decade on, Paixão Cortes says “Fear: a work in progress” is very different, and not only because Paynter’s saxophone is no longer part of the soundscape. Revisiting the work gave her a chance to approach McGill and Helton with one particular question on her mind: “How can I pull the best out of them?”
“They’re both such beautiful and strong performers,” says Paixão Cortes. “We did some journaling around fear. We had some conversations. I had a chance to go a little deeper with these two collaborators who I’ve been collaborating with for 10 years.”
Paixão Cortes is also in the piece and says one aspect remains almost identical – her own fears.
“They’re very similar, about performance anxiety and the fear of not being good enough,” says Paixão Cortes. “Those things are still here after 10 years.”
McGill’s “Subject: see attachment,” also on the program, premiered during Group Acorde’s first full production. That was in 2017, and Hurricane Harvey closed the show after opening night. They were able to re-mount the production on the Rec Room stage several months later, but not without difficulty.
“Everybody was going through something individually, and collectively as a community, there was so much loss,” recalls Paixão Cortes. “We both knew we wanted to bring these pieces back, and then the idea of this show came about, which was working around loss and around grief.”
Built around images, words, and videos that the artists emailed in an attempt to share aspects of their lives at the time, the recreation of “Subject: see attachment” delves into where the artists are today using choreography, spoken word, and original music across a series of small scenes.
While both pieces revisit the past, Group Acorde also wanted an outside voice to create for the program and one name kept coming up: Andrea Dawn Shelley.
“We knew her throughout the years, and we always wanted to collaborate with her,” says Paixão Cortes. “So, we invited her, and she created something inspired by our overall theme.”
To build the work, Shelley met with Helton several times to get to know his music, laying the groundwork for a piano, bass, and cello score. Ideas came, movement phrases were shared in the studio, and the world premiere work, “Every Root Is An Anchor,” inspirated by trees and their interconnected nature, began to evolve.
“It’s a very communal thing, in that trees really thrive, aiding each other with nutrients, and that is something she is tying in more and more now as the show is coming up,” says Paixão Cortes.
Paixão Cortes acknowledges that reaching a 10-year milestone is no small feat, especially in Houston. While the opportunities in the city for up-and-coming performers and choreographers can be plentiful, building momentum and maintaining long-term sustainability remain challenges. She points to the pandemic, as an example.
“Group Acorde was on a clear upward trajectory when COVID-19 hit,” says Paixão Cortes. “We were really ascending, and then COVID hit, and it’s taken us years to bring ourselves back.”
But throughout every challenge, the company kept pushing to create something new, fresh, and distinct. Paixão Cortes says she’s very proud of that, and she is excited to continue.
“If there’s one day where we decide the company is not our vessel anymore, then I don’t think the company is going to continue. But I don’t see that,” says Paixão Cortes. “I see us very committed to this work and how it’s presented.”
And despite saying she’s “very bad” at planning ahead, Paixão Cortes does have some certainty.
“One thing I do know is that I will be dancing in 10 years,” says Paixão Cortes. “I believe I can speak for Lindsay, and I think I can speak for Thomas. The three of us are very committed to our craft. There is a love and devotion to it. I think that’s a commonality that we have.”
Looking forward, there is also one deeply personal goal Paixão Cortes can envision reaching in the next five years: taking Group Acorde to Brazil.
“I want to go home,” says Paixão Cortes. “I want to go back to my community, and I want to share my work, our work, and who I am today, and who I work with today. I can see that in our next five years. I’m putting it out there.”
Gone is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Thursday, November 12; 8 p.m. Friday, November 13, 5:30 p.m. Saturday, November 14; and 3:30 p.m. Sunday, November 15, at the MATCH, 3400 Main. For more information, visit groupacorde.org or call 713-521-4533. $15-35.
