Biography
I am a dance practitioner, researcher and teacher based in Zurich, Switzerland, where I also engage in coaching and mentoring in academic and non-academic environments. With a background in contemporary dance, improvisation, ballet and somatics, my creative practice includes stage productions, video installations and performances in alternative spaces, both private and public. My artistic practice and research are permeated by an attention to what I perceive as a radical relationality between things, beings and environment – and to the play of interpenetration of frequencies and properties that results thereof. Present in my work is also a fascination for language – spoken, written, danced – which I inscribe in what I create in a variety of ways.
Under the label OONA project, I work with the main dance and theatre venues in Zurich and have performed at national and international festivals, for example in France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, South Korea, and the UK. As a performer I collaborated and performed in works by William Forsythe, Massimo Furlan, Michel Schröder, Corsin Gaudenz, among others. I am a co-founder of the Zurich-based collective The Field, an 'accomplice' at Tanzhaus Zürich.
I hold a PhD in Dance and have worked in different capacities at Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK). I was as a research associate at the Institute for the Performing Arts and Film, and a mentor at the pre-PhD programme PEERS of the Department of Performing Arts and Film (DDK). At the Department of Cultural Analysis (DKV) I’ve devised colloquia on artistic research, and mentored students at the MA Transdisciplinary Studies in the Arts, where I was artist-in-residence during the autumn term 2023, furthering my artistic practice and investigating artist residencies as a pedagogical framework. Currently I am a lecturer in dance at the Theatre Faculty.
Awards I have been granted include the Arbeitsstipendium Covid-19, Werkstipendium, and Kulturelle Auszeichnung endowed by the City of Zurich; the Videodokumentationspreis Schweizer Tanzarchiv; and the Premio Virtuose by the Brazilian Ministry of Culture. My contribution as a dance expert in juries and examination committees include Zürcher Theaterspektakel, Accademia Dimitri, Migros Kulturprozent, project Tanz- und Theaterlandschaft of the City of Zurich, St. Gallische Kulturstiftung, and executive board of the Association Tanzhaus Zürich.
Publication
Conference presentations
2023
. Researching dance with video annotation: a practitioner-researcher’s gaze. Presentation at Retour vers le vivant: valoriser les archives filmiques et sonores dans le domaine des arts du spectacle. Université de Lausanne/CH
. Interbreeds: practicing and researching dance. 14th SAR International Conference on Artistic Research ‘Too Early / Too Late’. Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway
2022
. Radical_Connector: Generative Movement Practice. Conference of the International
Platform for Performer Training – 8th edition, Tallinn/EE
2021
. Indispensable: Modes of Being, Thinking and Moving in Dance Improvisation. Conference The Art of Video (in) Research, ZHdK, Zürich/CH. Organisation, moderation, and presentation
2019
. Modelling Video-based Research in the Performing Arts: When is Enhanced? 10th SAR International Conference on Artistic Research, ZHdK
. Radical_Connector: Generative Movement Practice. Symposium Global Improvisation Initiative, Middlesex University, London
2018
. Research Video in the Making: An Artist’s Gaze. Conference Tanz der Dinge / Things that Dance, Gesellschaft für Tanzforschung, Karlsruhe/DE
Publications
. ‘Researching dance with video annotation: a practitioner-researcher’s gaze’. Godoy, M. (2025, in preparation). In Proceedings of Retour vers le vivant: valoriser les archives filmiques et sonores dans le domaine des arts du spectacle. Université de Lausanne
. Potentialities: What’s Next for the Research Video Tool. Godoy, M. (2021) ‘. in Filming, Researching, Annotating: Handbook Research Video. ed. by Lösel, G. and Zimper, M. Basel: Birkhäuser, 140-153 [available from https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783035623079-011/html]