It takes a village to raise a child

"It takes a village to raise a child," DOX writes in a recent public statement concerning Anderson Carvalho and the ongoing legal proceedings.

It is a beautiful expression, but it does not describe my relationship with DOX.

I fully recognise that no artist develops in isolation. Throughout my career I have been fortunate to learn from many teachers, choreographers, colleagues, institutions and audiences across Brazil, South Africa, United States, Asia, Europe and beyond. Every one of them has contributed to the artist I am today.

My own artistic journey, however, began long before I ever arrived in the Netherlands.

I grew up in Fortaleza, Brazil, where I began my dance career. Before moving to the Netherlands again in late 2017, I had already completed extensive pre-professional dance training, studied dance at the University of Cape Town, helped establishing a social dance project, performed and choreographed internationally on four continents, and worked as a dance teacher. I arrived in the Netherlands as a professionally trained, post graduate contemporary dancer and choreographer, not as a young dancer seeking entry into professional dance education.

DOX performs an important role within the Dutch cultural landscape. Its primary mission is to identify and develop young talent, particularly within the urban and hip-hop community, and to support dancers at the beginning of their artistic careers as they progress towards professional education and employment in the performing arts.

That was simply not where I was in my own professional development.

After starting in July 2017, by May 2018, spending one afternoon and one evening a week at DOX, it had become clear to me that there was no meaningful professional fit between DOX and myself. I respected the work DOX does, but it was not aligned with the stage of my career. I was looking for artistic collaboration between established professionals, whereas DOX's expertise and mission lie in developing emerging talent. For that reason, I decided to continue my artistic journey independently and left DOX in May 2018.

After leaving DOX in May 2018, I did not set foot inside the organisation again for more than five years. It was only in the final quarter of 2023 that I briefly returned for a short assignment of 12 days.

Those five and a half years proved to be the defining years of my professional career. During that period I completed my Master's degree in Choreography, established Anderson Carvalho Dance & Choreography (ACDC), developed Dance Intersect into an international platform for contemporary dance, expanded my work internationally, and had the privilege of serving as Chair of an international dance competition in South Korea.

These milestones were achieved independently of DOX. These milestones represent the period in which my artistic practice, my company and much of my international reputation were established.

For that reason, I do not recognise the public narrative suggesting that DOX was responsible for my artistic development or that it played a defining role in my career. Equally, I do not recognise DOX's public description of itself as co-producer of ACDC Dance Intersect, a platform conceived, established and developed through ACDC together with many independent artists and institutional partners.

This is precisely why I have decided to prepare and publish the documentary chronology.

Rather than responding to public statements with opinions, I have chosen to make the documentary record available. Wherever possible, every statement is supported by correspondence, contracts, programmes, reports and other verifiable documents so that readers can examine the evidence and reach their own conclusions.

The chronology currently ends before the chapter Funding Discussions. The remaining chapters concern matters that are presently before the Dutch courts. Out of respect for the judicial process, those sections will only be published after the proceedings have run their course.

The legal proceedings concern, among other things, my request for transparency regarding subsidy applications in which my artistic work, ACDC and ACDC Dance Intersect were included without my knowledge and consent, while ACDC was repeatedly informed that activities in South Africa were not eligible for funding. DOX publicly presents itself as a strong supporter of the Fair Practice Code, one of whose fundamental principles is transparency. It is therefore deeply concerning to find myself having to ask the courts to obtain that very transparency.

This publication is not intended to litigate through the media. It is intended to ensure that the public record contains more than one institutional narrative. It is intended to preserve the documented history of my artistic journey, the development of ACDC, and the creation of Dance Intersect, so that those interested can assess that history on the basis of contemporaneous evidence rather than competing public statements.

The purpose of this publication is not to ask the reader to agree with me. It is to ensure that anyone interested in this matter has access to the documentary record on which they may form their own independent view.

The Documentary History of the Relationship Between Anderson Carvalho, ACDC and DOX

Anderson Carvalho

Anderson Carvalho Dance & Choreography

The bigger picture: