by Graham Watts
Whenever one thinks of Brazil, dance will never be far from the next thought. It might be the rolling hips of samba; the flashing high kicks of capoeira; memories of the fruit-infested madcap hats of Carmen Miranda, “The Brazilian Bombshell”, who – more than anyone – brought samba to Hollywood; it could be the natural rhythmic goal celebrations of Brazilian footballers; the opulence of the Carnival; or any of the many international dance stars – from ballet to hip-hop – that have emerged from the country.
Brazilian dancers are principals in most of the world’s leading ballet companies including New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theatre and Staatsballett Berlin. In the UK, The Royal Ballet’s Isabela Gasparini comes from São Paulo, while Mayara Magri and Leticia Dias both hail from Rio de Janeiro, also the home city of English National Ballet’s long-serving principal, Fernanda Oliveira. José Alves – winner of the 2018 National Dance Award for Outstanding Classical Performance – comes from Bahia. Other major Brazilian stars have included Marcia Haydée of Stuttgart Ballett and The Royal Ballet’s Roberta Marquez and Thiago Soares.
Photo by Iari Davies
Ballet is so important in Brazil that the only affiliate ever to be recognised by Moscow’s Bolshoi Ballet is the Bolshoi Theatre Ballet School in Brazil (in Joinville, Santa Catarina). Dance, like football, is clearly seen as a way out of poverty and over 20,000 children applied to join in the first year. The school’s director, Pavel Kazarian, has said that “the country is as strong in dance as it is in football.” The school is currently home to some 230 students, many of whom will go on to be the next generation of professional dancers around the world. Given these credentials, it is perhaps not surprising that a recent publication supported by the Brazilian Embassy in the UK declared that “26% of the leading dancers in the world are from Brazil.”
Jose Alves graduated from the Bolshoi Theatre Ballet School in 2008. I asked him what dance means to the people of Brazil: “Dance in Brazil is more than movement,” he replied, adding, “it’s a soulful celebration, intertwining our diverse culture, igniting joy, and connecting us through the beats of our shared heritage”. Mariana Gomes was the first Brazilian dancer to join the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow. She said: “Dance is very important to Brazilian people. It was so important to me that I gave up my life at home, aged just 17, to travel to Russia.”
Photo by Iari Davies
And it’s not just in ballet that Brazil excels. Fabiano Carvalho Lopes (aka Neguin) is a Red Bull solo world champion B-boy from Cascavel in the South-West State of Paraná who has been winning breaking events all over the world since his career began in 2000.
There are up to 70 samba clubs and schools in São Paulo alone. Like football, they are classified in divisions and are fiercely competitive. The samba parade at the Rio Carnival, held each year since 1984, consists of a competition for twelve samba clubs vying for the annual championship. Each school is represented by huge numbers of dancers in spectacular choreography and costumes. In 2022, the Grande Rio Samba school won with a performance that paid tribute to Exú, an African god. The Samba school from Rio’s Imperatriz Leopoldinense is the current champion.
The São Paulo Dance Company (SPDC) is a relative newcomer to this rich mix of Brazilian dance. Formed as recently as January 2008 with funding from the State Government of São Paulo, SPDC has quickly become a driving force for Brazil’s dance excellence, offering an appealing mix of Latin American rhythm rooted in international contemporary dance; criss crossing the globe to give approaching 1,200 performances in 150 cities.
Following a US tour, The Dance Enthusiast exclaimed: “prodigious technicians; hot choreographers; moody pieces; and a sexy, cool vibe.” Writing in the New York Times, the dance critic Apollinaire Scherr described the SPDC dancers as “lovely – fluid and soft,” whereas in The New Yorker the company was reported as being “sleek, sexy and highly technical, with a strong base in ballet.”
Photo by Iari Davies
What is surprising is that the company has managed to secure such remarkable international stature in just fifteen years thanks to the foresight and dedication of its charismatic founder, Dr Inês Bogéa, who has built a classically-trained company in record time, with an extensive repertoire of over 100 works, half of which have been new commissions. 50 new works in 15 years is an astonishing output.
Bogéa is a polymath who was a dancer in Grupo Corpo from 1989 to 2001. She has also authored several children’s books and, as a filmmaker, has made more than 70 documentaries. Most unusually, Bogéa is the only dance company artistic director to have also been a dance critic, working for the newspaper, Folha de São Paulo from 2001 to 2007. It’s a mind-boggling career by any measure.
The Brazilian contemporary dance scene has been active since the early twentieth century, both in terms of indigenous dance and responding to European and African influences. Major companies included Stagium, formed in the 1970s when the military dictatorship controlled public performances. Based in São Paulo under the co-directorship of Decio Otero and Marika Gidali, Stagium responded to artistic censorship by diversifying to the favelas and the indigenous tribes, presenting choreographers with a distinctive Brazilian identity and developing educational and outreach programmes.
Other luminaries of modern dance in Brazil were Lia Rodrigues (from São Paulo) who started her company in 1990; Balé da Cidade de São Paulo formed in 1968; Hulda Bittencourt’s Cisne Negro (formed in 1976); and, a smaller company, Cena 11 from Florianópolis, described as ‘hypnotic and acrobatic’; Quasar, also known for its dynamic choreography linked to circus and theatre, founded in Goiânia in Central Brazil (in 1988) by Vera Bicalho and Henrique Rodovalho; and Ishmael Ivo, director of both the Biennale Danza in Venice and (for 15 years) the ImPulsTanz Festival in Vienna, who died from Covid in 2021.
Photo by Iari Davies
In 1975, Grupo Corpo – toured by Dance Consortium in 2005 and 2014 – was formed in Belo Horizonte by Paulo Pederneiras and quickly established a distinctive style for Brazilian contemporary dance described by Holly Cavrell in Dance magazine (June 2007) as a “synthesis of movement invention, rhythm and an explosion of color. Corpo’s strength lies in their joint creativity and the way they have deconstructed the ballet vocabulary, infecting classical steps with added weight in the hips and feet while projecting an earthiness that mingles with divergent arm gestures.” More recent Brazilian entrants on the world stage have been Deborah Colker (a theatre director as well as a choreographer) – toured by Dance Consortium in 2004, 2006 and 2010 – and Bruno Beltrão’s Grupo de Rua, which is driven by mixed influences including various forms of urban and street dance, making the transition from hip-hop competitive dance to establish an international stage presence.
As a dancer with Grupo Corpo, Bogéa toured the UK in 1994. She remembers it as “a very intense time, full of art and exchanges of experiences.” Thirty years later she is “thrilled to be back with the company performing in wonderful theatres around the UK and Ireland. I thank Dance Consortium and everyone who is making this tour possible. We hope that our art opens an expressive, intense and enjoyable channel of communication with the audiences that await us.”
Photo by Iari Davies
About the author:
Graham Watts is a freelance dance writer and critic. He is Chairman of the Dance Section of The Critics’ Circle and of the UK National Dance Awards and regularly lectures on dance writing and criticism at The Royal Academy of Dance, The Place and for Balletristic in Kyiv. He was nominated for the Dance Writing Award in the 2018 One Dance UK Awards and was appointed OBE in 2008.
