Already in the 2001 edition Oriente Occidente had chosen to investigate Brazilian contemporary dance by hosting the Companhia Vacilou Dançou of Carlota Portella, a choreographer working in Rio de Janeiro. But very little is known about the Brazilian choreographic ferment in our country. What is known about Brazil is its musical and choreographic folklore, its impressive carnivals and popular dances nourished by the contributions of the Portuguese colonizers and the African rhythms imported by the slaves. However, in the last twenty years there has been a ferment in the contemporary dance sector and some names such as that of Grupo Corpo and Paula Nesterov's Company have echoed beyond the border. Among the spearheads of the new generation, the Companhia Balé de Rua from Uberlândia stands out, which the Festival is hosting this year. It is an almost entirely male ensemble, founded in 1992 as an amateur group composed of young people from the suburbs brought together under the guidance of Fernando Narduchi, the current artistic director. Street dancers, engaged during the day in a thousand different improvised jobs for survival, who have gradually won over the public and the recognition of critics. For some years, the Company has entered the most important circuits of Brazilian choreographic events and has begun to make itself known throughout the world. Having realized the bold dream of transforming itself into a professional group, in 2000 it obtained the sponsorship of Telemig Celular which has allowed financial self-sufficiency, but has not lost the spirit of its origins and the belief that dance is something more than the exploration of movement in time and space: an effective means of communication and social denunciation. Therefore, not a simple dance Company, but an example of lifestyle, which is renewed daily with training courses that the dancers of Balé de Rua give to young people from the suburbs and which are combined with a work of awareness among the public and less fortunate citizens.
The ensemble’s popular roots are evident in the choreographic style, instinctiveness and lively energy contained in its shows. In Oriente Occidente they present two absolute novelties for Italy and Europe, before arriving at the Lyon Biennale this year dedicated to Latin America: E Agora José? and O Cubo. The first is a work from 2001 inspired by the poem by José Carlos Drummond de Andrade that describes the beliefs, habits and surprises of a country man facing the modern world: a poem-manifesto considered in Brazil as the most vigorous denunciation of the contemporary condition of man. The group’s choreographer, Marco Antônio Garcia, creates a synthesis between street dance and its more cultured forms and builds a score on unexpected ruptures, on the fusion of languages and on a renewed use of objects on stage. In the show, lightness and humor intertwine with impressive reflections on burning issues such as poverty and racism. The combinations and surprises of the thirteen dancers on stage are unpredictable, as are their alternation in virtuoso solos, such as the poetic one danced to a version of the Brazilian national anthem.
O Cubo instead is the latest creation still in progress that debuts right in Rovereto, focused on the possible relationships between movement and sound. The music performed live by the dancers comes from non-traditional instruments, from everyday objects and from urban waste such as tin cans of all sizes, plastic boxes, pieces of iron or wood used to hit surfaces of various kinds. Music and dance grow together, blurring the boundaries between the two arts, between those who play and those who dance, in the pressing rhythm of the most heartfelt street tradition.
