Absolutely stunning. São Paulo Dance Company’s UK and Ireland première tour is thrilling and explosive with technical prowess and athleticism paramount.
Rooted in Latin Culture, the Brazilian company’s postponed 2020 tour is well worth the wait as Artistic and Educational Director, dancer, film-maker, writer and teacher Inês Bogéa’s chosen three pieces are interesting and electrifying.
A dark and brooding opening to Anthem fizzles into strobe lighting, atmospheric haze and silhouettes as Acosta Danza’s resident choreographer Goyo Montero and composer Owen Belton reflect on collective identities and the anthems that unite or divide.
Industrial clanking and evocative lanterns all play their part as groups, duos and soloist take their fluid or stuttering turn.
Inspired by mystical Islamic fellowship, Artistic Director of the Mikhailovsky Ballet Nacho Duato’s Gnawa is ritualistic and hypnotic with seven composers showcasing the varied music of North Africa as (oddly) matador-trousered male dancers and black-clad women strut and weave.
Nude body stocking-clad Gabrielly Juvêncio breaks out in an exquisite pas de deux, lissomely winding around her partner, sinuous and occasionally cheeky. Lovely.
The exhilarating finale, Agora, is Brazilian choreographer and former Grupo Corpo dancer Cassi Abranches’s exploration of rhythm underpinned by Sebastian Piraces’s mash-up of drums, vocals, jazz, rock and Afro-Brazilian percussion as metronomic beats crescendo and fade.
Uplifting and breathtaking—particularly the high octane feet-first leaps into the arms of another—it is edge-of-the-seat stuff with the diminutive, inexhaustible Ammanda Rosa particularly delightful.
Must see.