Premiere US Premiere
Country of Origin Brazil
Description It’s easy to see why Grupo Corpo stands out as Brazil’s foremost contemporary dance troupe, eliciting the sort of adulation usually lavished on pop idols. The choreography—a thrilling fusion of modern, ballet, African, urban, and folkloric forms—reflects artistic director Rodrigo Pederneiras’ polyglot sensibility and his equally dynamic collaborators’ mastery of design. In his hands, the body is a force of nature—fluid, hyper-articulate, utterly sensual.
The evening opens with the unabashedly romantic Lecuona, a ballroom-esque work set to exquisite mid-20th-century love songs by Ernesto Lecuona, known as “the Cuban Gershwin.” Elegantly costumed couples, their limbs entwining, their backs arching and curling, dance twelve unique duets, each an incisive comment on the complexities of love. The stunning finale, a deliciously vertiginous waltz for six couples, is a bold declaration of its joys.
Completing the program is Grupo Corpo’s latest work, the equally dazzling Onqotô, set to commissioned music by the inventive Brazilian composers Caetano Veloso and José Miguel Wisnik. Veloso’s beautiful voice and the percussion-driven score, varying from beat-heavy grooves to lilting piano melodies, reveal the dancers’ acute sense of rhythm and line—the subtle call and response between movement and music.
Identifier 2005f.00038
