Over the last few years, Bruno Beltrão has won himself a relevant place on both the Brazilian and the international dance scene, supported by the creative, critical and personal way in which he deals with hip hop and contemporary dance. While in some of his previous creations like Do Popping ao Pop (2001), Eu e o meu coreógrafo no 63 (2001), Too legit to quit (2002) and Telesquat (2003) Beltrão used contemporary dance to shake the often rigid hip hop structures, in H2 – 2005, hip hop is called in to feed, with its particular and vigorous dynamics, contemporary dance. Hip hop – not as an ideology, not as a rule, but as a starting point.

In this new work, the Brazilian choreographer dives into the virile and explosive physicality of the hip hop universe, from the investigation and composition process of contemporary dance to the birth of a fully-fledged hybrid and surprisingly new dance. One of the starting points of H2 – 2005, in which he concentrates on the larger stage, was research into the spatial dimension, a prime source of dance, in order to break the regularity of the hip hop steps. Investing in another spatiality, the choreographer succeeds in making regular techniques like Top Rock, Popping or Footwork acquire other qualities, different from the usual ones.

The result is bound to produce an immediate impact, proving Bruno Beltrão’s genius in honouring hip hop and at the same time criticizing it, showing new and promising ways. H2 – 2005 also counts on the powerful presence of fourteen virtuosi hip hop dancers, chosen specially for this work from several Brazilian cities.

Hip Hop has introduced a rich and characteristic vocabulary. As any other technique, it formed pre-coded gestic fields, became “academic” and formed stereotypes.

Concerned with the process and the results stemming from the crossing of information, this project attempts, in several ways, to set this complex in crisis, through direct action against the Hip Hop paradigm…

Hip Hop believes in the power of the gesture, of the nervous tension, and in the artist’s physical strength. Instead of basing itself merely on these constitutive factors, it aims to encourage a non-stop abstraction so that the gesture, the tension and the strength can join intuition and thought, producing dance performances that lead the body to the place where these translations always come into being in the most unpredictable way.

Hip Hop – not as an ideology, not as rule. Hip Hop as a starting point.

Bruno Beltrão

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