“Does what we create now already have all the signs of the turbulence that is happening around us? Or do we still have to refine our work to be more engaged, to be more political?”

• Bruno Beltrão, The New York Times, 29.10.2019

How to stay in movement, when the actual political and social situation in one’s country appears to paralyze everything like a stiff and poisonous fog; when hounding and hatred seem to disunite, split and suffocate freedom and solidarity, equality and democracy? Only gradually a new resistance arises within the Brazilian artistic scene.

Bruno Beltrão, worldwide celebrated Brazilian choreographer for the last 20 years, was not surprised by the radical shift to the right and the newly sprouted fascist movements in Brazil and elsewhere: already his last piece, Inoah, tense like a thunder storm night, seemed to negotiate indissoluble conflicts and violent social contradictions in a nearly pleading manner; as an urban battle between encounter and confrontation, aggression and excess, hostility, solidarity and mutuality. Just as William Forsythe once revolutionized ballet, Beltrão revolutionized hip hop through interweaving styles and postures of Urban Dance with principles of Contemporary Dance. Part of his movement vocabulary are fast changes in dynamics, high jumps, head spins and summersaults, fast kicks and twirling twists. His intense choreographies with Grupo de Rua are characterized by physical vehemence and an analytic understanding of music and space. The company’s pulsing energy, bodily presence and high virtuosity cast a spell over audiences all over the world.