From a country such as Brazil, which is strongly accelerating in every field, economic, social and intellectual, with its rich cultural cross-fertilization which has found one of its truest expressions in dance thanks to an everyday heritage of rituals passed down through the centuries, comes the Balé Teatro Castro Alves from Salvador de Bahia. This company with 36 elements, founded in 1981, has since its foundation assumed the profile of contemporary dance featuring choreographers such as Victor Navarro, Lia Robatto, Antonio Carlos Cardoso, Carlos Moraes, Luis Arrieta, Oscar Arraiz, Guilherme Botelho, Tyndareus Silvano, and Mario Nascimento, among others. After touring America and Europe, 31 years after its foundation, the Balé Teatro Castro Alves now gathers dancers from different generations and for the “veterans” of the group, the new direction by Jorge Vermelho has put together a balanced repertoire, like the one created by Jirì Kyliàn for the Nederlands Dans Theater III, dedicated to performers over the age of 40.
In these new works, 1Por1Praum by Jorge Vermelho and A quem possa interessar by Henrique Rodovalho, presented in their Italian premiere performance at the Biennale, the dancers of the BaléTeatro Castro Alves build a score of gestures borrowing from the substance of the memory of the body which is also the memory of life. 1Por1Praum, as the title suggests, is a face to face encounter between the spectators and the dancers, each of whom has at their disposition a dedicated, contained, secret space in which to reveal their personal dancing soul. Ten “compartments” for ten dancers, authors of ten short performances, small fragments of their personal life experience, which will be witnessed by one spectator at a time.
A quem possa interessar returns to the autobiographical theme, this time addressing the search for individual identity within the collectivity. The dancers talk about themselves in words and in gestures, led by choreographer Henrique Rodavalho, director of the Quasar dance company and choreographer for the Nederlands Dans Theater. On stage with the dancers will be the internationally-renowned guitarist and singer Badi Assad, who has explored the world of sound with his voice and his body and created an extremely personal musical language. An important figure in the field of jazz music as well, Badi Assad has played with artists such as Pat Metheny and John Abercrombie.