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DanceBrazil at Annenberg
Working off aggressions, musically
LEWIS WHITTINGTON
Jelon Vieira’s company DanceBrazil brings Bahia— the dancier side of capoeira— to full bloom without always relying on the form’s aggressive pugilistic theatrics. Vieira’s battalion of 11 dancers besieged the Annenberg stage with live percussion and guitar accompaniment (as well as Brazilian jungle instruments).
Desafio, Viera’s study of human conflict and bonds, has the troupe in spandex shorts and tape latticed over their bodies. The work features some really pissed-off-looking dancers circling each other and stepping into the dance arena with furious movement results: poly-tempo body beats, rhythmic pliés, mid-air horizontal rolls, acrobatics and summersaults without running starts.
Bahia’s Angolan choreography, featuring dramatic slow-motion body inversions, requires muscle, balance and steely control to show that the friezes are not mere trajectory tricks. Desafio has an overlong fragmented quality, but the troupe turned in on in the back half, compensating for any choreographic pondering.
Vieira‘s The Ritual is more fully formed and almost droll. It provided some familiar Afro-Brazilian calypso, with dancers in Rio-style cabana togs, which were hiked up or dropped down for the communal celebratory rituals that feature pelvic undulations, torso oscillation and fire-foot stomping. The dancers go offstage, return in trendy swimwear and really evolve the tribal exotica with contemporary dance fusion. The finales feature a capoeira love duet between a man and a woman and an explosive dance fight between two of the men.
LEWIS WHITTINGTON
Jelon Vieira’s company DanceBrazil brings Bahia— the dancier side of capoeira— to full bloom without always relying on the form’s aggressive pugilistic theatrics. Vieira’s battalion of 11 dancers besieged the Annenberg stage with live percussion and guitar accompaniment (as well as Brazilian jungle instruments).
Desafio, Viera’s study of human conflict and bonds, has the troupe in spandex shorts and tape latticed over their bodies. The work features some really pissed-off-looking dancers circling each other and stepping into the dance arena with furious movement results: poly-tempo body beats, rhythmic pliés, mid-air horizontal rolls, acrobatics and summersaults without running starts.
Bahia’s Angolan choreography, featuring dramatic slow-motion body inversions, requires muscle, balance and steely control to show that the friezes are not mere trajectory tricks. Desafio has an overlong fragmented quality, but the troupe turned in on in the back half, compensating for any choreographic pondering.
Vieira‘s The Ritual is more fully formed and almost droll. It provided some familiar Afro-Brazilian calypso, with dancers in Rio-style cabana togs, which were hiked up or dropped down for the communal celebratory rituals that feature pelvic undulations, torso oscillation and fire-foot stomping. The dancers go offstage, return in trendy swimwear and really evolve the tribal exotica with contemporary dance fusion. The finales feature a capoeira love duet between a man and a woman and an explosive dance fight between two of the men.
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