Creations

Choreography: Ana Catarina Vieira
Music: Suíte Sinfônica nº 2 Pernambucana (1955) and Ponteado (1955), by César-Guerra Peixe (1914-1993)
Lightning: Wagner Freire
Costume and props: Marco Lima
Scenario: Marco Lima, with imagens of four arts from Candido Portinari (1903-1962): Pipas (1942); Ilha de Paquetá, Circo and Desfile de Carnaval (1941), used in the ilustration of the book Maria Rosa (1942) by Vera Kelsey (The rights of the arts’s reproduction were kindly provided by João Candido Portinari)
Scenario and costume assistant: Cesar Bento
Dramaturgy: Vivien Buckup
Costumes design: Judith Lima (overalls), FCR Produções Artísticas (others costumes and props)
Duration and cast: 20 minutes with 10 dancers
Debut SPDC: 2020 │ Theatro São Pedro │ São Paulo,Brazil

First creation by the contemporary choreographer Ana Catarina Vieira for São Paulo Dance Company, Aparições is inspired by the arts of Candido Portinari, César Guerra-Peixe and popular dances from northeastern Brazil. Marco Lima’s costumes and scenic elements expand the gesture in space. And the light of Wagner Freire dialogues with the various elements that contributes to the dramaturgy of the work. Aparições – a name that refers to the homonymous poem by Portinari -, brings images of Brazil in a poetic way and with a lot of creative freedom.

Choreography: Monica Proença and Jonathan dos Santos
Music: Lingering Darkness, by Logan Jones
Lightning: Nicolas Marchi
Costume: Yuk Dancewear
Duration/cast: 3 minute with Letícia Forattini and Luiza Yuk
Debut SPDC: 2020 | Teatro Sérgio Cardoso, São Paulo/SP – Brazil

Two choreographers, two interpreters, two languages ​​within the same dance. The work connects artists present in three different countries – Germany, Canada and Brazil – in a dialogue between classical and contemporary dance languages.

Choreography: Goyo Montero
Music: Owen Belton
Lightning: Nicolas Fischtel e Goyo Montero
Costume: Goyo Montero e Fábio Namatame
Organization: Carlos Iturrioz Mediart Producciones SL (Espanha)
Duration/cast: 25 minute with 14 dancers
Debut SPDC: 2019 | Teatro Municipal Castro Mendes, Campinas/SP – Brazil

Anthem is the first creation of the Spanish choreographer Goyo Montero for a Brazilian company. The work brings a reflection about the process of construction and deconstruction of collective identities. To Goyo: “There are cycles in life and we always repeat the same mistakes, thinking that we are separated, that we are different when, actually, every human being is one group, the humanity, and at the moment we lose this unity, the problems begin. This is a trace of the human history”.
The music is created by Owen Belton, with whom Goyo has created more than nine pieces. The inspiration of the song comes from songs that become hymns – whether from nations, people with similar preferences or individuals from the same generation. Therefore, the name chosen for the work: Anthem. For Montero, “The human voice becomes a song and this song becomes something we identify with.”

Choreography: Shamel Pitts
Soundtrack: Remix by Shamel Pitts e DiPa of the musics Into the tranquility, by Ryoji Ikeda; Spring break Anthem, by The Lonely Island; Obatalá, by Metá Metá; Spirit Caller, by Alleged Witches; Banomoya, by Prince Keybee ft. Busiswa; Freedom is a Feeling, by Nina Simone; Zion, de Fluke; Prismis, by Tim Hecker; F****t, by Arca; Ode, by Nils Frahm; Tudo Que Você Podia Ser, by Clube da Esquina
Lightning: Mirella Brandi
Costume: Tushrik Fredericks
Choreography Assistant: Mirelle Martins

Vai is the first creation of the American choreographer Shamel Pitts for a Brazilian company. The work is based on a post-apocalyptic future created not because the necessity or the destruction, but because the capacity of the human begin to restart. “It is an individual and a collective journey based on euphoria, eccentricity, discovering, enchantment and sharing.
After the end, the softness and the lightness of being human are the essences to create a new world, a moment to discover what is inside us, between us and around us”, explain Shamel. Then, the conscience is awaken and the group gather together in a commemoration, where the collective energy is improved by the potential of each individual. The final duet of Vai represents the humankind into harmony after the restart, where the softness of the touch and the skin, the trust and commitment to move forward together conduce the scene. “To discover in the other yourself, as mirrors of each other.”

Choreography and Lightning: Édouard Lock
Musical Composition: Gavin Bryars, interpreted by Percorso Ensemble (Musical Director of Percorso Ensemble: Ricardo Bologna | Musicians: Adriana Holtz (cello), Douglas Kier (cello), Horácio Gouveia (piano), Joana Queiroz (clarion), Pedro Gadelha (contrabass))
Costume: Ulrika Van Gelder (dresses)
Costume design Assistant: Edmeia Evaristo (corsets)
Duration/cast: 50 minutes with 14 dancers
Debut SPDC: 2019 | Teatro Hafen 1, Wolfsburg/Germany
Produciton Associação Pró-Dança/São Paulo Dance Company and coproduction Moviments Festwochen der Autostad, in Wolfsburg, Germany

Movement linked to iconic operas and their collective memories, deconstructed, the sweetness stripped away in a gradual descent into a nihilistic terrain, reflecting both a darker view of the passions expressed in these arias and the fragmentation of the social utopia that gave them birth. A dance like wind in grass between dusk and night. Trick Cell Play is the second work from the Choreographer for São Paulo.

Choreography: Cassi Abranches
Music: Sebastián Piracés
Lightning: Gabriel Pederneiras
Costume: Janaina de Castro
Duration/cast: 20 minutes with 12 dancers
Debut SPDC: 2019 | Teatro Estadual de Araras, Araras/SP – Brazil

Agora, the third commission by Cassi Abranches to São Paulo Dance Company, explores the word “time” in every possible meaning regarding: musical aspect with dynamics and sonorities; chronological aspect with memories and expectations, temperature with different degrees and intensities. The choreographer sculpts the movements in each dancer’s body from the musical rhythms of the track composed by Sebastián Piracés, which uses drums and Afro-Brazilian percussion elements, mixed with contemporary rock and singing.

Direction: Inês Bogéa and Luciano Cury
Choreography: Milton Coatti
Executive production: João Marcello Bôscoli
Music: The Four Seasons Winter 3, by Antonio Vivaldi (1678 – 1741), with the composition of Max Richter
Costume: Raquel Davidowicz – UMA
Styling: Paula Iglecio
Filming and editing: Panogramma

Developed from the perspective of 360° vision and virtual reality (VR), the choreographic by Milton Coatti for São Paulo Dance Company translates into motion the issues that ravage the human being. Known for its brighter appearance in the southern hemisphere, the star has the brightness changes in its appearance. Concerns, questions and a certain inner anguish move the dancers to seek an answer to these feelings and sensations. In this search, they aim for themselves and others to rediscover the beauty, light and love that are apparently lost (or temporary forgotten) in these place almost lunar that suggests dissipating, but which still holds hope and the prospect that, at some point, the ideal encounter, with yourself and with the other, will materialize.

Choreography: Jöelle Bouvier
Music: excerpts from Bachianas Brasileiras by Heitor Villa Lobos; excerpts from Bach’s St Matthew Passion, Melodia Sentimental by Villa Lobos (lyrics from Dora Vasconcellos);poem Pátria Minha by Vinícius de Moraes; and text from Irène Jacob
Lightning: Renaud Lagier
Costume: Fábio Namatame
Choreography Assistants: Emilio Urbina and Rafael Pardillo
Duration/cast: 37 minutes with 14 dancers
Debut SPDC: 2018 | Teatro Alfa, São Paulo/SP – Brazil
Production Associação Pró-Dança/São Paulo Dacen Company and coproduction Chaillot – Théâtre National de la Danse (Paris/France)

Odisseia is a journey, a reencounter with oneself. Inspired by migration’s issue in today’s world, the choreographer has created a dramatic and poetic structure dealing with topics such as change, transition, departure, and the hope for a better life. “We are all sensitive to it now. It is a big issue worldwide”, says Joelle. Bouvier explains that her idea was to mix fragments of the Bachianas Brasileiras with excerpts from Bach’s St. Matthew Passion; and at the end we can listen in Maria Bethânia’s voice, the music Melodia Sentimental and the poem Pátria Minha.

Conception, dramaturgy, theatric direction and scenic space: William Pereira
Musical direction: Ricardo Ballestero
Choreography: Cassi Abranches and Milton Coatti
Artistic and pedagogical Direction from Santa Marcelina Cultura: Paulo Zuben
Artistic direction: Inês Bogéa
Lightning: Caetano Vilela
Costume: 1th Act – Dancers: Acervo SPCD | Singers: Fabio Namatame, Acervo Theatro São Pedro I 2nd Act – Dancers: Plié e Fernanda Yamamoto | Singers: Plié e Fabio Namatame | Dancers and singers: Highstil

Composed of two acts, a Neoclassical and a Contemporary, the play traces a clipping of songs by the German composer Robert Schumann, written in 1840, with adaptations of guest conductor Ricardo Ballestero, based on the scenic conception of William Pereira in partnership with São Paulo Dance Company, directed by Inês Bogéa. The choreography is signed by Milton Coatti and Cassi Abranches and the lighting is by Caetano Vilela. The first part – a Neoclassic – contemplates the complete cycle of The Loves of the Poet Op.48., whose setting goes back to Romanticism. The second act has a more contemporary language with clear scenography and a stripped-down look. The texts of these 16 songs come from the poet Lyrisches Intermezzo or the “Intermezzo lyrico by poet Heinrich Heine, written between 1822 and 1823 and published as part of Das Buch der Liede.

Direction: Samuel Mac Dowell de Figueiredo
Acting: Ulysses Cruz
Music: Leonard Bernstein
Jazz Symphonic Orchestra (Regency: João Maurício Galindo / Choir: Coral Paulistano / Regency: Naomi Munakata) Soloists: Camila Titinger and Carla Cottini, soprano | Luciana Bueno, mezzo-soprano | Daniel Umbelino, tenor | Johnny Lima, baritone
São Paulo Dance Company
Artistic direction: Inês Bogéa
Guest Choreographers: Erika Novachi and Edson Guiu
Lightning: Wagner Freire
Costume: Balletto by Luciana Mantegazza

Inspired by Leonard Bernstein’s major works for Broadway, this show reflects the concerns of the composer, pianist and conductor through a journey through the musicals West Side Story, Fancy Free, On the Town and Candide. Added to all that Bernstein represented, from the importance of his scholarly work to defending the transition between classical and popular genres and his acting as conductor of the world’s leading orchestras, Bernstein 100 is born. He is the renewing, emotional and provocative man, always determined to break through borders!

Choreography and Lightning: Thiago Bordin
Music: Jóhann Jóhannsson and Wim Mertens
Costume: Fábio Namatame

Bordin’s first creation for a Brazilian company, Petrichor – name that refers to the smell of rain-soaked earth – had as its starting point the music of Jóhann Jóhannsson and Wim Mertens, which, according to Bordin, allows a glimpse of choreographic creation. “When I hear Mertens, I begin to imagine the light, the costume, the footsteps.” The characteristics of Brazilian dancers were another source of inspiration for the creator. “The work developed in dialogue with the cast. Each brought a color, a strong, striking character, quite different from what I imagined. And that turned out to be the most rewarding part of this choreography.

Choreography and Lightning: Henrique Rodovalho
Music: Original creation of Pupillo with vocal by Céu
Costume: Cássio Brasil
Duration/cast: 21 minutes with 14 dancers
Debut SPDC: 2018 | Sesc Santos, Santos/SP – Brazil

Rodovalho says that in this work he experiments expanded and continuous movements stemmed from the dancers who stay onstage the whole time. “The reference to this characteristic came from large groups of animals in movement and how they develop and connect.”  The work deals with ‘what has to happen’, in this brief gap of time existence of this large group, especially connected with some sort of pleasure, hence the name Melhor Único Dia (Best only Day, in prtuguese)  “In order to try and explain somehow the short existence which is expressed through the movement of the group,” adds Rodovalho. This work was chosen as Third Best Spectacle by Guia da Folha (2018), an important Brazilian newspaper, and Best Premiere of 2018 by APCA Award (Paulista Association of Art’s Critics).

Choreography: Lucas Lima
Music: On the Nature of Daylight, de Max Richter
Lightning: Nicolas Marchi
Costume: Fábio Namatame

Instante is a Lucas Lima creation for the Ateliê de Coreógrafos Brasileiros and has its starting point the music of Max Richter, who gained new dynamics in the movement of the dancers of the São Paulo Dance Company. According to the choreographer, the work is about “a moment to meet and another to get lost. A moment to decide, to follow, to return, to regret”. It is a choreography that introduces new impulses and dynamics into ballet movements, dialoguing with contemporary times.

Choreography: Giovanni Di Palma
Music: Pulcinella by Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)
Lightning: Mirella Brandi
Costume: Fábio Namatame
Scenic direction and canary concept: William Pereira
Partnership: Organização Social de Cultura Santa Marcelina

The Ballet Pulcinella is based on the story of The Four Pulcinellas, from a manuscript of Neapolitan folk comedies. The work debuted with Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in Paris in 1920, with music composed by Igor Stravinsky, inspired by compositions by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710-1736) and other 18th century compositions. Giovanni Di Palma’s neoclassical choreography uses pointe ballet shoes in dialogue with contemporary movements to tell the story of adventurer Pulcinella, famous character form the Commedia Dell’Arte.

Choreography, stage and costume: Clébio Oliveira
Music: Matresanch
Lightning: Mirella Brandi

According to Clébio Oliveira, Primavera Fria examines the anatomy of an unexpected rupture. It is a journey of the body through the loss of the loving object as a psychic and neurological experience. Desire, narcissism, body inadequacy, vulnerability. The work proposes an affective-sensory mapping of the body in our brain. “The loss of the love object has been a theme that has been troubling for centuries and inspiring thinkers, poets and artists. However, far from constituting a metaphysical experience, this loss is experienced in the body through an intricate biochemical thread suffered and produced by the human brain. We seek to foresee, plan and   understand the world around us, the people, and especially ourselves, through rationalizations. In the affective field, we seek happiness and yearn for solid love relationships even if it is inexorably forged by fantasy. Our quest for control falls apart when we are overwhelmed by the passion or pain of its disruption”, says the choreographer.

Choreography: Jomar Mesquita with collaboration of Rodrigo de Castro
Music: Por Toda a Minha Vida by Tom Jobim and Vinícius de Moraes (in the voice of Cibelle); Melancolia and Uma Canção pra Você (Jaqueta Amarela) by Assucena Assucena (performed by As Bahias e a Cozinha Mineira); Segunda Chance, composed and played by Johnny Hooker; Volta, by Lupicínio Rodrigues (in the voice of Adriana Calcanhoto); O Desejo do Desejo do Desejo, by Celso Sim and Pepe Mata Machado; Vai Saber, by Adriana Calcanhoto (in the voice of Marisa Monte)
Lightning: Joyce Drummond
Costume: Fernanda Yamamoto
Duration/cast: 27 minutes with 12 dancers
Debut SPDC: 2016 | Teatro Sérgio Cardoso, São Paulo/SP – Brazil

Jomar Mesquita’s second creation for São Paulo Dance Company is a free inspiration on Arthur Schnitzler’s play La Ronde – written in 1897, the work depicts different love relationships including a third person and brings elements of ballroom dance to portray the different ways of loving. Ngali… is a word of Aboriginal origin of Western Australia, whose meaning, without correspondent in another language, is: “the two of us, including you”. In opposition to another pronoun from the same language – Ngaliju – which means “both of us, excluding you”. The choreography was awarded best choreography by the public’s choice in the Best of the Year Award 2016, promoted by Guia da Folha, published by Folha de S. Paulo, the largest Brazilian newspaper.

Choreography: Maurício Wainrot
Music: Raul Barboza (The Land Without Evil, Winter in Paris and Gold Series: Great Exitos) and Pedro de Cervi (El Celeste Dress)
Lighting: Domingos Quintiliano
Costume: Graciela Galán
Choreography Assistant: Laura Marini

Litoral, by Maurício Wainrot is inspired by the songs of Raul Barboza and Pedro de Cervi, whose Argentine regional rhythms resonate with music from southern Brazil. The cast alternates in duos, trios and ensembles with a wavy movement that shows the language of the choreographer who uses the popular and erudite to create a vibrant and festive dance with soft and dense counterpoints. “Litoral is a region of great rivers in Argentina, red earth, with a forest full of trees, birds and noise formed by the provinces of Santa Fe, Misiones, Formosa, Entre Ríos, Corrientes and Chaco. Coastline meet, get contaminated and suffer influences from different places”, says the choreographer.

Choreography: Richard Siegal *
Music: Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764); Suite in D Minor / Major I. Les Tendres Plaintes, Suite in E Minor V. Le Rappel des Oiseaux, Suite in E Minor IX. Tambourin, Suite in E Minor III. Gigue en rondeau I, Suite in D Minor – Major III. Le Soupirs and Suite in A Minor – Major VII, performed by Tzimon Barto.
Lighting: Gilles Gentner
Costume Design: Simone Mina

* Richard Siegal is represented by Verlag der Autoren, Frankfurt, Germany | choreography@verlagderautoren.de

Inspired by the baroque compositions of Jean-Phippe Rameau (1683-1764), choreographer Richard Siegal created this piece for SPDC. It is a soft, delicate and dynamic choreography in which classical dance appears superimposed on other accents, bringing the idea of ​​rupture and deconstruction of patterns. The costume of Simone Mina and the light of Gilles Gentner dialogues with the proposal of the choreographer using reference of the baroque in contemporary materials and designs. “It’s like crossing the centuries. This is a work that updates this music to the 21st century and not more than the 18th century, “says the choreographer.

Choreography: Fabiano Lima
Music: Quem sabe? (1859), sung by Adriana de Almeida and performed on the piano by Olinda Allessandrini; Bailado dos Índios from O Guarani opera (1870), by Carlos Gomes (1836-1896), performed by the Orquestra do Teatro Municipal de São Paulo, with regency of Armando Bellardi
Lighting: Guilherme Paterno
Costume: Cássio Brasil

Pivô is a choreography by Fabiano Lima that draws on references from basketball, hip-hop and contemporary dance. With music from Carlos Gomes, brings to the scene the Brazilian ambience with known sonorities. The costume of Cássio Brasil dialogues with the light of Guilherme Paterno and shows the different layers of color of the work. “It’s a choreography of exchange and perception to understand how this dance moves from one body to another. I like to work with scenic elements, it gives identity to my work”, says the choreographer. The work was awarded the Third Place in the selection of the jury as the Best Dance Show of 2016 in Guia da Folha.

Choreography and costume: Binho Pacheco
Music: Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Lighting: Guilherme Paterno

Epiderme  explores the boundaries between the interior and exterior of the human being, having the skin as object of reflection. “I start from a scientific look, layers, organs and nerve endings, into a world of latent sensations, where the audience is surrounded by Bach chords and a young and provocative choreography that simultaneously connects and separates these universes”, says the choreographer. The dancers appear in situations of constant challenge, looking for ways to rediscover the balance and the forms, which are undone at every moment and in the contact between these skins that now attract with softness and delicacy, sometimes they repel with violence.