{"id":2252,"date":"2011-05-10T20:18:45","date_gmt":"2011-05-11T00:18:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/?p=2252"},"modified":"2011-05-10T20:20:39","modified_gmt":"2011-05-11T00:20:39","slug":"dance-brazil-at-the-joyce-theater","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/dance-brazil-at-the-joyce-theater.htm","title":{"rendered":"Dance Brazil at the Joyce Theater"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dance Brazil<\/a>
\nJoyce Theater<\/a>
\nApril 27, 2011
\nAll photos by Eileen Travell<\/p>\n

\"Dance<\/a>\"Dance\"Dance<\/a>Dance Brazil combines contemporary dance and capoeira, the Brazilian martial art practice performed to music.\u00a0 For their Joyce season, they presented three pieces choreographed by their Artistic Director, Jelon Vieira.<\/p>\n

A Jornada, created in 2001, describes the journey of Africans to Brazil and their struggle for liberation.\u00a0 Live musicians provided what I considered to be an especially moving and then exhilarating score, composed by Marcelo Zarvas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As the dance opens, six men are seated in close proximity of one another.\u00a0 Their torsos slowly lengthen and release, and it leaves me with the impression that they\u2019re on a ship.\u00a0 They rise to their feet but are soon seated again, facing a new direction.\u00a0 They hold together in a close formation, like a tribe, and they tend to crouch close to the earth as they move.\u00a0 The dance opens up a bit as women join them.\u00a0 There are lovely high lifts and many rippling isolations in the upper body.\u00a0 But the travels never remain smooth for very long.\u00a0 They are interrupted by sudden turbulence as hypnotic repetitive phrases are played on the strings.<\/p>\n

In the second section, much of the movement is still close to the ground, deep in the knees, but the solemnity seems to lift.\u00a0 The music is joyous.\u00a0 The men turn cartwheels, barrel turns and ariels.\u00a0 Everyone\u2019s smiling and we feel as if we\u2019re at a celebration.\u00a0 The steps are quick and the swaying women are sexy.\u00a0 The men jump impossibly high, drawing their knees all the way to their chests as they reach the apex.<\/p>\n

\"Dance<\/a><\/p>\n

The final section opens with what sound like gunshots played on the drums.\u00a0 The dancers tense up and shudder.\u00a0 The drums sound like thunder.\u00a0 The music is absolutely stunning as the bravura kicks in.\u00a0 The capoeiristas take on one another, each one strutting and showing off his moves.\u00a0 It\u2019s all performed with blinding speed and some of the dazzling movement seems to defy gravity.\u00a0 The men nearly hold themselves horizontally in space, their upper bodies parallel to the floor, while their legs sweep and strike.\u00a0 They come close to flying.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\"Dance<\/a><\/p>\n

Batuke was given its New York premiere.\u00a0 In the program notes, Vieira writes with such affection about his personal history with the Batuke music of capoeira, which his mother used to refer to as \u201cnoise\u201d.\u00a0 If it was noise, then it was beautifully rhythmic and full of celebration.\u00a0 You can read Vieira\u2019s liner notes here<\/a> and view a video of Nana Vasconcelos playing the berimbau<\/a> , a traditional African instrument used in Brazil in the practice of capoeria.\u00a0 The piece was performed with the live accompaniment of three percussionists.<\/p>\n

I couldn’t identify a narrative in this dance.\u00a0 It was just pure joy, pure dance, pure jubilation, pure celebration of the drum and of capoeria. .\u00a0 The audience couldn’t help but get caught up in the exhilaration and they gave a loud enthusiastic response.<\/p>\n

Again, the dancers move in groups throughout and rarely stray from one another.\u00a0 The choreography always seems to contain an undertow of unison and community.\u00a0 In turquoise leotards and long white tassle skirts, four women ripple and sway and occasionally rub their hands together as if they were washing.\u00a0 The capoeristas join them.\u00a0 They are dressed in traditional costume, each carrying sticks that remind me of Indian clubs or nunchucks.\u00a0 They begin by using the instruments to accent beats in the music, but as the capoeria battles ensue, each capoerista strikes a stick against that of his opponent, always in perfect rhythm with the music.<\/p>\n

\"Dance<\/a><\/p>\n

For all the flash and acrobatics of the capoerira movement, the artists never sacrificed heart and soul, and never lost their connection to the music or to the earth.\u00a0 It all fused together into an exhilarating whole which deeply affected the audience and brought them to their feet.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dance Brazil Joyce Theater April 27, 2011 All photos by Eileen Travell Dance Brazil combines contemporary dance and capoeira, the Brazilian martial art practice performed to music.\u00a0 For their Joyce season, they presented three pieces choreographed by their Artistic Director, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2253,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,20],"tags":[232,233,231,234,235,28,236],"class_list":["post-2252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dance","category-karen","tag-a-jornada","tag-batuke","tag-dance-brazil","tag-eileen-travell","tag-jelon-vieira","tag-joyce-theater","tag-marcelo-zarvas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2252"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2287,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2252\/revisions\/2287"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}