Find out more about one of the landmarks of Brazilian dance and how the prestigious and traditional dance company from Curitiba has been reinventing itself and making Paraná’s art alive in recent years.
By Geovana Peres da Costa
The Balé Guaíra one of the landmarks of Brazilian dance. Today, with a full team of 35 members, the Brazilian dance company is based in the landmark of modernism in Paraná, the Cultural Center Guaíra Theater, which is one of the largest cultural complexes in Latin America. With Cleverson Cavalheiro as its president and Áldice Lopes as its artistic director, the dance company is currently under the management of Luiz Fernando Bongiovanni. Maintained by the Government of Paraná, it is based in Praça Santos Andrade in Curitiba and it is one of the public Dance Companies in Brazil. The Guaíra Theater has four artistic bodies: Paraná Symphony Orchestra, Balé Guaíra, the G2 Dance Company and the Dance School of Balé Guaíra. The dance company itself is 54 years old of pure dance tradicion.
In August 2023, it premiered its new production, Contraponto (in English it means Counterpoint) – by Brazilian choreographers Alan Keller and Alessandro Sousa, which will run for a short season in the second half of 2023 at the „Guairinha“, affectionately known as one of the auditoriums in the Cultural Center Guaíra Theater, where it will be much closer to the audience and more intimate, in order to further enhance the proposal of the dance company which is relating a new body dramaturgy and seeking to highlight sensations. The name of the new ballet is also related to the dance company’s time, with a lot of new discoveries based also on our modern times, especially after the pandemic.
In an interview to learn more about the history and trajectory of Balé Guaíra Dance Company, Geovana Peres interviews the directors and president of Guaíra Theater, the current director of the dance company, the Brazilian guest choreographers of Contraponto and one of the dancers from the Balé Guaíra Dance Company. Get ready to dig into the upcoming time of Balé Guaíra Dance Company.
The first part is a conversation with Áldice Lopes and Cleverson Cavalheiro – the current artistic director and president of Guaíra Theater, respectively.
Today, in your position as a manager of one of the landmarks in Brazilian Dance culture, what can you point out to us as important actions to be taken to expand and reach Brazilian audiences, in order to stay connected with the goal, which is to enjoy the performances at Guaira Theater?
Cleverson: Our goal with the company, and that is what we see it is working, seeking excellence and knowledge from other places and sources, as it is the case with our current director of the Dance Company of Balé Guaíra, Luiz Fernando Bongiovanni. So that we can always be updating the activities of the theater and the dance company, then one of the new things we have been implementing is the creation of a line of new performances, with new ideas and this has boosted curiosity in the public; as for publicity work, we are using our social networks and technology much more to our advantage, especially after the pandemic, where we have even had performances in hybrid format, we are adapting to the modern times. Basically we deal with the tripod of desires: putting on a performance in an auditorium; creating a didactic figure where we extend the program to schools, with the intuition of audience formation and thus expanding and reaching other municipalities and the metropolitan region also in the state of Paraná; and seeking new audiences, making dance accessible, also from the price of the tickets that are standardized for any type of performance in here.
Are people coming to theaters more and more, or less and less? Are there any actions that you think are necessary, that you can take or are already being taken to prevent this from happening? And does the aftermath of the pandemic have an effect on this?
Áldice – It is very interesting to be able to talk about this, because during the pandemic we had to reinvent ourselves to rediscover a new format so as to not stop art in the country. So we discovered and started to boost our social networks, but the theater never stopped during this period. The Balé Guaíra Dance School, for example, had its classes online, we had productions of online performances, including one of our performances called „Apartment Waltz“, which was such a success that we had national repercussions. But of course, there comes a time when people need to be in person and that brings the fear of this return. Even though, in this comeback in 2022, we had around 320,000 people. This fear of audiences joining the theaters is put aside, because when you put on quality performances, you will have audience, and also because of our ticket price policy, we have a full house all the time and the educational performances are always free.
Could you give us more examples of how the pandemic affected the culture in general in Paraná? How does it affect your activities today?
Aldice – We have noticed that activities have been optimized. Choreographies need to have a time limit. For example, we understand that in order to have an attractive program, we need to have two choreographies of no more than 30 minutes each, with an interval. Understanding and adapting to the times we live today, is fundamental. It is a great privilege and pride to have had a dance company for 54 years and to be the only government-supported master dance company in the world. We need to understand what it is like to have a public dance company, we need to include classics such as The Nutcracker, Romeo and Juliet, Swan Lake but we also need to include contemporary pieces with an identity and communicates to people, even though the public has more difficulty to understand them, working on how the public interpret the pieces is important, always looking for the best way to communicate with our public as a whole audience.
How has the dance company transitioned from classical/neoclassical to more contemporary in the recent years?
Aldice – It was super natural, we used to dance the great classics, but we migrated automatically, very much due to the need to adapt to modern times, that also came from the Místico Circus, which has a lot of influence on us. For example, we are still working on a production of „The Nutcracker“ for this year, which will be super contemporary by the director of the Balé Guaíra Dance Company.
How did the idea for G2 come to be? Dancing beyond the „standardized“ age…
Cleverson – G2’s work also came to be naturally. When it started, the idea was to be with permanent employees and within a profile, we thought about how to relocate them within the functions of the Guaira Theater, so that they wouldn’t be left without a job.There was already a small niche among them, who were already thinking about workshops, choreographic ateliers, some of them were very interested in movement research, more authorial work. Since 1997, when the dance company was reformulated, this group decided to start developing new work, which at first was just a study to stay active and then some work was done with researchers, in other words, a process began to emerge. It took a long time to understand how G2 could work to reach today’s level of excellence in productions with a group that exceeds the common age of professional dancers, such as the performance Gag directed by Gabriel Vilela. They work with everything from the performing arts to the visual arts. So a senior dance company in the making comes nightfall, the only one in the world…
How did you come to be concerned about the projection of positions at the Guaíra Theater? For example, a career planning for the artists.
Cleverson – The employees of Guaíra Theater, starting from the point of the Dance Company, have the idea of „beyond being dancers“ and are concerned with artistic market or in another sector, we have to know that just like any other profession we have a funnel, perhaps in this profession, even a more tapered one. The idea is to expand these horizons within the Guaíra Theater itself. We also have this purposeful question of integrating the artistic bodies within the same environment to have this cultural exchange, because the theater is a space under construction and in movement. There is a transversality here, but it is something very natural for us, we know how important it is to have these points of connection between everyone here.
Áldice – You can see that the employees here, especially in the management positions, have a background in the artistic world and experience too, we are very accomplished, we have no frustrations in our artistic lives, we are very open people. The place you are least likely to find me is in my office – jokes Áldice – I am everywhere and I make a point of always being present and being whatever the theater needs, because we have this relationship of love with craft and art.
Let’s get to know in an interview with Alan Keller who is one of the choreographers of Contraponto, more about this new creation- He is a Brazilian choreographer, artist and researcher.
How has the diversity of places that seek you out to choreograph affected your identity as an artist?
Alan: Working with art in this country has its challenges, so how do we begin to understand this profession as something that can be prosperous? Then I started to think about how to make art in a way that dialogues with other things and people, such as cinema, circus, theater, as perhaps a strategy for crossing other spaces too. Of course, each production has its own characteristics coming from the place that seeks me out, each place really has its own diversity of styles and profiles, so I find a line of thought for each one, so that I don’t get stuck in my own conceptions. I realize that what connects this side is affection, which is very powerful and transformative, because in this way we are telling the other person to look at themselves and the outside as well. I believe that my work brings a lot of love from this place of affection with oneself and with the world.
How did you get the invitation to be part of the new production for the Balé Guaíra Dance Company?
Alan: Even though I don’t have a thriving career as a professional dancer since I have never been a professional dancer myself, you may wonder „how did you create this ownership as a choreographer?“ I had to look for strategies, because I have always been a guy who thinks about dance, in order to carve out my own place. I started going to various dance companies in my State until I created my own group, Paraopeba Dance Company in Minas Gerais. The Joinville Dance Festival, which is the biggest dance competition in the world, introduced me to the world of Brazilian dance through this group of mine in a very powerful way, and from there it was a great springboard for me to connect with the director of Balé Guaira – Luiz Fernando Bongiovanni, whose work I have always admired greatly, because it is multiple, artistic, fun and I identify with it. From all of this came the invitation to create a new piece for the Guaira Dance Company.
How do you feel about being able to, together with the dance company, give voice and promote Brazilian dance with a creative composition of your own?
Alan: Balé Guaíra is a place of very powerful artists, it has a physical space with an audience that values and forms this interest in contemporary dance, not just for the dance audience, but for the non-dance audience too. It is important to always understand this audience to be able to deliver what they want to see, so that they can receive this prestige and thus continue with more and more upcoming works.
What was the purpose of your choreography in Contratempo? What was the process like?
Alan: Anima (the name of his choreography in the Contraponto performance) in philosophy means soul, but for me Anima is almost a literal reading of „become happy“ from the action verb animate, like an invitation „let’s animate?“. Anima also talks about Froide’s ID, ego and superego, it ends up being a combination of everything to become the concept of the work Anima.It comes a little from the spiritual, philosophical, rational, conceptual side… For me, the soul is what we believe we are, each with our own definition. There is also a complement to the work’s name, which is – Anima: immensity within. What is the immensity within each of us? What are the possibilities for each of us? It is a very curious space… The opening of the dancers at the Guaira Theater allows the process to work, in the first week, where I brought in people from the Can Circus, which is one of the most recognized circus companies in the country and the world, I also brought in someone who makes puppets, and as I said, I really wanted to mix the areas of the arts, so it has been a very nice experience.
What do you expect from people who watch Contraponto?
Alan: When Raul Seixas says in his song, which is included in the piece: „I am the light of the stars“, he says that we are light, so I hope that the audience will leave here with their hearts filled with light.
Although the two choreographies are opposed to one another, Contraponto also means what completes a subject, text, context in some way… What is this point of connection that you find in common?
Alan: Apart from the fact that the choreographers are from the same State, Minas Gerais, I believe that above all we are talking about people.
In another small talk with Alessandro Sousa, he is also a choreographer of one piece from Contraponto Performance’s, we learn more about his piece Castelo. He is a dance artist, Alessandro has been in continuous growth, developing today’s works with his own language of movement, interested in investigating a unique, strong and expressive vocabulary that can be shared by other dancers.
What was the starting point for creating your choreography for the performance Contraponto?
Alessandro: It came very much from a sentence by Euclides da Cunha: „We are condemned to civilization, either we progress or we disappear.“ This phrase speaks so much about what is going on in the ballet, this strength that we create throughout our lives to face challenges and our own struggles to be respected, which is something that society also creates. Alessandro piece’s “Castelo” is that struggle we make today that may not even be for us, but for the next generation, and the next generation we hope will make it for the next and so on.
How did your choreographic processes usually happen?
Alessandro: I usually start with an idea, but we never know because the dancers really make the idea progress, but I always come with a phrase, the music prepared and my vocabulary is very specific, so this base is very important. I like that the artists put a lot of themselves into the work in terms of feelings, how they dance and their identity, but the phrases and the aesthetics are always my part. The dancers take on the role of interpretation. I believe that the first step is a very small idea, but it is more about the ballet aesthetic and the end of the process only happens with this relationship between me, the dancer and the idea. I often say to those I work with: „you need to get inside my head“, sometimes what I say doesn’t make sense at the time, but afterwards it makes perfect sense.
How does it feel for you, as a choreographer who has signed choreographies in so many places, to be in Brazil and now be part of Guaíra’s Ballet history and rep?
Alessandro: It is a very good feeling, a lot of work, I always wanted to be a choreographer for Balé Guaíra, we had negotiated for almost a year. I loved the experience, everyone embraced me in a very nice way and we managed to do a very beautiful job. Choreographing throughout Brazil and the world has been a dream that I am fulfilling.
“Castelo” has almost no scenic elements, except the dancers themselves, which in itself draws a lot of attention, because it becomes the movement, the strength, the exhaustion, the endurance thus the scenic elements themselves as well. How and in what way does this enhance the message from your piece and bring the individual strength of the dancers?
Alessandro: As a choreographer, I almost never use many elements on stage, because I believe that the dancer, the dance itself, can deliver a lot. In Castelo, you need to be inside, to tell this poetry. I already knew that I wanted to put the power of the dancers on the stage, I wanted to put the body on the stage to show the muscles, the sweat so then all of that was very intentional.
The last scene is impactful, there are a lot of feelings… How do you think the pause, the silence of the movement in this part, the dramaturgy and emotion of the context also collaborated by the soundtrack, in the final scene, reaches the audience?
Alessandro: There are so many emotions there, I can only think of words and in this case one phrase stands out for this finale: „we are going to make it, it is going to work, it is going to have to work, it has already worked.“ So this finale really brings the idea that everyone is building their own castle, everyone with their own goal. When I look over and after the first run of the ballet and see everyone there cheering, crying, I really understand the impact of Castelo and how strong it is.
How do you think the message of this piece will reach the public? How does Castelo connect with people’s lives?
Alessandro: What I hope for the public is that they can be vulnerable enough to watch Castelo and relate to the ballet and be able to learn from it, without having a pre-formed opinion. I would like this piece to touch people as it touches myself, and for us to be able to pass on this sense of belonging to other people.
We also spoke to Rene Sato about the creation process of Contraponto, he is one of the current dancers who has been part of the Guaira Theater Dance Company since 2017.
How was the creating process of Contraponto for you?
Rene: Bongiovanni’s direction is very horizontal, so he is always very concerned with bringing together what the audience wants, but at the same time giving us artists support for artistic growth, so we have this very strong exchange. There is a very nice dialog here and the dancers participate, for example, in choosing the new choreographers. This plurality of views makes the dance company a very united collective. The dance company of Balé Guaira as a dancer’s committee, in which we actively participate and give our opinions.
What strikes you the most about this choreographic process?
Rene: I always think it is beautiful to take something from the unconscious to bring it into matter, to turn dance into art. Being at the Guairinha, where it is a more intimate stage, is very special, because the audience unveils many things, the works become more palpable.
What has been the most challenging part?
Rene: Often looking at our own shadows, from the choice of cast and how that reverberates for each one of us, actually realizing what each choreographer wants, this collective construction in itself is already a challenge, getting into the imagination of that person, is very complex. It is the challenge, but it is also the beauty.
What touches or connects you the most in this performance ?
Rene: I feel that the choreographic process is very important, it takes me to important places of search, of encounters and disagreements and I am always saved by my colleagues, after all we are in this exchange between the dancers.
How important is it to have a work, that is extremely well thought, out for the public that comes to watch and consume Brazilian dance?
Rene: First you have to think about who the audience is, because it could be anyone, it is really a broad question to answer precisely, but I start from myself, my change, somehow it reverberates to someone who is there. I think that even people who may not understand it can be impacted and have an exchange.
What is your role as an interpreter? What do you try to bring and pass on to the audience?
Rene: For me, the verb to dance is much better if it is combined with other verbs or words, for example learning, loving… When my dancing is combined with these words, I feel it makes all the difference and that is what I want and try to convey when I am on stage.
Last but not least, a short interview with Luiz Fernando Bongiovani about his recent management of the Guaira Dance Company. He was a professional dancer who performed in Brazil and abroad: Cullberg Ballet and Gothenburg Opera Ballet, both in Sweden; Scapino Ballet, in Rotterdam, Holland, and the Zurich Opera Ballet, in Switzerland, and before that, in Brazil, at the Balé da Cidade de São Paulo. He currently directs Balé Guaíra.
Academically, he has a degree in Philosophy from the University of São Paulo (USP) and a postgraduate degree in Performing Arts, concentrating on Theatre, Dance and Performance from the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP).
Regarding your relatively recent direction at Balé Guaira, what has been your main goal and discovery as director with the dance company?
Bongiovanni – My experience as director is recent, but I have been coming here since 2005. Since I came back to Brazil, one of the first companies that asked me to work as a guest choreographer was Balé Guaira, where we have already done a lot of work together, but my oficial management starts at the end of 2021. What I think I am bringing here is a life story: I have been a dancer with an official dance company all my life, starting my career with the Balé da Cidade de São Paulo and then making an international career in Europe. When I returned to Brazil, I still worked with dance companies, but after a while I realized that I wanted to take adventure as a freelance dancer and when they called me here, I had already managed a dance company project for 12 years in São Paulo, so I was already familiar with the Brazilian dance context. Arriving here in 2021, one thing I really wanted to do was to regain the public’s appreciation, to reframe the idea that those who watch dance performances are only dance audiences. How to break that bubble and connect with other audiences? My wish was for the public to value dance, for the Balé Guaira to have that prestige, as I saw the companies I was part of in Europe being valued. I have been using a series of strategies to reverse this scenario, one and perhaps the main one has been to work on revisiting classics always with an orchestra, which already few dance companies do today in Brazil.
What do you think is important to consider when running a public dance company? What do you particularly value?
Bongiovanni – First of all, you need to know about public administration, when we are talking about an official State Dance Company, which is the example of Balé Guaira. For instance, you need to know how the contracts may work, there are very specific designs for what the government can hire, and the more you understand about this, the better you will be able to manage it. Another extremely necessary point is the organization, the planning of the season. We have managed to accomplish everything we set out on paper in recent years.
What do you value in the team of artists you lead?
Bongiovanni: Curiosity, I believe that the artist needs to be restless and make art within an official institution, there are a series of guidelines to be followed, but we don’t just think about the public, we also think about the artists who make Balé Guaira, so that we can also feed them, for example with the performance „Contraponto„, which was recently the star work. Each project is part of what we call continuous training, where each artist comes out of this experience transformed, and I hope they are receptive to all of this. Here in Brazil, we really need to bet on creations and here we are trying to renew our repertoire so that I don’t remain the only resident choreographer of the Dance Company but we have others to welcome. Having a balanced and connected team is fundamental and I really value that.
How can we make society more aware of the existence of professional Brazilian dance?
Bongiovanni – Well, my first degree is in communication and my second in philosophy, and I keep thinking that we have a lot of work to do to raise awareness among the population as a whole, bringing appreciation to art I feel is the same as appreciation through philosophy, I feel that in a certain sense there are proposals for mediations.So, what would these proposals be? Proposals that you write in a program, actions with those connected to dance, for example here in Curitiba we have people from the Paraná Arts College, the Paraná State School and Casa Hoffman, I try to have good contact with them, so that they understand what we are doing and the reason for it, even when we bring a classic like Romeo and Juliet. But when we go into this metaphorical universe, we can turn it into reflections for the contexts that happen in our daily lives, so the audience leaves with a message from the performance. Art thinks about the world, just like philosophy, and if we manage to pass this idea on, that through a performance we are seeing the world in a richer way, then we are fulfilling the work we came here to do. One thing we need to be careful of is art and entertainment, which is very important, but they are two different things.
In a press release you said that you have already had performances with a more traditional slant with the Paraná Symphony Orchestra, with stories that are already well-established with a beginning, middle and end, but now you are going for a different kind of dramaturgy with Balé Guaira and its new work „Contraponto“. What can we expect from this evening performance?
Bongiovanni: I think it is a bit of a desire to update the artistic language. The stages here at Guaira offer completely different perspectives and give you a different way of choreographing. For example, Castelo, which is the second part of the performance of Contraponto, works very well at „Guairinha“ because it is a more intimate stage. I have been trying to bring this dramaturgy that isn’t so much visual as it is sensorial, it has to do with sensations, with the body.
In your opinion, what is the counterpoint between the two works that make the Contraponto evening?
Bongiovanni: The initial counterpoint is the use of the Guaíra stage versus the Guairinha stage, the size of the stages proposed a perception of something more external to something much more internal, and the two works connect a lot with this internal universe of each one. There are counterpoints and similarities too; one is brighter, the other darker, one more extroverted and the other introverted. But I think the main counterpoint is the more intimate experience for the audience and the artists.
On what do you hope Contraponto will add, not only to the dance company, but also to the dance culture for those who come to the performances?
Bongiovanni: I hope that the performance will somehow transform the audience, but we are only wishing, we can’t know if it will really happen. I like it when we perform, especially in the countryside of Paraná, because it is beautiful to see the life we give to the theaters there… For the artists, I can see that it is like we are opening Pandora’s box, you know? There are incredible transformations to see up close, it is another instance of the artist, it is beautiful to see the artist blossom.
The Guaira Dance Company has done a really great job to put out their voice, art and dance to the world. What is extremely important and very nice to see there, it is the great group work, as a whole, that they are building up through many years ever since they exist as a theater for Brazilian culture.
