Grupo Corpo

They are from Minas Gerais, Brazil, but their ballet crosses borders. Brazil as a whole—with all its cultural diversity—can see itself mirrored in the work of Grupo Corpo, the dance company founded in 1975 in Belo Horizonte. In a world where the speed of information produces an increasingly homogeneous landscape, these artists stand out for having developed a signature of their very own.

There are three basic reasons for the uniqueness of the company. First, there is Rodrigo Pederneiras, Grupo Corpo’s house choreographer: one of the few dance makers able to mix classical ballet and folk dance and then set to motion bodies that push the limits of technical rigor. Second, the wisdom with which Paulo Pederneiras transforms choreography into a dance artworks. Besides directing the company, Rodrigo designs the sets and lighting that customize the scenic “finish” of each production with a kind of quality that continues to introduce new references. And third, there is a balanced cast of dancers—each a star in their own right—fine-tuning each other’s performances with exquisite precision.

When one sees Grupo Corpo dance on stage, it is as if all questions concerning the relationship between nature and culture are being fully answered. All facets of Brazil—past and future, erudite and popular, foreign influence and local color, the urban and the suburban—come into focus as art. Brazilian art. World art.
—Helena Katz

21 (1992)
After several years of creating ballets danced to classical music, Paulo and Rodrigo Pederneiras felt a need to create another kind of music—music that would “dance” to Grupo Corpo. And there was nobody better to work with than Marco Antônio Guimarães, the leader, composer, and creator of the unusual instruments used by another group of artists from Minas Gerais, the Uakti Instrumental Workshop, with whom the Pederneiras brothers had successfully worked earlier, in 1988.

Created in 1992, 21 was a turning point for Grupo Corpo. Not only did company members now find themselves dancing regularly to music written exclusively for them—they had done so before, early on, in the hits Maria, Maria and Último Trem (both with soundtracks by Milton Nascimento and Fernando Brant)—but they also established this practice as new house rule. This allowed Rodrigo Pederneiras to begin building the extensive movement vocabulary with markedly Brazilianist inflections that would become a company trademark.

At the start, a web of combinations of rhythms and tonalities based on the number 21 was written on special “geometric scores” created by Guimarães, Uakti’s artistic director and the designer of the instruments that give the music its distinctive sound. In other words, these sheets used geometric figures to indicate tempo changes without suggesting melody or harmony, a process that left a huge amount of room for improvisation. There, among the circles, triangles, squares, pentagons, and hexagons of Guimarães’ unique notation, was the seed of 21.

This remarkable music pulsed with certain kind of mathematical flavor and was instrumental in creating the strongest Grupo Corpo ballet to date. Through multiple repetitions of movement, it reproduced a downward scale from 21 to 1; then it built eight small choreographic “haikus”; and finally reached its climax in a colorful and infectiously enthusiastic section that references Brazilian folk dances and countryside parties. The reds of the downstage lighting and the yellows of dancers’ costumes created a tension that set the tone for the first section of the ballet, while a gigantic quilt full of vibrant colors anticipated the climactic conclusion, with skin-tight costumes alluding to the patchwork scenery.

Gira (2017)
Gira: noun, Brazilian Portuguese[From quimbundo njila, “spin”; from quicongonzila, “path”]

In Angola-Congo nations, types of Candomblé and Umbanda gatherings feature congregations coming together to worship the deities (spiritual beings) of the terreiro (a site of worship in Candomblé) with chants and ritual dances (usually performed by spinning in circles).

The rituals of Umbanda—the most popular of the Brazil-born religions and the result of the merger of Candomblé with Catholicism and Kardecist spiritism—are the great source of inspiration for the aesthetics of Gira, which features choreography by Rodrigo Pederneiras, set design by Paulo Pederneiras, lighting by Paulo and Gabriel Pederneiras, and costumes by Freusa Zechneister. Metá Metá, a jazz band from São Paulo, wrote the soundtrack, which also features two special guests: poet, essayist, and artist Nuno Ramos, and vocalist Elza Soares.

Eshu is the most human of the orixás—deities in the Yoruba religion of West Africa, and in the Afro-Brazilian religions of Candomblé and Umbanda. The orixás are supernatural beings that are believed to have human characteristics, without whom the rituals simply couldn’t take place. And it is Eshu who guides and stages Gira as its driving force. In African cosmology, Eshu represents the dynamic principle, without which all would be static; Eshu is the messenger between the spirit world and the material world; a god of infinite expansion and multiplication, lord of all paths and crossroads, the master of all order and confusion. Each of the 11 pieces that Metá Metá wrote the work was inspired by Eshu.

In creating Gira, the artistic collaborators of Grupo Corpo had to delve into the universe of Afro-Brazilian religions in preparation for approaching Metá Metá’s musical themes. However, the performance is far from a formal representation of these syncretic rituals. Instead, choreographer Rodrigo Pederneiras re-constructs the powerful glossary of gestures and movement he accessed as he experienced the rites of Candomblé and Umbanda, particularly Eshu ceremonies (giras de Exu).

Paulo Pederneiras conceived the stage design as an installation or a “non-setting,” in which he covers the dancers’ bodies with the same black tulle as used on the three walls of the “black box,” turning them into a kind of “ether” and creating an eerie atmosphere that suggests endlessness.

Paulo Pederneiras’ set design uses a black linoleum “square” (13 meters x 9 meters), brightly lit, demarcating the stage area where the gira will take place in a symbolic representation of a terreiro. On both sides and at the bottom of the stage, where the quick-change rooms are usually located (and traditionally are invisible to the audience), 21 chairs are placed in an area bathed in shadow, forming a kind of arena. On each chair, a faint light indicates an incorporeal presence.

At the beginning of the piece, a group of seven dancers occupies the center of the stage. They have their hands crossed on the left side of their hips, eyes closed, their upper bodies bent over themselves as they form loose circles; everything suggests that they are in a trance. This introduces the volatile character of the rest of the work.

Group formations (usually with seven dancers) are recurrent, interrupted by brief trios, duos, or solos. Performed to the sound of a rhythmic track, two melodic moments give way to the materialization of female solos, danced to the voice of instruments that seem equally lonely.

For the dancers, Freusa Zechmeister adopts a similar language for the costumes of the entire cast, regardless of gender: naked torsos, with the other half of the body covered with primitive-cut white skirts and raw fabric.