IF MODERN, VIGOROUS BALLET IS YOUR THING....

Deborah Colker (born 1960 Rio de Janeiro) is a worldwide famous Brazilian writer dancer and choreographer. She received the Lawrence Oliver Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance in 2001 for her choreography work on the show 'Mix'. In 2008 Deborah wrote, directed and choreographed Cirque du Soleil’s newest show, OVO, which premiered in 2009 in Quebec. She has the distinction of being the first woman to direct for Cirque du Soleil.
Deborah established her own company in 1994 following an invitation to participate in the Carlton Dance Festival and has since created ten full-length dance pieces: Vulcão, Velox, Mix, Rota, Casa, 4 por 4, Knot, Dynamo, Cruel and Tatyana. Her work has been recognized in various Brazilian awards ceremonies over the years.
 The embryo of what would be Companhia de Dança Deborah Colker was born in 1993, in the dance halls of Casa do Minho in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where Deborah used to teach. A year later the company made its debut at the Globo em Movimento festival at Rio’s Municipal Theatre, in a double bill with Momix Dance Group.
As a result of its hard work and obvious talent, the company quickly earned an official sponsorship from the Brazilian State Oil Company, Petrobras, which has allowed it to invest in soaring flights of creation and establish a strong reputation in the world of dance.

Brazilian ballet - Grupo Corpo

''They have been the most important dance company in Brazil since the 1980's, with legions of faithful followers who always go to their shows, but they are constantly renewing themselves,'' said Adriana Pavlova, who writes about dance for the Rio de Janeiro daily O Globo and the arts magazine Bravo. ''I think it is admirable that at this stage of their career, their commitment to change is such that you can never pin them down.''

The ambiguities start with the name. In Portuguese, ''corpo'' can mean a human body, a body of work, a corps de ballet or even a corporation, depending on the context. Paulo Pederneiras, Grupo Corpo's artistic director, said the company had taken that name out of a desire to ''play with all the possible meanings and implications of the word.'' 

As for the musical arrangements, the company focused not just on Brazilian composers like Villa Lobos and Ernesto Nazareth, whose place in Brazilian music is similar to that of Scott Joplin in the United States, but also performed works based on Chopin's preludes, Richard Strauss's songs, Mozart's masses and Elgar's ''Enigma Variations.'' The group has relied mostly on avant-garde Brazilian pop artists like Tom Zé, the group Uakti and, most recently, Arnaldo Antunes, a musician, poet and multimedia artist from São Paulo, Brazil's largest city.

By LARRY ROHTER /

  
More of it at: http://www.grupocorpo.com.br/site/index.php?mudaLingua=2