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Brazilian dance just had a heartbreaker of a week, due to
the fires that torched some of Rio's samba schools right before Carnival. But
Brazilian dance also had a triumphant week, at least in Portland, which
celebrated the Belo Horizonte-based company Grupo Corpo with a
standing ovation Wednesday night at the Schnitz.
Brazil, of course, is a big country, and its dance scene isn't limited to
samba. Portland dance presenters White Bird have already made that point
by bringing in the Bahian capoeira specialists Dance Brazil and hip-hoppers
Bruno Beltrao/Grupa de Rua. Although Grupo Corpo's music and movement do
exhibit samba influences, the company works primarily from a jazzy contemporary
base. For its fourth White Bird visit in the last decade, the 19-member company
brought two works: 1997's Parabelo,
which it danced in its 2001 Portland debut, and the 2009 work Ima.
The former opened with the full ensemble crab walking under a panel painted
with enormous sculpted heads. Parabelo was
a mesmerizing study in contrasts, with fluctuating tempos, a color scheme that graduated
from dark to light and large group sections that gave way to intimate
couplings, such as a limpid pas deux lit as if it were unfolding underwater. At
times the dancers resembled jumping-jacks, their torsos held steady as their
limbs flew up and out in frequently recurring movements, such as a flexed-foot
high kick. Elsewhere the dancers showed off the sharply arced rib cages and
sinuous swiveling hips that their country is better known for.
WWeek 2015