Turning 16 years old in January this year, the São Paulo Dance Company (São Paulo Companhia de Dança) is undoubtedly the strongest and most complete dance company to have emerged this century in Brazil. With around a hundred performances per year – unheard of for a Latin-American ballet ensemble – the company has a broad range of classical repertoire and contemporary pieces created for them by local and international choreographers.
With a longstanding aim to promote Brazilian art and preserve dance history, the company also has a notably strong educational programme. In 2021, a brand new school opened for 1000 students in the city of São Paulo, of whom 50% are socially vulnerable children. Company and school both depend on the Culture, Economy, and Creative Industries Secretariat of São Paulo’s Government, managed by the social organisation Pro-Dance Association, founded by Inês Bogéa, SPDC’s artistic director.
On stage, SPDC is full of energy and style, technically strong and incredibly versatile, adjusting to the physical and artistic demands of an eclectic repertory which Bogéa defines as “classical contemporary”. The vision for the company and all the work done until now is as a direct result of Bogéa, who is truly a force of nature.
Indefatigable, creative, and setting targets that go beyond performance, Bogéa is a former dancer with Grupo Corpo and also a teacher (Royal Academy of Dance), documentary maker and writer. Her enthusiasm and passion are contagious when she talks about the 32 strong company which works simultaneously in Brazil and abroad, divided into two companies, for most of the year.
In conversation before their debut tour to the UK, I commented about the length of their tours – a month or more at a time. “We try to optimise flights, time and structure so we can be touring in Brazil, and simultaneously somewhere else in the world,” she says, matter-of-factly. “That characterises our company.” 2023 had successful tours of Germany and France, including performances at Maison de la Danse in Lyon, where they often return.
Bogéa is evidently proud of the company’s achievements, having produced more than 60 documentaries and videos recording their own work, as well as the rich history of dance in Brazil. The company has published several books, and their outreach programme, set up to engage audiences, is vast. With more than 1100 performances and 50 awards and nominations, since 2008 the company has been seen by almost a million people in 18 countries and 160 cities.
When the pandemic hit, the company reacted quickly creating the brand #SPCDdigital through which they presented more than 50 virtual programmes and streamed performances. With much already recorded on video, SPCD was able to seize the chance to become the Latin-American dance company most visibly present digitally.
I wondered how Bogéa would describe SPDC after 16 years. “As a company, we try to be in constant dialogue with our times,” she tells me. “Over the years, we’ve discovered a unique way of being and perceiving the current trends in dance, through working with a range of different choreographers.” She follows their careers and is constantly researching. “We have our own identity, which resembles the São Paulo we represent, with people from around the world, in a very diverse, vibrating and pulsating state.” The state of São Paulo has a population of more than 44 million people. “We work with choreographers who have different languages and see things from different perspectives,” she adds.
“The programmes on tour always include a Brazilian piece with Brazilian music,” explains Bogéa. “After all, dance is in our cultural DNA. We dance when we are children and every celebration or gathering ends up in a spontaneous dance. Our traditional festivities are made of dance: carnival (with the typical Samba schools in Rio and São Paulo), maracatu (traditional in the northeast), or frevo,” which developed from capoeira. Even candomblé, a Brazilian syncretism between Catholicism and African rituals, involves dance.
On a few occasions, SPCD has offered a full Brazilian evening, “but that’s agreed with the theatres where we perform. The venues know their audience and what will work best, so decisions are agreed in advance.”
Bogéa is very pragmatic. “Europe is full of companies doing amazing classics and transporting sets and costumes would be enormously difficult for us, so we tend to leave them for our local audience, which craves them, as our dancers want to dance them too.”
From its inception, Bogéa was clear about the profile of the company, which she calls “a classical contemporary repertory company. The government wanted just classical ballet, but I convinced them we needed to be more open. We needed to satisfy the demand for the big classics, which audiences here rarely have access to, yet be capable of performing within contemporary trends in Brazil and abroad.”
Certainly, ambition and planning were in the driving seat. The first programme in 2008 included Bronislava Nijinska’s Les Noces and George Balanchine’s Serenade. Their classical repertoire includes Swan Lake, Nutcracker and Giselle, restaged or revisited by artists such as Ana Botafogo, Mario Galizzi and Giovani di Palma.
Bogéa asked Brazilian legend and Stuttgart Ballet star Marcia Haydée to create a Don Quixote suite for them which successfully toured Germany and brought in for the first time names like Marco Goecke (Firebird, Supernova), Nacho Duato (Por vos muero), Jiří Kylián (Sechs Tänze) and William Forsythe (In the Middle somewhat Elevated and Workwithinwork). This variety was craved and loved by dancers, critics and audience.
Bogéa has championed Brazilian Choreographers such as Juliano Nunes, Henrique Rodovalho, Daniela Cardim, Jomar Mesquita and the young Leilane Teles whose works are inspired by the Afro-Brazilian traditions. Also, the well-known Cassi Abranches (also former Grupo Corpo), who has choreographed for Acosta Danza and recently the second act of Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Black Sabbath – The Ballet.
“What we show in each programme tries to have a dramaturgy for the evening, a connection between the pieces, with a positive energy, that resonates in a particular way with the company, empowering them. Which is the case with Gnawa. We’ve danced it since 2009. Our dancers perform it with abandon and intensity, relating how humans need and must have a relationship with nature,” she explains. “In Agora where Cassi talks about time, both as memory and speed, you can find a very Brazilian way of moving hips, in which you can almost read the music in the movement. In Anthem, Goyo explores the relationships between people and communities. All themes which are present today in society.”
The caring way she talks about her team, dancers and technicians, made me wonder if being a woman director (there aren’t many in the dance world) brings something distinctly different.
“Yes,” she responds instantly. “Emotional listening. I am always open to listening. I tell my team, if there is a problem or you have a comment, please come to me. And they do. From telling me they are doing too much, to saying I can do more than one piece, or how they feel about the order of an evening. I write down the requests and retire to reflect. I make those changes needed. I also ask them if they will be alright dancing four pieces in one night. Sometimes I share an idea, and I love to see how it evolves and ends up being so different from what I had in mind. I think that is a very feminine way of thinking.”
What she describes sounds more like an extended family. “Well, on the last tour many artists had to do some of the pieces at short notice for the first time, and they called me saying: I am rehearsing in my room, come and see if I am doing it okay,” she tells me, laughing. “I love that trust and togetherness in the rehearsal studio, even though I often need to disappear to do the strategic planning and other administration. And I always keep in contact by Zoom with the rest of the company in Brazil, who work with their own coaches until we return.
“Above all I like to think that the meaning of ‘company’ is about being in the company of everyone, spending time together – not simply representing the name of an organisation.”
São Paulo Dance Company performs at Sadler’s Wells on 9th and 10th February.
