DanceBrazil.

DANCEBRAZIL JOYCE THEATER NEW YORK, NEW YORK APRIL 20-MAY 2, 2004

New York dance audiences don't give a hoot about good choreography; it's great dancing that floats their boats. Evidence: the tumultuous ovation that greeted the premiere of Artistic Director Jelon Vieira's Anjo de Rua, a rambling affair that stereotypes men as macho hunks and women as sexy bimbos. The Program A opener recalled big, jazzy modern-dance melanges of samba, street dance, capoeira, and Martha Graham and Lester Horton styles that were popular in TV spectaculars of the '60s and '70s. But Vieira's dancers performed its pouty posturing, romantic aggression, and even rape with utter exuberance.

Eleuther (2001), by guest performer/ choreographer Matias Santiago, more than made up for the cliches in Anjo. Bathed in dramatic spotlights and silhouetted against vibrant sky colors by Fabio Espirito Santo and Kim Palma, Santiago, wearing nothing but a dance belt, rippled his shiny brown muscles to sensuous, pulsing music by Sergio Nogueira. Clean choreographic structure, silken movement, and Santiago's riveting presence made this solo the high point of the evening.

The final ballet, Vieira's Missao (2003), captured the essence of capoiera, from which his dance vocabulary springs. The five women and eight men danced their hearts out, kicking heart-stoppingly close to each other's heads, back-flipping, and handspringing, driven by Ney Sacramento's ever-changing Afro-Brazilian rhythms, played live (like all the evening's music) by a sizzling four-musician ensemble in the pit.

Costumes by Mary Jane Marcasiano began with lime, gold, and aqua tank tops over white cargo pants and grew increasingly briefer and more colorful, ending in bikini bathing suits that displayed the dancers' gorgeous muscularity and rich skin tones. Palma's lively lighting helped to shape the composition with strategic light pools and dappled effects, articulated by stage fog. In Missao, Vieira treats men and women equally, and elevates the martial form of capoeira to kinetic poetry.

For more information: www.dancebrazil.org