White Bird Uncaged is delighted to present talented young choreographer and Artistic Director Bruno Beltrão and his company Grupo de Rua at the Bison Building, 410 NE 10th Avenue, a remarkable industrial space with soaring ceilings, from February 3-7, 2010.  Based in Rio de Janeiro, Beltrão has become an international sensation for using hip-hop to construct something totally new and fresh.  Revolutionizing the popular dance form to create an until now unknown space between hip-hop and contemporary dance, Beltrão uses a wide variety of music, background noise, and, sometimes, complete silence to accompany his work.  His brilliant all-male, nine-member company, Grupo de Rua, will perform his newest piece, H3, which dispenses with heavy beats and macho posturing, creating a minimalist, almost meditative interpretation of hip-hop in which the movement itself becomes its own pulsating rhythm.

With his latest work, Beltrão continues his deconstruction of hip-hop dance, moving beyond the dance form’s lineage to showcase the company’s distinctive style.  At the heart of this choreography are fascinating duets, evocative of capoeira, with dancers testing and challenging each other’s space in both conflict and playfulness, while daring ensemble work features dancers running backwards and in circles at high speed, miraculously avoiding one another.  H3 uses little music, rejecting preconceptions of the hip-hop genre but, in the silence, noises from the outside world filter into the performance space, reminding the audience that the street is always close by.  Highly energetic, both explosive and fluid, H3 defies hip-hop clichés and is Beltrão’s most complex and compelling work to date.

Bruno Beltrão was born in Niterói, near Rio de Janeiro, in 1979 and began learning street dance at age 14 from the Israeli teacher Yoram Szabo.  In 1996 Beltrao created the company Grupo de Rua de Niteroi (GRN) with his friend Rodrigo Bernardi.  During its first two years GRN was devoted to competitive dance festivals and special appearances in several events and TV shows, but in 2000 the company participated in the international tour of Metropole with the Midnight Circus from the French director Pierrot Bidon.  The following year the duet Do Popping ao Pop ou Vice-Versa premiered at the Festival Duos de Dança no SESC in Rio de Janeiro, signaling Beltrão’s official debut in the contemporary dance scene in Rio.  The piece also proved a turning point in the choreographer’s career – the first step in setting street dance apart from sheer virtuosity and from the patterned reproduction of choreographic structures that are inherent in the dance form.  At the end of 2001, Beltrão assumed the direction of Grupo de Rua alone, and his work has increasingly focused on the exchange between hip-hop and the reflexive and inventive environment of contemporary dance.  

Bruno Beltrão was named Upcoming Choreographer of the Year in 2005 by balletanz, Europe’s leading dance magazine, and cited by O Globo, Brazil’s second largest newspaper, as “one of the most creative artists of his generation.” He has become involved in a variety of projects to promote and encourage reflection about street dance, including working as a curator and engaging in social programs.

Since 2002, Grupo de Rua has toured extensively throughout Europe as well as to North Africa, the Middle East, Korea, Japan and Argentina. The White Bird engagement is the final stop on the first major US tour of 13 cities by the company.  

Bruno Beltrao/Grupo de Ruo is funded in part by the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and additional funding from the Ford Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Community Connections Fund of the MetLife Foundation.

White Bird’s presentation of Bruno Beltrão/Grupo de Rua is supported by The Kinsman Foundation and the Western States Arts Federation (WESTAF).

White Bird Uncaged 2009-10 is made possible by generous grants from the Meyer Memorial Trust, the James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation, Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, the Collins Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.