Review: Grupo Corpo

This year’s EIF programme has slimmer pickings than normal in the dance section. Luckily Brazilian dance company Grupo Corpo brings two UK premieres; a tornado of vim and brio. Exhilarating opener Gil Refazendo (Remaking Gil) is a tribute to fascinating 82-year-old singer/activist Gilberto Gil, a leading tropicália artist alongside Os Mutantes and Caetano Veloso. The tropicálistas led a 1960s cultural revolution in reaction to Brazil’s dictatorship. Gil was imprisoned, exiled in London, then later became Brazil’s Minister of Culture. A duet reminds us of the tiring push and pull of resistance, a knee crashing into a chest, the torso pressing back.

Gil’s new score mixes protest song, bossa nova and electronic beats with bright, bouncing glockenspiel and didgeridoo. The dancers respond with loose arms flung skyward, shimmying hips and feet right-angled from the ankle. A huge sunflower projection unfurls behind them. Knowing the oppressive regime Gil was kicking against, their joyful flinging and arcing of bodies becomes even more gorgeous; a liberated unleashing of energy, tightly synchronised even as the large Grupo Corpo (body group) weaves fast around one another. 

Giro (Spin), inspired by Brazil’s Umbanda religion, is more urgent – bodies undulating wildly, the same signature flat feet from before now stomping in primal flamenco moves. Their precision is astonishing, waves of graceful spasms exploding like fireworks on the stage.