Bruno Beltrão
Bruno Beltrão was born in Niterói, Brazil in 1979. As part of his philosophy and dance studies, he focused on choreographic research and began to question established, masculine structures of movement and the stereotypes of hip-hop, combining them with elements of contemporary dance to form a style all his own, analytic and yet very physical.
In 1996, at the age of 16, he created the Grupo de Rua de Niterói with his friend Rodrigo Bernardi. In its first two years, Grupo de Rua was dedicated to competitive dance and made appearances at festivals and on television. During this period, while they lived intensely in the hip hop world, the way the techniques of street dance were usually translated to the stage no longer attracted the group’s interest as much as it had. They actually wanted to bring hip hop dance out of the confines of its own definition.
In 2000 Beltrão enrolled in the dance faculty of the Centro Universitário da Cidade in Rio de Janeiro. In 2001 the duet From Popping to Pop premiered at the Duos de Dança no Sesc in Copacabana. This piece was Beltrão’s official debut on the contemporary dance scene in Rio de Janeiro and also marked a turning point in the career of a choreographer who was starting to develop a personal vision for the dance he had been performing. Also in 2001 he created Me and my choreographer in 63 with the dancer Eduardo Hermanson. Further works: Too Legit to Quit (2002), Telesquat (2003), H2 (2005) and H3 (2008).