Viver Brasil's Signature Family Program Comes To The Broad Stage In February

The Eli and Edythe Broad Stage in Santa Monica presents Viver Brasil performing Celebrating Samba, which takes family audiences on a cultural journey to Salvador, Bahia, with electrifying Afro-Brazilian dance and music on Saturday, February 8 at 11:00am.

Founded in 1997 under the artistic direction of Linda Yudin and Luiz Badaró, the Los Angeles-based Viver Brasil captivates audiences with its irrepressible blend of bold Afro-Brazilian dance theater and exuberant physicality, power, and passion drawn from orixa movement and rhythms, samba, capoeira, dança afro and bloco afro styles. The dancers unveil history, ignite the present, imagine and inflame the future. Vocalists become part of the action and musicians take polyrhythms to new heights.

At Celebrating Samba, a signature for the company, audiences experience a jolt of joyful color, thrilling rhythms and communal celebration in a performance that includes royal orixa dances, riveting capoeira, samba and a bloco afro Bahian carnival.

Immediately following the performance, The Broad Stage will have its POP! activities for some homespun creative fun on the plaza inspired by the company. There, Viver Brasil will join the musical group MôForró, who will be playing Brazilian dance music live. Audience members can learn to samba with Viver Brazil - and take photos with the dancers. The POP! event will also feature a community art project inspired by The Broad Stage season them: HOME and Haitian symbols, bringing fortune to people's doors with artists Julianna Ostravsky and Karl Jean-Guerly Petion.

Viver Brasil honors Brazil's African legacy through bold contemporary dance theater and increases awareness of the rich history of Afro-Brazilian dance and music through performances world-wide, arts education, community engagement, and an annual cultural immersion program to Salvador, Bahia, the company establishes a portal through which communities experience and share the beautiful, mythic and vibrant stories of Afro-Brazilian culture.

Through rigorous research and continuous dialogue with living masters and virtuoso musicians and choreographers in Bahia and the United States, Viver Brasil drives contemporary representations of Afro-Brazilian dance in the U.S., addressing 21st-century African diasporic issues of art and humanity, race, social equity, and ancestry. Viver Brasil members hail from Los Angeles to other cities across the US, to international cities like Salvador, Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Havana. Viver Brasil is currently celebrating its 22nd anniversary.

"Yet nothing could shake the regal and rhythmic confidence of Viver Brasil, elegance, grace and power," said the Los Angeles Times.

Dance Magazine said, "ancestral spirits come whirling, rippling and pulsating to life in the works of Viver Brasil."

LA Weekly wrote that the company is "breathless and colorful ... a vibrant swirl of motion and music. From the first exhilarating sound of the atabaque drums, a surge of electricity sweeps through the audience, unites us with the irrepressibly energetic troupe of dancers, drummers and singers and keeps us in an elevated, almost combustible state until well past the last sound fades away."

Tickets are now on sale at thebroadstage.org, by calling 310.434.3200, or visiting the box office at 1310 11thSt. Santa Monica CA 90401 beginning three hours prior to performance.

Family performances at The Broad Stage made possible in part by the generous support of the City of Santa Monica and the Santa Monica Arts Commission, and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission.

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