Glitter Revolution

Talk about perfection! While the countdown is on, as Gustavo Dudamel, music director of the world-class Los Angeles Philharmonic, prepares to exit the stage for the New York Philharmonic (a big boohoo), his presence last weekend at Walt Disney Concert Hall further cemented his status as musical genius, tastemaker and catalyst for good: Indeed, leading the band in a program of Beethoven and Gabriela Ortiz, the concert proved a sensory balm as the Brazilian dance troupe, Grupo Corpo, performed to Ortiz’s Grammy Award-winning opus, “Revolución diamantina.”

Performance

Grupo Corpo: “Revolución diamantinam,” choreography by Rodrigo Pederneiras and Cassi Abranches

Place

Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, California, February 26-28, March 1, 2026

Words

Victoria Looseleaf

Grupo Corpo with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Photograph by Timothy Norris

Co-choreographed by Cassi Abranches and Rodrigo Pederneiras, the 42-minute ballet, which translates to “Glitter Revolution,” was inspired by Mexico’s 2019 and 2022 feminist uprisings around the country’s epidemic of violence against women. The increase in femicide was a catalyst for this mobilization, with the name stemming from the fact that protesters threw pink glitter—here not as ornament but as weapon - at the chief of police as their way of denouncing the lack of response following the rape of a woman by local officers. (An analog, perhaps, to the legions of pink pussy hats that populated demonstrations in the States not too many years ago?)

Nevertheless, “Revolución,” in its concert version, was first performed and conducted in 2023 by Dudamel, who said that Ortiz’s “compositions embody a rare fusion of primal energy and deep emotional resonance, speaking directly to both the body and the soul.”

And what, after all, does Grupo Corpo, founded in the interior city of Belo Horizonte in 1975 by Paulo Pederneiras, mean, but “Body Group,” the 22 dancing bodies oozing, if you will, soul. Set in six parts, and also featuring an octet of women (four sopranos, four altos, all amplified) from the Los Angeles Master Chorale, the piece was performed on an elevated stage situated beneath the Phil’s glorious organ loft, with the dancers entering from seats on each side of the performance area. This was certainly a terrific use of terpsichorean space, though works from the canon—Hello, “Swan Lake!”—would certainly not hold water here.

Beginning with Act I, “The sounds cats make” the dancers, with their signature blend of classical lines, Afro-Brazilian grounding, and street swagger, were mesmerizing. And why not, as the huge orchestra, including bongos, cans, chimes, claves, cowbells, crash cymbals and glockenspiel – along with harp, horns, brass, winds, strings and other sundry percussion instruments - took the performance to another level, the movers initially offering unison high kicks and arched backs to these wild bouquets of sound.

Grupo Corpo with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Photograph by Timothy Norris

Act II’s “We don’t love each other,” made clear that the rhythmic thrusts and pedestrian moves bordered on the appearance of, well, unwelcome assaults, all heightened by the eight singers uttering nonsensical, albeit, fortissimo sounds. The simple garb (costumes by Susana Bastos and Marcelo Alvarenga), ranged from dance shorts and bras to mini-floral dresses and sarongs that doubled as capelets, all accenting the group’s toned musculature, a perfect fit for Ortiz’s highly syncopated score.

This was most evident in Act III’s “Borders and bodies” and Act IV’s “Speaking the unspeakable,” sections that contained spikes lifted from Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring,” with the music not only giving the dancers an aura of immediate doom, but their articulated footwork and varied groupings also appearing to accentuate the notion of not a single Chosen One, but many so-called Chosen Ones, especially in terms of a metaphorical sacrifice.

Sprinkled throughout were technically fearless and musically literate solos, duets, trios, quartets and large unisons, the numerous entrances and exits reminiscent of Lucinda Childs’ seminal 1979 work, “Dance.” Here were quasi-hypnotic repetitions and evolving neo-geometrics in a continual flow, this stream of humanity grooving to Ortiz’ ever-fascinating sounds, including river stones, vibraslap, wind gong and celesta, the explosive group formations shifting from tight clusters to wide sweeping diagonals, mirroring, as such, the ebb and flow of collective action.

The piece was also a seamless fit with Dudamel’s Latin American roots: Sustaining an allegro pace, himself moving somewhat balletically on the podium, he channeled the music as if savoring every beat, with this reviewer reveling equally in the rhythms and rhapsody of the music and the dance. It was as if the entirety of Disney Hall were pulsating, barreling, as it were, towards a monumental ending as the potency of the work continued.

Grupo Corpo with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel. Photograph by Timothy Norris

With Act V, “Pink glitter,” and the finale, “Todas,” featuring the entire company at last united on stage, hope, as it were, no longer seemed out of reach. Yes: Here were hip sashays, shoulder shrugs and jet-propelled split-kick leaps, with a trio of men sporting airplane arms in a kind of studied improvisation. At other times, the dancers, whirling dervish-like, spanned the length of the stage, an occasional Irish jig-type move tossed into the mix.

Like the Sirens of Homer’s “Odyssey,” the female performers gave the impression of being called to a higher place, the tableaux moving from Matisse’s “The Dance” to a controlled lunacy replete with Groucho-like walking. This was, in truth, a celebration of the body, the collective also moving ameba-like, a solidarity of the flesh, with Paolo Pedernaeiras’ pink lighting waning: The work, triumphant on all counts, in coming to a reverential close, arrived with the weight of testimony.

Ortiz, writing in the press notes, spoke of “the voices of the disappeared: a blind march that makes its appearance on the horizon of a nonsensical place…” closing with “the aspiration that only by walking together will we be able to find a way out…” that “their cause is also our own: that of all of us, women and men and people.”

These final words might also apply to the concert’s opening number, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A Major. Conducted, as is his wont, from memory by Dudamel, the performance, part of the maestro’s observance of the 200th anniversary of the master’s death, was nothing less than thrilling, and, coupled with the dance, made for a most moving—in all ways—afternoon in the splendid confines of Disney Hall. For this we say, “gracias,” “obrigado,” and, please . . . hurry back soon.

Victoria Looseleaf

Victoria Looseleaf is an award-winning, Los Angeles-based international arts journalist who covers music and dance festivals around the world. Among the many publications she has contributed to are the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Dance Magazine and KCET’s Artbound. In addition, she taught dance history at USC and Santa Monica College. Looseleaf’s novella-in-verse, Isn't It Rich? is available from Amazon, and and her latest book, Russ & Iggy’s Art Alphabet with illustrations by JT Steiny, was recently published by Red Sky Presents. Looseleaf can be reached through X, Facebook, Instagram and Linked In, as well as at her online arts magazine ArtNowLA.

comments

Featured

REVIEWS | Valentina Bonelli

Numbers Game

Almost mirroring the geopolitical situation, contemporary dance in the West—already in the USA and soon in Europe—is showing signs of wear and tear, if not decline.

REVIEWS | Elsa Giovanna Simonetti

Romeo Revealed

Rudolf Nureyev’s “Romeo and Juliet” is built with a finely calibrated balance of choreographic structure, theatrical intelligence, and historical awareness.

REVIEWS | Sara Veale

Pretty as a Picaresque

“Too much sanity may be madness!” Carlos Acosta’s “Don Quixote” revival is proudly, fittingly quixotic—a confetti cannon of cheerful characterisations and vibrant visuals that culminate in an actual confetti cannon.

REVIEWS | Sophie Bress

Breaking Bread

As a journalist and critic, I am often privy to an artist’s process before viewing their work. This insight pays off as an audience member, offering new ways of allowing a piece to come to life before my eyes.