EXBERLINER Issue 170, April 2018

BRAZIL IN BERLIN
Olympics on TV and glimpsed Russian figure skater Evgeni
Plushenko twirling across the ice to the tune of a violin concerto.
“That’s when I thought, yes! This is what I want to do!”
And if he couldn’t learn to spin on ice, then pirouetting on
stage would be his next move.
The following year, Barboza began ballet classes at the
Municipal Theater of São Paulo, a springboard that propelled
him into his next school Lume Casa Cultural at 14. The dance
academy granted him a scholarship that paid for both his
classes and his lengthy commute from Guaianazes. Every
day he took two buses, a train and a metro from his home to
school, a total of six gruelling hours there and back, to the
perplexity of his neighbourhood friends. “Where I come from
in São Paolo, ballet is not really considered an ‘art’,” explains
Barboza. Compared to home-brewed styles like Forró (see
page XX) and samba, “straight-edge” ballet seemed a little
stiff – and a boy in leotard a little, well, queer. “People told
me all kinds of stuff, but every time someone tried to put me
down, I used it as motivation to keep going.” More important
to him was the support of his parents, as well as his mentor
Canadari. It was she who spotted something extraordinary
in this young boy from the suburbs and invested herself both
emotionally and financially in nurturing his budding talent.
“She is like my second mother and my best friend,” Barboza
smiles. “We still speak every day!”
Today 17 and on what seems like a golden-ticket ride to
success, Barboza acknowledges his life in Berlin is not a bed
of roses. He has sacrificed a lot for 15-hour working days in a
language he still struggles to speak. Fortunately, with six Brazilian
dancers (and one dance teacher) already at the school,
there’s no shortage of willing translators. But Barboza misses
his friends and family. It’s especially lonely during the school
holidays when most of his classmates get to travel to their
families, a luxury he cannot afford. Has it been worth it? What
about his childhood figure skating dream? “I still love it and
watch it, but ice skating is not my dream anymore. My passion
is ballet!” he says without hesitation. If all goes well, he’ll see
the culmination of his ballerino dreams at the London Royal
Ballet. But he knows there’s still a long way to go – the competition
is fierce.
Last month, Barboza opened the Staatsballet’s annual gala
(this year at the Volksbühne) with a dazzling duet. Watching
him leap and spin in an impressive display of rubbery excellence,
it’s not so much his technique that sets him aside, but
an emotional, almost symbiotic empathy with the music: his
movements are truly captivating, showing the respect and
admiration he feels for the art that took him from São Paolo
to Berlin and transformed his life. n
“Where I come
from in São Paolo,
ballet is not really
considered an ‘art’...”
German Palomeque
PHOTO: © MARIE STAGGAT
Piano Circle Songs
Francesco Tristano
Sunday, 22. 4. 2018
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