Two weeks ago we went to Rio’s Municipal Theater (Teatro Municipal) to a one-woman show entitled “Isabel Torres”. I have seen the building from outside, but never gone inside before. It turned out to be rather nice inside – a good imitation of a European theater, that is. What surprised me, however, was the design of a restaurant downstairs, which features a turn-of-the-century re-interpretation of Babylonian artwork, which intertwines Babylonian themes with clear Art Nouveau elements. Next day we went back to the theater again (to another event that was part of the same dance festival) and this time I made sure to bring a camera.

About the content, the first show we saw was a monologue by one of the members of the corps de ballet of the theater (who had never performed solo before), talking about her life. The director, whose name I don’t remember, made a similar show in Paris and was then asked to bring it to Rio. He said, however, that bringing a french ballerina to Rio would go against the essence of the work, which was to have a person who normally performs as part of a group do a solo monologue in the same theater. He thus found one ballerina here in Rio who talked about her life. It was a great show. The next day we came back for a show that was described as something like “hip hop meets modern dance” (talking about Brazilian hip hop, of course, pronounced “hipi hopi”). However, I found that the show was too much of a modern dance for my taste.