NEWTON MORAES DANCE THEATRE
Afro-Brazilianan and Contemporary Dance
NEWTON MORAES DANCE THEATRE
Afro-Brazilianan and Contemporary Dance
Newton Moraes was born in Brazil where he studied with Tony Seitz Petzold before coming to Toronto in 1991. He trained at the School of the Toronto Dance Theatre for three years in the Professional Training Programme and participated in many workshops in Toronto: Butoh with Natsu Nakajima, Lee Ann Smith, Pierre Paul Savoie and Jeff Hall, David Dorfmann, Fiona Marcotti, Chandralekha and a Master workshop in Choreography with Danny Grossman.
Newton has choreographed and performed for several venues such as Dance Talks, Arts Week ‘96 - at Damn Straight, the 808 Series and the fFringe in Toronto; at “VERNISSAGE” at Studio 303 in Montreal, The Field in New York. His first full evening presentation was “Beauty and Anguish” in 1994 at the George Ignatieff Theatre of the University of Toronto. In April 1996 he choreographed “Remembering” as part of the Urban Dance Series at the Music Gallery and in November “Brazilian Spirits” at Damn Straight.
In 1997 he founded his own dance company “Newton Moraes Dance” in order to further explore Brazilian based dance combined with international dance traditions. Which presented its first show in Stuttgart, Germany at the Makal City Theatre in May, and in July the company returned to Toronto to perform “The Last Seasons” at the Winchester Theatre. In 1998 Newton Moraes Dance Theatre performed at same theatre another full evening‘s work „The Letter That Never Arrives“. This was also performed in Montreal, Bonn and Bielefed / Germany and Porto Alegre /Brazil.
In 1999 Newon Moraes Dance Theatre performed their world premiere „The Thorn in the Rose“ at the Winchester Street Theatre, Toronto. Also Newton Moraes performed 1999 in the Festival of Würzburg / Germany. In 2000 the company performed their world premiere „The Diary“ in Toronto and performed in Bielefeld/Germany. 2000/1 followed the productions „Xavantes“ and „Umbanda“, the premiere in Toronto with great success.
For the past several years he has returned annually to Brazil to teach contemporary and Afro-Brazilian dance in Porto Alegre and present new works as teacher and choreographer. He also showed his choreography at the SOGIPA Festival in that city, and has taught at the Department of Dramatic Arts at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul as well as the Casa de Cultura Mario Quintana.
He has been awarded grants from the Canada Arts Council, the Ontario Arts Council and the Laidlaw Foundation.
