Between Samba and Ballet: Realities and Possibilities - 2026 - Workshops

Tickets for Between Samba and Ballet: Realities and Possibilities - 2026, at Theatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro
🎫 Full
🎫 Half-price

• 08/14 at 6:00 PM - Workshop: Samba no pé with Amanda Mattos
• Location: Alberto Romero Room
• Level: Intermediate/Advanced

Amanda is a Physical Education teacher with a postgraduate degree in Theater, Music, and Dance, director of the lead dancers at Estação Primeira de Mangueira, and a teacher at the Samba Museum. With refined technique, musicality, and strong historical knowledge, she guides warm-ups, step technique, rhythmic coordination, small choreographic combinations, and stage presence, all with individual attention and respect for Carnival traditions. The workshop is ideal for dancers looking to improve their technique, expression, and connection with the cultural heritage of samba.

• 08/14 at 7:30 PM - Workshop: Pas de Deux with Anderson Dionísio
• Location: Alberto Romero Room
• Level: Intermediate/Advanced

The workshop will include barre exercises carefully selected to strengthen alignment, coordination, and support, creating the necessary foundation for partner work; it will continue with specific preparation for pointe work, with sequences that develop strength in the feet and ankles, articulation, and axis awareness, as well as safe strategies for entering and exiting pointe. In the center of the room, it guides partner exercises with an emphasis on communication and the transmission of security during execution. It then leads the rehearsal of repertoire ballet excerpts, where participants apply technique, expression, and musicality in passages taken from renowned works. Throughout the class, the pedagogical approach combines technical firmness with interpretative sensitivity acquired over her career at the intersection of samba and ballet, making the learning environment one that values both precision and musicality and stage presence.

• 08/15 at 10:00 AM – Workshop: Samba and Experience with Aldione Senna
• Location: Alberto Romero Room
• Level: Intermediate/Advanced

We will explore the evolution of samba no pé, learning about the old steps and their refined versions developed over the years. We will work on physical endurance with specific exercises for lead dancers. We will learn about the aesthetics of arm movements and the essential hip movement, making the dance more harmonious and expressive. Come practice, learn, and celebrate samba!

• 08/15 at 12:45 PM - Omulú in Movement Workshop with Fábio Batista
• Location: Alberto Romero Room
• Level: Intermediate/Advanced

This workshop proposes an immersion in the culture of Afro-diasporic dances through the methodology developed at the Carioca School of Black Dances. The journey combines body technique, rhythm, and ancestry, being aimed at both developing dancers and those interested in researching black dances in contemporary times in dialogue with the roots of the movement and their historical contributions to Brazilian culture. The proposal goes beyond learning the steps. We aim to equip the student's body as a territory of memory, identity, and resistance.
The dance is from the Omolú movement repertoire, one of the archetypes with the greatest dramatic intensity and physical demand within the Dance of the Orixás tradition. The work highlights the dramaturgy of the black body, transforming the myths and symbols of the deity of healing, diseases, and the earth into movement technique.
The workshop will feature live percussion led by Musical Director Kaio Ventura and the Carioca Afro Percussion School.

• 08/15 at 2:00 PM – Workshop: Playing with Instability and Building a Flexible Body with Ágatha Oliveira
• Location: Alberto Romero Room
• Level: Intermediate/Advanced

In this workshop, I invite participants to explore body axes and dynamic balance in an afro-contemporary dance practice anchored in capoeira, samba de roda, and afoxé movements, inspired by the universe of the terreiro and the lived experience of black women in the diaspora. Playing with instability, we will visit other ways of being present and seek to build a flexible body.

• 08/15 at 2:05 PM – Workshop: Classical Ballet with Keila Castro
• Location: Annex Building Room 1
• Level: Intermediate/Advanced
• ⚠️ Attention: Due to the system, Keila's Workshop appears as 2:05 PM during purchase, but the correct class time is 2:00 PM

The pedagogical proposal of the class values dance as an artistic and formative experience, encouraging technique, expression, and sensitivity. It will be a complete class with barre and center work, accompanied live by a pianist, providing an inspiring and immersive environment. Come experience the intensity of ballet in dialogue with the cultural diversity and social inclusion that the project celebrates. A unique opportunity to deepen your practice and connect with art in motion.

• 08/16 at 10:00 AM – Workshop: Mestre-sala and Porta-bandeira with Mestre Manoel Dionísio
• Location: Alberto Romero Room
• Level: Intermediate/Advanced

This workshop integrates the technique, aesthetics, and culture of the mestre-sala and porta-bandeira couple. The content covers posture, traditional steps, and choreographies of courtship, handling and presenting the flag, notions of improvisation and stage presence, as well as the historical and symbolic repertoire of the samba-enredo. The methodology combines progressive technical exercises, partner training, parade simulations, and pedagogical sequences that preserve traditional knowledge and promote social inclusion. By the end, participants are expected to understand body control, respect for tradition, and the ability to represent their school with technique and elegance.

• 08/16 at 11:30 AM – Workshop: Afro-Brazilian Dance with Mestre Charles Nelson
• Location: Alberto Romero Room
• Level: Intermediate/Advanced

The class draws from the tradition transmitted by Mercedes Baptista and the experience of the founder of Grupo Ilê‑Ofé, combining technique, history, and creation. Suitable for practitioners, it works on posture, body rhythms, isolations, percussion patterns, and choreographic compositions inspired by African roots and the carioca aesthetic. The methodology alternates rhythmic warm-ups, technical base exercises (feet, hips, axis), and dynamics with musicians to develop musicality and stage presence. The class also incorporates cultural contextualization—the meanings of movements, the memory of Afro dance, and processes of resistance and identity affirmation. It will be an opportunity to expand rhythmic coordination, body awareness, and critical understanding of the Afro-Brazilian roots of the dance, following the pedagogical principles and preserving the legacy of Mercedes Baptista.

General Info
🗓️ Dates:

• Friday, August 14, 2026, at 6:00 PM
• Samba no Pé Workshop with Amanda Mattos
• Friday, August 14, 2026, at 7:30 PM
• Pas de Deux Workshop with Anderson Dionísio
• Saturday, August 15, 2026, at 10:00 AM
• Samba and Experience Workshop with Aldione Senna
• Saturday, August 15, 2026, at 12:45 PM
• Omulú in Movement Workshop with Fábio Batista
• Saturday, August 15, 2026, at 2:00 PM
• Playing with Instability and Building a Flexible Body Workshop with Ágatha Oliveira
• Saturday, August 15, 2026, at 2:00 PM - Attention: Keila's Workshop appears as 2:05 PM during purchase, but the correct class time is 2:00 PM
• Classical Ballet Workshop with Keila Castro
• Sunday, August 16, 2026, at 10:00 AM
• Mestre-sala and Porta-bandeira Workshop with Mestre Manoel Dionísio
• Sunday, August 16, 2026, at 11:30 AM
• Afro-Brazilian Dance Workshop with Mestre Charles Nelson

⏳ Duration: 1h 30m
📍 Location: Workshop entrance through the side gate of Theatro Municipal, at Rua Manoel de Carvalho, s/n
👤 Age requirement: Over 12
♿ Accessibility: the venue is wheelchair accessible
❓ You can consult the FAQs for this event here
👉 See all the details about half-price tickets here

Description
The “Between Samba and Ballet: Realities and Possibilities” project aims to investigate and preserve cultural memory in the territory between Samba and Ballet. This event is part of the development of a theoretical-practical research project related to the Final Year Project (TCC) of the Bachelor's in Dance at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), by the student and researcher Anderson Dionísio, solo dancer at Theatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro and also a lead dancer in Carnival.

The program will include dance workshops that navigate this intersection between samba and ballet, closely following the legacy of Mercedes Baptista, her Afro-Brazilian dance methodology, and research related to her trajectory.