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Viver Brasil, the multi-award winning dance ensemble, based in Los Angeles and founded in 1997, is the creative love child of cofounders Linda Yudin and Luiz Badaró. Their credits are numerous and impressive; sold out performances at top venues such as the Ford Amphitheater, the Hollywood Bowl and the Walt Disney Concert Hall; critical acclaim from the Los Angeles Times, the LA Weekly and Los Angeles radio; nominations and awards, particularly from the prestigious Lester Horton Dance Awards. Viver Brasil is not made up of one person. There are a multitude of artists who have contributed their time and talents to the company, but I was introduced to the world of Afro-Brazilian dance through one of the cofounders, Linda Yudin.
The spirit of a human being is not an easy thing to impart to a reading audience and give it complete due, but there is no other person I would rather feature as an artist for now and the future then Linda Yudin. My introduction was in August 2006. I came upon a course description for an Afro-Brazilian dance class at Santa Monica College, starting in the fall, and I was intrigued. I walked into the classroom not aware of how Yudin's passion and wisdom would become a force, blanketing all who came near her.
Linda Yudin is a huge energy contained in a small frame, her body molded and defined by years of dance. She wears her hair short and has no makeup on with the exception of a touch of red lipstick, the sign of her fiery soul and an earmark to the orixá Oxum. (Oxum is an orixá or deity that comes from the Candomblé religion and represents the rivers and love and fertility. She has similarities to the Greek goddess Aphrodite or the Roman Venus). Yudin's eyes are vibrant and expressive, her voice smooth and resonant and she smiles and laughs easily. She is an intense teacher, who nurtures the self-esteem of her students and has an absolute love of life.
"I like teaching," she says. "That's my favorite thing to do, with everything that I do, I love teaching. And I love watching people who don't feel confident moving, to see how they can move, to break through some of their own issues with moving and connecting all of this cosmic and cultural and historical information into the body, I think it's exciting."
Yudin says she is happy to not be performing any longer. She did for years but now her role as the "eye" for her company and as a mentor and teacher to her dancers is hugely gratifying. Besides her own company, she is a dance faculty member at Santa Monica College and a guest instructor at the Pierre Verger Foundation in Salvador, Bahia.
She has taken her proverbial punches. Coming from the Midwest and a background of modern dance, she was not always accepted or wanted by some in the Brazilian community that saw her as an outsider, potentially exploiting the culture and music and dance that comes from a sacred tradition. But with an MA in dance ethnology from UCLA and two decades of devotion to researching, teaching and performing Afro-Brazilian dance, she achieved what she calls "feeling the earth, connecting to nature" which has opened up myriad possibilities to express herself. Since her vision has been unwavering and her integrity for the Candomblé traditions comes from love and hard work, she has garnered respect and become a contributing voice to the dance world, both nationally and internationally.
Yudin is humble about her accomplishments. She respects the traditions and honors the elders that have taught her and guided her. Some of her primary inspiration comes in the form of other artists, her teachers and mentors and collaborators who are well-known in the world of Afro-Brazilian dance: Dona Cici, Dona Detinha, Raimundo Bispo dos Santos, a.k.a. Mestre King with whom she has studied with since 1986, Rosangela Silvestre, Augusto Omolu and Luiz Badaró, to name a few.
The early seeds of African dance were planted for Yudin, when she saw Pearl Primus (1920-1994) perform at the University of Illinois in the late 70's. "Her performance knocked me out," says Yudin. "She came onto the stage and she said something like 'I want to introduce you to AFRICA' and it was so loud and so bold and then her dancers came out and did whatever they did and I thought it was the best thing I'd ever seen. So I looked up her bio and saw that she was a dance anthropologist and I went looking to see what schools in the United States had a dance anthropology course or dance ethnology course and in the back of my mind I knew that UCLA was the only university at the time that had a graduate program in dance ethnology." This began her journey into the Afro-Brazilian world in which she would eventually move to California, travel, study, perform, teach and lecture in Brazil, the United States and South Africa and form her own company.
Yudin says the greatest challenge her company faces today is the state of the Arts economy, where the constant search for grants and donations is a never-ending concern. She smiles and says simply, "We need money. We need checks." Then she laments about the lack of funding in Los Angeles, where a giant entertainment industry with large amounts of money, does far too little to support the Arts community.
"Shame on Hollywood, that we don't have people that are willing to adopt and endow," says Yudin. "They can certainly afford to do that, I really believe it. My sense is that the Hollywood world doesn't know much about their own Los Angeles community. We live in two separate worlds and I think there needs to be a greater attempt for us to intersect."
While she hopes for a bigger and better budget for Viver Brasil in the future, she says her company is incredibly fortunate in that they are one of a handful of Los Angeles dance companies that can actually tour
The future is bright and full for Yudin. She wants to continue touring for the next few years if the arts economy will allow it. She wants to bring her own company to perform in Brazil one day. Yudin goes to Brazil a couple of times a year to work and study and has even created an annual study program to Salvador, Bahia in August, to allow participants to take part in the song, dance, percussion and culture at the source with top dance and music instructors as well as attend lectures, concerts, ceremonies and festivals. Since Viver Brasil will be performing in September, the next trip will be in December 2007, a different time of year when "it's not quite as hot as in the summer." She wants to write more.
"I am long overdue. As I said I would like to do this touring for the next couple of years and then I think I need to shift. I need to shift my energies and start writing about my experiences, I owe it to the field and I owe it to myself. I think I will concentrate on the personal and also bring the voices of my informants. I don't think their voices have been talked about enough. For example, Dona Cici, she is literally a walking encyclopedia. She's approaching 70 and her voice really needs to be heard. So my approach will be concentrating on these very strong women that I've had the pleasure of knowing and have totally taken me into their lives. I'm like their daughter. Friends and daughters at the same time and they are my informants. And also my master teacher, Mestre King, he gave me my first Brazilian dance steps and many other dance steps after that, and he believes in what I'm doing. And he said, 'Culture does not belong to anyone, it's for the world and that's your job as a teacher'."
Viver Brasil is Linda Yudin's gift to the culture of the world and an artistic voice for the 21st century.
Linda Yudin and Luiz Badaró teach Afro-Brazilian dance at Santa Monica College and Dance Arts Academy in Los Angeles. Viver Brasil can be seen on the PBS broadcast of the L.A. Holiday Celebration 2006. Their next tour will be in the western United States.
Yabas/Queens on Tour
January 18-February 17; March 15-25
www.viverbrasil.com
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