 Company Urbana de Dança is something real, strong and with social reference in Brazil. It's an artistic company, of course, and it's amazing to see them dancing. It's amazing, really amazing. But it's also something that brings us to Brazilian reality, brings us to Brazilian identity. They are a group of dancers, black dancers, coming from poor neighborhoods of Rio de Janeiro, and they are also creative and they are also individual in their own way. My name is Sonia Destili and I run this company, and this company is company Urbana de Dança, we are from Rio, Brazil, and before we start talking, I'm going to introduce my dancers, so I never thought about to have a company for Brazilian dancers or people that came from the favelas, I never thought that. They came to me, really. So when I understood that, I knew things that I should share and there was the time to do that. And when my guys came first, they knew that they would like to dance, a dance that they saw on the videos, watching the videos, they would like to copy that dance, they would like to have the lucky, the poppy, and we did pretty bad. Because you don't have teachers, you don't have that on the corner, but we have, we are pretty good on some, but we're doing everything. So I have to make them understand that we should do everything we want if you could sign this. Personalized, could I could like bring to me, so if this dance belongs to me, I can dance that. So today, they can do everything they want, the lucky, the poppy, but they have to sign, this is my own luck, this is my own breakdown. So you can, you can fit everywhere, you can be good, right? I don't know if I can explain with words what they should, they, they can bring to us, but they, but they really can translate with the body language, something that we have to say and we, we do not have words to say. They say with their bodies, with their movements. Company Urbana de Dança is also a company that brings Rio de Janeiro, Islam's Rio de Janeiro poor neighborhoods to the scene without claiming for pity. They don't ask for pity. They ask for admiration. They ask, they ask for our commitment to an artistic and strong word of dance and also happiness. I am talking about happiness at the same time I talk about poverty and violence, all those things that the dancers had had to face in their days, in their daily life. Yes, I'm talking about happiness. I'm talking about something that you feel inside, I inside hope that they bring with their dance. They, they, they gave us something to think about, many things to think about. They don't give us something that is already done. They give us questions to think about. These questions made us like feel like we carry something warm inside after seeing Company Urbana de Dança. And I said, this is for me the future because I could see the freedom that I never saw in different styles. But the identity is something that from the beginning I would like them to understand, they belong to them. So as Faisal said, to God, the identity to understand what my identity is and how powerful it is when you realize that you have this. So this can change so many things. This can change when the police stop you on the street, this can change when the cab doesn't stop for you to take a cab, or your neighbor just look at you like in the garage eyes. So this is changing everything because you already know who you are. So I think that the company gave them this because also gave me to this, you know, like gave me also as well this kind of fighting for identity, fight for a place. As we say here, fight to have a name and a family name, you know, and be proud of this. So people used to say, I mean, what do you do for a living? Oh, I'm a dancer. Oh, okay. How are your day job? I'm a dancer. Yes, but I mean, I know I got it. I understand. But I mean, what do you do for a living? So we dance. We work like six hours a day. Now we're working less because the budget is low. But we work like five, six hours a day. And we work like from Monday to Friday and you have a trip or something very, very important goes to Sunday to as well. So if we work like a professional, and we are a dance company in support to have a salary or support as a professional dance company. So it's a kind of a schizo frantic kind of living. But I mean, welcome to the club. Now how to be honest with this art that happens on the street? And gonna put on stage. So I must stop a lot in the beginning. So what really, because it's, it's different, right? And they have to respect people that are building this on the street. So because that time didn't have hip hop in Rio, really was hip, what it comes from, really, you didn't have that. This is interesting for you guys because you didn't have that, you know? So we start thinking, and also because I said we did this pretty bad, for me it was easy when I decided to make my own way of express this dance with my dancers. So after that, we just name it ourself dance company instead of a hip hop dance company. Because if you see what I'm doing now, I say, oh, we're not doing hip hop. I'm doing because I'm not changing the body that came from the hip hop. So that body gonna see on stage belongs to them. So it's not, so I don't have, I don't have different, I don't have dancers with the same size. I don't have dancers with the same style. I don't, I don't have, they move completely different even when they dance together. So this is what I want, you know, identity. They have to bring what they really are on stage. I know them from the beginning of the company, Oubana de Dança, when I saw them the first time at a rehearsal. I am not a person used to, to, to see dances, spectacles, dance presentations. But when I saw them at the first time, a quite long time ago, I was so impressed that I, I could not leave them. And there is many people like, like me. And they, and they, they gave me not just a moment of a beautiful dance presentation before. They gave me also something that I use in my work, that I use to think about Brazilian identity, that I, that I, that I can carry with me in my professional and my personal life. So I think that this, this, this work that they have been rehearsed, so the names, the names in English, I think there's gonna be like five steps not to fall into the abyss. So we decided to, to, to create this piece because last year was a very, very hard year. I think just not for us, for everybody in the world, very particular here. And we thought we're gonna stop. So we did that thing because we talk every day, we have a conversation every day. We, we try to understand things. Doesn't matter if it's for today or tomorrow or for next semester, but we also try to understand the environment, the things, the people and the festivals and the creator, the presenters, life, you know. So we are always talking about things. And last year, we talked about that, we're gonna stop. So because we don't have any, any, any, any, any, any support. So this for me is a support, you know, when you got this, when we get that thing, we get a kind of a rope, hope, you know, because you are listening to me. You can see us. You're watching this video. So I don't know if you're gonna talk good things about, but at least you're gonna be talking about you have a chance to see us. So for us, it's great. So instead, instead of giving an end of this company, we create a piece. So I think that's what artists, they do when they have something very powerful that pushing you down, we decide to, you know, like give, I don't know, have a power move and change everything. So I think that's why you would do, you know, we change everything every day, like make over something. So now, so that's it. So I think that you wanted to support us. We're gonna see a link at the end of this video. We're gonna see a very interesting woman talking that's a Monica Lima, she's a very powerful woman that works with Afro-Brazilian history. And probably we're gonna have something about us in the middle of this video. And so I hope that you can understand at least our English, our dance, and our sense of humor. So thank you so much.