Lisboa Ballet Contemporáneo is a young company based in Lisbon, Portugal directed by Mr. Benvindo Fonseca. LBC has created its philosophy based on a contemporary repertoire, prompted by the most rigorous technical and artistic criteria. As an objective, it has the goal of materializing its constant search for excellence in dance and movement.

Supporting its avant garde artistic criteria the Company places its bets in the faithfulness of a knowledgeable and demanding audience as well as on the naivety and interest of a new audience always exploring the basic pleasure of basic movement.

Benvindo Fonseca directs a group of nine dancers, taking both the responsibility of Director and Resident Choreographer.

LBC began its activities in September 2004 based on a structure of professionals dedicated full time to make the Company work. With constant touring and performing, with unconditional and limitless dedication this artistic project has been created.

In the year 2003 he receives the O.N.U Prize for Young Artist and becomes Ambassador for the United Nations.

Parallel to his dancing career Benvindo has developed his choreographic vocabulary making important creations for Ballet Gulbenkian, Companhia de Danca de Almada and the National Ballet of Portugal.

His most important creations for his company Lisboa Ballet Contemporáneo
Have been:
“Uma Noite Com Ella”
“A Casa de Bernarda Alba”
“Para que a terra náo esqueca”
“Murmurio”
“Onegin”
“Makeba”
“Mar”

1.“Uma Noite con Ella”
Choreography: Benvindo Fonseca
Music research: Cesar Viana
Light: Paulo Graça
Costumes: José Antonio Tenente
Time: 1hr 20 minutes.

A tribute to the life and music of Ella Fitzgerald. A show filled with intense emotions and a long lasting search for peace.

2. “Para que a Terra nao esqueca…”
Choreography: Benvindo Fonseca
Music: Henryk Gorecki
1st and 3rd Movement, Symphony 3
Light: Paulo Graça
Costumes: José Antonio Tenente
Time: 20 min

The Holocoust revisited in an implacable and harsh manner
The plastic beauty of movement depict the horrors which we should not forget.

3. “Murmurio”
Choreography: Benvindo Fonseca
Music: César Viana and Luca Marenzio
Light: Paulo Graça
Costumes: Dino Alves
Time: 10 min

An homage to the great poet Bocage who fought with his words for the freedom of women.

This solo is an imaginary story of a woman in the XVIII century.

4. “Onegin”
Choreography: Benvindo Fonseca
Music: Frederic Chopin (Prelude op. 28)
Christoph Gluck
Costumes: Lidija Kolovrat
Light: Paula Graça
Time: 13 min

Representation of Tatiana’s dream based on the piece by Alexander Pushkin. A piece in which love and erotism join together in magic.

5. “Makeba”
Choreography: Benvindo Fonseca
Music: Miriam Makeba
César Viana
Light: Paulo Graça
Costumes: José Antonio Tenente
Time: 25 min

Dedicated to the kids of Mozambique. A universe in which feelings mix between immediate desires and the power of mystic trasendance.

6. “Renace”
Choreography: Benvindo Fonseca
Music: The Harlem Gospel Singers, J. Verdi, G. Gershwin
Light: Paulo Graça
Costumes: Nuno Gama
Time: 18 min

Solo for a man. Portraits the artist as an angelic figure filled wit beauty, suffering and weakness.

7. “A Casa de Bernarda Alba”
Choreography: Benvindo Fonseca
Music: Cesar Viana
Stage: Joáo Mendes Ribeiro
Light: Nuno Meira
Costumes: Vera Castro
Time: 1h 20 min

A voyage to the intense and captivating world of Federico García Lorca. A piece filled with strong and disturbing emotions.

8. “Castañeda”
Choreography: Benvindo Fonseca
Music: Road of Gypsies
Light: Paulo Graça
Costumes: Alexander Moura
Time: 32 min

Creation dedicated to the real “citizens of the world”. To those who in a moment of their lives decide to leave their own country, family and costumes in search for a better life, in search of their dream.

9. “Mar”
Choreography: Benvindo Fonseca
Music: MadreDeus
Light: Joáo Carlos Andrade
Costumes Nuno E.
Make Up: Moreno
Time: 1h 50 min

At the end of the year 2005. Benvindo Fonseca decides to join forces with Pedro Aires Magalháes to create an artistic project, based on the music of the famous band   MadreDeus with the band playing live on stage.

10. “Eu… Veronika?”
Choreography Gagik Ismailian
Music: Silence
Light: Paulo Graça
Costumes: Gagik Ismailian
Time: 25 Min

To permit the body to function, reveal itself, to open a space for mistake and informality, to challenge fright, and frustrations, impositions is what this pieces portraits. Intensity revealed thru movement…. A piece dedicated to victories and losses.

11. “Dreamland”
Choreography: Barbara Griggi
Music: Tom Waits, Kathleen Brennan
Costumes: Barbara Griggi
Light: Paulo Graça
Time: 15 min

A duet inspired in two people destined to live marginalized. The strength of this piece forces us to question if living at the margin is an option or a fatality.

2004-2005

• Lecce, Italy
• Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Curitiba, Brazil
• Teatro D. Joao V, Amadora
• Teatro Ramo Grande, Terceira
• C.C Olga Cadaval, Sintra
• Teatro Camoes, Lisboa
• Teatro Miguel Franco, Leiria
• Teatro Louletano, Loulé
• Teatro S. Luiz, Lisboa

2005-2006

• Teatro Camoes, Lisboa
• Teatro Ramo Grande, Terceira
  
• Europarque, Feira
• Teatro Municipal, Faro
• Teatro Miguel Franco, Leira
• Teatro Pax Julia, Beja
• Teatro Ramo Grande, Terceira
• CCB, Lisboa
• The Jackie Gleason Theater Miami, USA.

1. "LisboaBallet Contemporaneo attacks again!”
2. Ironically from the ashes of extintion of The Gulbenkian Ballet a new company is born, Lisboa Ballet Contemporaneo (…) – directed by Benvindo Fonseca- it assumes it self as a company with own repertoire and that of invited stars.

Agenda LX, Monica Guerreiro, Feb. 2006

1. Lisboa Ballet Contemporaneo is beauty and art in its purest form
2. Seeing the company on stage makes you question if perfection really exists
3. With out a doubt this will be the show of the year…!

In TVI, Cartaz das Artes, Joao Sacadura, Apr. 2006

1. Intensity and Excellence!

Miami Herrald, Aug. 2006

1. Lisbon lives intense emotions during the nights it spends with “Ella”
2. Intense! In the limit between the relationship of reality and fiction and the purity of gesture (…) everything happens openly in the movements of Lisboa Ballet Contemporaneo

Diario de Noticias, Ana Pago, Sept, 2005

1. The company of Benvindo Fonseca fills the emptiness in the dance world with the purest lines and the best interpreters.

In Expresso, Claudia Galhós, Feb. 2005

1. An dance exhibition at its best (…) an amazing piece full of quality which filled the house and kept the audience in extasis that ended in standing ovations.

In Diario Insular, Henrique Dédalo, Dec. 2004

1. The sensation of and audience that surrenders to the quality of LBC remains after the show…

2. I left the performance with my heart in flames after “Uma Noite con Ella”

In Expresso, Margarida Lencastre, Dec. 2004