(Belo Horizonte) “In the dance studio, I was always the only boy, the only black and the only poor,” says Dyhan Cardoso. This 19-year-old Brazilian is living a dream: he leaves his favela to join an American ballet company.
Barefoot on the cement terrace of his modest exposed brick house, he tirelessly rehearses the movements that he will reproduce as a professional dancer with the Atlanta Ballet, in the city in the southern United States.
A scholarship student at a private dance school in Belo Horizonte, this slender young man with an emaciated face was selected during an audition in his city in September.
” I dream ? », he asked himself when the English praise from a manager of the company where he will now work and complete his training was translated into Portuguese.
“He has a privileged physique, above-average technical abilities, and he manages to do very difficult steps with extraordinary quality and beauty,” says the Cuban Dadyer Aguilera, who has taught him classical dance since his adolescence. .
Dyhan Cardoso grew up in the poor neighborhood of Aglomerado da Serra, one of the largest favelas in Belo Horizonte.
He was introduced to dance at the age of six, almost by chance.
“My sister attended a social project class and I sat in the corner of the room to observe her. I asked to participate and that’s how it started,” he says.
“It was like a game, I danced to use up my energy and avoid hanging around too much in the street,” describes the man who calls himself “lucky” to have never experienced hunger, unlike many other residents in his neighborhood.
“Be an example”
Dance became a serious thing in his life about ten years ago, when he won a scholarship to a studio “in a rich neighborhood”, after auditioning at the invitation of a client of a restaurant where his mother worked as a cook.
He went there by bike, to learn classical dance “surrounded by young white girls”.
After school, Dyhan spent long hours practicing at the studio.
And the little free time he had left, he devoted to helping his parents at the bar the family runs in the favela, on the hillside.
“I cooked, I served the customers, I brought them the bill,” remembers the young dancer.
Despite all the obstacles and prejudices, he never doubted his talent.
“Some boys made fun of me, but since I was raised well by my parents, it didn’t affect me.”
There is no question of giving up, even if the hearings have not always been conclusive.
“On the contrary, I was eager to resume training to progress thanks to the observations of those who evaluated me,” he explains. “When you have a dream, you have to chase it.”
Shirtless, wearing simple black shorts, he continues to train on the terrace of his house before his first trip abroad, a one-way ticket to Atlanta.
In the United States, Dyhan Cardoso not only wants to make a living from dance, but also “to be an example so that the young people of the favela believe in their dreams”.
He will be able to follow in the footsteps of other young black Brazilian dancers who grew up in working-class neighborhoods before being hired by foreign companies, like Ingrid Silva, who has been shining for years at the Harlem Dance Theater in New York.