ADRIANO OLIVEIRA

Born in Porto Seguro, Bahia in 1978, Adriano Oliveira has since travelled far from where Brazil was first discovered.  He began his dance training at Antonio Carlos Kaito's dance school where he learnt the foundations of both traditional African and afro-Brazilian dance.  Upon completing his training in 1996 he entered the dance company "Axè Odara" known across all of Brazil especially for its experimental research in afro-Brazilian culture.  In this same period of dance performances and tours, Adriano sought to broaden his training further and attended courses in capoeira at the Capoeira Sul Da Bahia Academy and ballet at the Donel Alencar Academy of Dance through which he participated in several festivals as well as beginning to teach afro at the Hero Academy under the initial supervision of Antonio Carlos Kaito.  He also dedicated his time to leading community projects in areas of Salvador for children, adults and senior citizens in dance and capoeira.

In 2001 Adriano came to Europe and his first stop was Paris for the presentation of a photographic book "Raizes" by Arlinda Mestre in which artistic photos of him were featured.  On that occasion he performed for a French audience and from then on continued working as a dancer in the city, collaborating with numerous companies and performing in several renowned Parisian venues.  Moving on from Paris,  in the summer of 2001 Adriano took his performances to the touristic hotspots of Ibiza and Sardinia before spending time in Berlin where he turned to studying modern dance with Wibke Janssen and Sabina Ferenc and also performing with Joao Carlos Ramos's samba jazz company "Brazilian Follies Show". 

Towards the end of 2002, Adriano's journey took him to Italy where, although he continued his performance and choreographic work for shows and television networks such as Mediaset and Telelombardia, he decided to concentrate more time on teaching, initially collaborating with well-established afro teachers such as Jean Claude Hertin.  In 2003 he began work with several cultural associations with whom he travelled to Burkina Faso in Africa to deepen his knowledge and training in traditional west-African rhythms and percussion.   That experience began a long-standing connection and relationship with Burkina Faso which sees Adriano regularly return to the country not only to refresh his training but also to share his dance training with local artists.

Adriano remained in Milan until October 2016 where he ran several dance courses in all of the main dance schools of the city such as Afro Fusion, Afro Contemporary, Afro House, Afro Fit, Forrò, Samba and Cross Gym. 

In 2013 he founded his own Afro dance group "Gruppo Afro Corpo e Mente in Movimento" together with two of his long time and dedicated students, Marianne Burgum and Silvia Capizzo with whom he organised regular weekend intensive workshops including visiting artists specialised in other styles of African dance and also performances in regional festivals and fundraising events.

Adriano is now based in London where he intends to share his wealth of experience and his unique and special style of dance with all who would like to join him on his journey.