Once active in Weimar: the Brazilian choreographer and dancer Ismael Ivo has died

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Ismael Ivo (1955-2021)

Photo: 

Barbara Zanon / Getty Images

The choreographer and co-founder of the Vienna ImPulsTanz Festival, Ismael Ivo, is dead. The 66-year-old died in his home country of Brazil as a result of a corona infection, ImPulsTanz announced in Vienna on Friday, referring to Ivo's management.

Ivo was therefore involved in the annual international dance festival in Vienna right up to the end and should have come to the Austrian capital this summer for this purpose.

The Vienna International Dance Festival is to take place this year under Corona conditions from July 15 to August 15.

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Solo dancer Ivo (2008 in Stuttgart): danced "The Night of Dionysus"

Photo: Bernd Weißbrod / picture-alliance / dpa

Ivo grew up in a simple family in São Paulo and was already interested in dance and choreography in his youth.

In the mid-1980s, he moved to the United States and later to Europe to pursue his international career.

He danced spectacularly for the »dance berserk« Johann Kresnik.

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At the end of the nineties he worked as the chief choreographer at the German National Theater Weimar, from 2005 to 2012 Ivo was director of the dance section of the Venice Biennale.

He also worked with the German choreographer and ballet director Pina Bausch, the American choreographer William Forsythe and the Serbian performer Marina Abramović.

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Ivo at the »Dionysus« rehearsals: the international dance theater shaped

Photo: Bernd Weißbrod / picture-alliance / dpa

After three decades abroad, he returned to Brazil in 2017 to direct the São Paulo Ballet.

He suffered two strokes in June last year, from which he recovered well.

feb / dpa