A tale of dance and love

"The first time I saw Naiara dance, I was blown away by her passion and talent. It's not just about her skill though; there's depth to her that shines through in every move she makes. What sets her apart is how she immerses herself in the dance, tapping into emotions that flow through her body. As a choreographer, watching her is an experience in itself –you can't help but be moved by what she brings to the stage.”
–  Rafael Bonachela

Naiara de Matos is only in her second year with Sydney Dance Company (SDC) but is already drawing attention from her colleagues and audiences alike. In last year’s production of Somos she stood out for the dramatic conviction and vivid intensity of her performance. This year she will be performing in SDC’s Momenta (Rafael Bonachela’s newest full-length work – which premiered in Sydney on May 28) as well as dancing the leading role created by Jesse Scales (who has now left SDC) in Antony Hamilton’s Forever & Ever on the company’s international tour.

But despite her immense talent, Brazilian-born de Matos may never have made a career as a professional dancer without some surprising twists and turns of fortune. It’s a story that’s almost Cinderella-like. There were significant challenges for the young protagonist to overcome, not one but two “fairy-godmothers”, a wonderfully supportive big sister and a fairytale wedding in the Harbour City towards the end.

The story begins with the premature birth of Naiara in her hometown of Salvador in northeastern Brazil. In the first few years of her life, Naiara’s parents noticed that she was not developing as expected. “My muscles were weak and I was kind of floppy … I couldn’t hold my head up the way my older sister had when she was my age,” she explains.

So, her parents took her to a specialist who warned that without remedial exercise Naiara may not develop normally, even mentioning the possibility of a wheelchair in the future – something that would strike fear in the heart of any parent. It was therefore for therapeutic reasons, rather than a desire to see their youngest daughter on the stage, that Naiara’s parents enrolled her in dance classes (jazz/ballet) at the age of three. She continued with after-school dance classes, and by the age of 12 was progressing very well in dance with a number of people acknowledging her talent. “If you invest in that girl, she will go far,” they said. Her parents didn’t really see a career in ballet for Naiara at that young age, preferring a wait-and-see-approach. However, the turning point came that same year when a dance festival came to Naiara’s hometown in 2006. It included a ballet competition and auditions for the Bolshoi Theatre School in Joinville, southern Brazil.

Naiara was enrolled in the ballet competition (with a ballet solo from Esmeralda) but was not going to audition for the school until her enterprising older sister encouraged her to try … without her parents’ knowledge! Nine years older, Naiara’s only sister knew Naiara loved ballet and that opportunities like that didn’t come to their hometown very often. Naiara attended the gruelling two-day audition with over 500 young aspirants, knowing there were to be only two scholarships awarded to children from that region. The audition itself consisted of extensive physical screening and exercises to test improvisation and musicality alongside the usual ballet class.

At the end of the audition process she was approved for entry to the school but not for a scholarship. All was not lost however, as the next day she was scheduled to dance her solo from Esmeralda and among the judges would be the same high-profile teachers from the Bolshoi Theatre School in Brazil who had taken the auditions.

After performing her solo there followed a long prizewinning ceremony and she had almost given up hope when they announced she had, after all, won a scholarship to the Bolshoi Theatre School in Brazil! “My sister and I were so excited”, she says, “but my mother, sitting in the audience, was the opposite, crying out ‘No!’ It wasn’t that my parents weren’t supportive, they just thought I was too young and had never thought I might leave home so soon. Looking back now I see the scholarship coming after my solo as showing I’m more of a stage dancer than a class dancer”. Her excitement and enthusiasm, however, were tempered by the still significant obstacles to taking up the scholarship.

For context, the Bolshoi Theatre School in Joinville is approximately 2500km from Salvador (which is roughly equivalent to the distance between Cairns and Sydney). As Naiara had no family in that part of Brazil, the most logical solution for the young girl was to stay in the school’s boarding house – but that was not included in the scholarship (which was still generous in that it included tuition, uniforms, lunch and medical treatment). And Naiara’s parents, who were employed driving a van, taking kids to school and back home each day, weren’t in a financial position to uproot their lives and move 2500km south or to pay boarding fees and travel costs.

However, knowing how much she wanted to go, Naiara’s father began looking for sponsors. After some months of fruitless searching, and with the deadline to accept or decline the scholarship fast approaching, her father happened across an employee of Daniela Mercury, a superstar Brazilian singer/songwriter who was also from Salvador. With some trepidation he sought to arrange (via the employee) a meeting with Mercury to ask for her support.

Upon their first meeting Mercury sat with Naiara and asked her, “Why do you want to go (to the Bolshoi Theatre School)?” Overcome with emotion, Naiara tried to explain how much she loved ballet and what it meant to her. Whatever she said certainly worked because Mercury took Naiara’s hands, looked her in the eye and said she would pay her boarding fees. “I see how determined you are, how your eyes shine and how much you want this,” she said.

In addition, she introduced Naiara to another successful Brazilian musician from Salvador named Carlinhos Brown, who would support Naiara by covering her travel expenses while she was at the school and setting her up with all sorts of extra things she would need for her move down south. “Daniela Mercury also gave me the opportunity to watch her rehearsing for Carnivale with her band, which was beyond exciting! She is such a big star in Brazil, everyone knows her”.

Recalling these events now, de Matos is still incredulous at her good fortune. She is overcome with emotion as she recalls how pivotal the support of these two musical artists was in helping her to realise her dream of becoming a dancer. “It means a lot to me that I was given the opportunity by other (music) artists to become a different kind of (dance) artist.”

Moving from Salvador to Joinville, aged just 13, was something of a culture shock. “My hometown in Salvador (northeastern Brazil) is about 85% (ethnically) African, it’s much more colourful and bold than the southern part of Brazil – which is really European.” The strict Russian teaching style was also very different to the after-school classes she had taken previously. Naiara went home to see her family just once a year, but was delighted to receive the occasional surprise visit from either her father or her mother.

“The first time my dad came, and I saw him in the morning mist outside the school I thought I was dreaming. It was so good to see him, and such a big surprise.

“It’s funny because although I was in the ballet stream (rather than the contemporary training stream also offered by the Bolshoi Theatre School) I saw Rafael Bonachela’s work way back then, in Brazil, because I had a friend in the contemporary stream who was absolutely obsessed with his choreography, showing me videos of his work and saying, ‘I absolutely have to work with him (Bonachela) one day!’”

After five years at school, de Matos graduated and danced with the Youth Company of the Bolshoi Theatre Brazil until accepting her first overseas contract with the Salzburg Landestheater in 2013. “My best memory (with the Youth Company of the Bolshoi Theatre Brazil) was when we did Giselle with Natalia Osipova (in the title role) and I got to be one of Giselle’s friends. I was right next to her – with a big smile! We had some amazing guest artists from Russia come and dance with us.”

A pivotal point in life and dance was meeting Australian dancer and future husband Piran Scott in August, 2013, at the Leipzig Ballet, where they were both dancing as soloists. For four to five years they were both colleagues and good friends, eventually pursuing a long-distance relationship across Europe as their careers criss-crossed the continent. Their personal and professional lives joined together once more when Piran joined Dance Company St. Gallen in Switzerland a year after de Matos and they have been living and working together ever since.

Although de Matos saw herself first as a ballet dancer, as her career progressed she found she was being chosen to dance in contemporary works. “I began to see that I have the ability to be more versatile”, she says, “and at the same time Piran was moving towards contemporary dance and we were having conversations about art needing to be more relevant to now – this time we’re living in.”

Scott had always wanted to finish his career back home and de Matos had been interested in Australia from a young age. They first auditioned for SDC with Rehearsal Director Richard Cilli in Paris 2022 when the company was there on tour. Unfortunately riots in Paris stopped them from meeting Bonachela but they were already planning to visit Australia for Piran’s brother’s upcoming wedding, so they auditioned together in Sydney with Rafael Bonachela later that year. They were both offered contracts. They may be the first couple to join SDC simultaneously or, at the very least, the first in a long time.

Towards the end of their first year with SDC and 10 years after their own first meeting in Leipzig, Piran and Naiara married in Sydney, in December last year. Her parents made their first trip outside Brazil to attend their wedding.

Currently de Matos in the thick of rehearsals with SDC and is full of enthusiasm for the upcoming repertoire.

“I’ve been enjoying the studio time with Raf for Momenta. Right now it’s in the early stages where it could become anything – the other day Piran and I were in the studio trying to make a partnering move that Raf had dreamt of the night before work… I try to dance with a lot of honesty – to bring all of myself to each role. When taking on a role made on another dancer I ask, ‘How can I make it my own but still keep the integrity of the piece?’”