
Hugo Viera was born in Lisbon in 1974 and trained at the
Portuguese National Ballet School. Later he received a scholarship in
order to
continue his studies in dance at
the Centre de Danse International
Rosella Hightower in Cannes.
After a year in Paris where he studied privately with
Gilbert Meyer and Jaqueline Fynaert, Jorge Salavisa, who
was
the director of the National Ballet of Portugal at
this time,
invited him to go back to Lisbon and join the company. There he danced
works from the classical repertoire as well as
choreographies by Balanchine, Van Manen and Spöerli among
others. He then took a direction into a more neoclassical and contemporary
repertoire dancing with the Braunschweig Ballet and Karlsruhe Ballet and
guesting with several companies in Portugal, Germany, England and
Austria. He performed in choreographies by William Forsythe,
Itzik Galili, Vasco Wellenkamp, Rui Horta, Nacho Duato,
Richard Alston, Pierre Wyss and Olga Roriz.
Very early in his dancing career Hugo Viera
showed interest in choreography. He created several short
pieces while still being a dancer and was encouraged to
pursue a career as a choreographer. One year later, after having
finished his career as a dancer at the early age of
29 he was a finalist in the International Competition
for Choreographers in Hannover, participated
in the Solo Tanz Festival in
Stuttgart, in the International Arts Festival Macau in
China and created a piece for the Noverre Society, the upcoming
choreographers evening of the Stuttgart Ballet.
Since then Hugo Viera has created several pieces for
the Ballet Karlsruhe, Ballet Braunschweig, Hannover Opera House, Dançarte,
Theater Ingolstadt, Portuguese National Ballet School, Tiroler Landestheater
Innsbruck, ICZ - Leipzig, Ballet of the Altenburg-Gera
Theater and the Croatian National Ballet in Zagreb.
Besides his work with ballet and dance companies Hugo Viera co-directed and
choreographed the opera "Triumphierende Liebe" for the Musik Tage Hannover
and the Musical "Frankenstein” and later "Jesus Christ Superstar" at
the Tiroler Landestheater Innsbruck in Austria.
In May 2010 he won "The Best Production of the Year" award from the Theater und Philharmonie Thüringen for the piece FADO=SCHICKSAL.