Mercedes Baptista

Mercedes Ignácia da Silva Krieger, known as Mercedes Batista or Mercedes Baptista (20 May, 1921 — 19 August, 2014) was a Brazilian ballet dancer and choreographer, the first black woman to join Theatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro's corps de ballet.

Baptista was responsible for the creation of the Afro-Brazilian ballet, inspired by the candomblé terreiros, elaborating a codification and vocabulary proper for these dances.

Life Mercedes Baptista in her Ballet Folclórico, circa 1950. Arquivo Nacional. Mercedes Batista was born in Campos dos Goytacazes. From a humble background, she moved to Rio de Janeiro, where she had several jobs (among which, she worked as a maid, as a worker in a hat factory, and in a printing ), but it was as box office clerk in a movie theater that she had the dream to work in the arts

She began her ballet studies (in 1945) with the dancer Eros Volúsia, then a teacher at the Serviço Nacional de Teatro (National Theater Service); She then went to join the Teatro Experimental do Negro as a dancer, then as collaborator and eventually as a choreographer.

Back in Brazil, she founded the Ballet Folclórico Mercedes Baptista, dedicated to the formation of black dancers, who researched and incorporated Afro-Brazilian culture into their work and movements, gaining prominence in the artistic scene and touring throughout Europe and Latin America.