Raimundo B. dos Santos aka Mestre King

BIOGRAPHY

Raimundo Bispo Dos Santos, better known as Mestre King, is from Salvador, Bahia Brazil. He is one of Brazil's foremost dance teachers and the leading authority on Afro-Brazilian dance and music forms and traditions. He has been teaching, choreographing and performing for over 30 years and has mounted over 100 traditional and contemporary dance choreographies.

Mestre King was the first male to graduate from the Federal University of Bahia's Dance Department where he holds both a bachelor's and master's degree in dance and choreography. He has studied modern dance with Clyde Morgan as well as ballet and American Jazz, Capoeira and Karate. While studying at UFBA, he began experimenting with traditional Afro-Brazilian dance and North American modern dance forms. Inspired by the creative possibilities of fusing these two forms, he developed Afro-Brazilian contemporary dance. He is also considered to be one the foremost innovators of this contemporary Brazilian form as well as for the teaching of traditional Afro-Brazilian dance. This genre has inspired Mestre King's leading disciples such as Luiz Badaró, Augusto Omolu, Armando Pequeno and Rosangela Silvestre. Mestre King has always been a leading inspiration for many of his students who are now teaching Afro-Brazilian dance in Brazil, the USA, Europe and Argentina at universities, dance academies and public and private elementary and secondary schools.

He teaches at SESC, a community institution where he developed a dance program that became the center for Afro-Brazilian dance study and produced many of his choreographic works. He also teaches at Bahia's Secretary of Education and Culture high schools and Bahia's State Cultural Foundation.

In February 2002, Florida A & M University invited him as a guest artist in residence for the Africa Brazil Connection Festival where he conducted master classes. In April 2002, Mestre King will be honored at the Black College Dance Exchange at Florida A & M. Mestre King also recently conducted master classes at Florida International University. He has just been awarded an Alliance for California Traditional Arts Mentorship Grant to work with Viver Brasil Dance Company in March 2002. In 2000, he was a guest instructor at Florida International University's Summer Dance Institute, INDAMI. Since 1995, he has conducted dance workshops in Argentina, France, Italy and Belgium. In 1994, he conducted a week long intensive workshop at Stanford University and then traveled to Los Angeles where he taught master classes at UCLA, Lula Washington Dance Theater's studio, the Dance Collective, trained and created choreography for Cheremoya Escola de Samba. In 1993, Jelon Vieira's DanceBrazil invited Mestre King to conduct workshops in New York at New York University and Brooklyn College.

Mestre King has been honored by the City of Salvador and the Vila Velha Theater for his many years of dedication as a master teacher of Afro-Brazilian dance.