Created from the solemn mass composed and conducted for the consecration of the Orphanage Church in Vienna in 1768 by Mozart, who was not yet thirteen years old, the Orphanage Mass of 1989 ranks among the greatest works of Grupo Corpo. Establishing the first codes of a choreographic style that would reach its maturity three years later with 21, a watershed moment in the company's trajectory, Rodrigo Pederneiras transforms his corps de ballet into a mass of the destitute who, contrary to the ordinary teachings of the Catholic mass, portray the tragedy and misery of the human condition rather than the yearning for divine glorification. In a state of permanent contrition, the dancers' bodies ritualize the helplessness, fear, affliction, and loneliness inherent in the inescapably earthly and transient nature of the human species. In his relentless pursuit of verticality, his convulsive gestures sound like cries for mercy.

In earthy and gray tones, Fernando Velloso's set design evokes the exterior of a cathedral degraded by time, but whose imposing presence persists in being reduced to its mundane and diminutive dimensions, to the procession of desperate people who wander the stage crying out for redemption. Freusa Zechmeister uses everyday clothes in raw silk and linen, aged and dyed in palettes of gray and earth, to dress the dancers as an immemorial gathering of pilgrims. With multiple gradations of yellow and white and stage smoke, Paulo Pederneiras envelops the scene in a veil that recreates the luminosity and atmosphere typical of religious services.

And if the Mass of the Body represents the Calvary of Man, communion with the Divine, redemption – both for those on stage and for those in the audience – occurs through Art: the art practiced by the Minas Gerais group and the art emanating from the impressive sacred score of a young Mozart.