Ricardo Barros is a Baroque dancer, choreographer, harpsichordist, musical and stage director, and theatrical costume designer appearing with his ‘Mercurius Company’ or as a guest in other companies such as ‘The Bach Players’ (London),  ‘Plaisirs des Nations’ (Paris), ‘The Parley of Instruments (London), ‘Folia’ (Groningen, Holland), ‘Accademia Amsterdam’ (Amsterdam/Perugia, Italy), 'I Danzatori Palatini' (Hockenheim), amongst others.

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Following his graduation as a harpsichordist in his native Brazil, he moved to London in 1993, undertaking postgraduate courses at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and at the Royal Academy of Music. His research on the connection between French Baroque dance, music, oratory and classic rhetoric developed into his PhD thesis Dance as a discourse, awarded by the University of Hull in 2008 and published by LAP. In 2010 he was awarded the coveted honorary ARAM (Associate Royal Academy of Music) for his ‘contribution to the music profession in the United Kingdom’. His triple nationality (Portuguese, British and Brazilian) reflect his rich background and vast array of influences, which are manifest in his creative output.

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Ricardo has directed and performed in many productions in the UK, Europe and Americas, notably choreographing and co-directing Dance of the Nations in collaboration with the Bach Players at the London Festival of Baroque Music, directing the staging and design of Rameau’s Les Indes Galantes for Benslow Music, performance at the Utrecht Early Music Festival with The Bach players (where his choreographies for Couperin’s Concerts Royaux and Les Goûts Réunis were premièred), a partnership with the Historical Royal Palaces and Yale University resulting in performances and video of choreographies by English dancing masters, choreographies for Purcell’s Dioclesian, Rebel’s Les Éléments and Les Caractères de la Danse for the Royal College of Music, choreography of Handel's Terpsichore for The Parley of Instruments, amongst many others. He often teaches and directs productions in Holland (Utrecht Conservatorium, Zeist, Amsterdam), Germany (I Danzatori Palatini), Italy (Summer courses in Perugia) and UK (Royal Academy of Music, Trinity-Laban, Historical Dance Society, Benslow Music). He collaborated on the BBC 'Dancing Cheek to Cheek' series and was selected to represent the Wallace Collection with a documentary on their partnership for the National Online Museum Project. As a harpsichordist he regularly performed on the historical instruments of the Russell Collection at St Cecilia's Hall in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, as well as pursuing a career as a continuo player.

 

As an academic he has produced numerous articles and conference papers. Ricardo is the chairman of the London based EADH-European Association for Dance History (founded in Paris, 1989), which congregates dozens of dance historians and practitioners around Europe. As such he organizes annual conferences in different European cities, and oversees the production of their journal Choreologica.