LIA RODRIGUES (BR)

The end-of-the-world myth told by Yanomani shaman Davi Kopenawa states that once the harmony of life in the universe is breached, the sky (which the Yanomani refer to as “what’s above us”) comes down on all that’s under it, and not only on the forest people. In the face of the many disasters and atrocities that haunt us and render us speechless every single day, in this context of drastic climate changes darkening the future, what is left to do? How to figure out ways to go on and act? What can each of us do to hold the sky in place? Dancers from the Lia Rodrigues Companhia de Danças dance to the rhythm of machines and automobiles, helicopters and sirens, under scorching heat, under rain and storm, as an offer and a tribute, so as not to vanish, to endure and rotten, to move the air and expand, to dream and visit dark places, to be weak and withstand. They dance to find a way to survive in a world turned upside down. Dancing to hold the sky in place. In order for the sky not to come down... they dance.

Lia Rodrigues was born in 1956, in São Paulo, where she graduated in Classic Ballet and studied History at the University of São Paulo. After having taken part in the city’s contemporary dance movement in the 1970s, she joined the Compagnie Maguy Marin (France) between 1980 and 1982. Back in Brazil, she founded Lia Rodrigues Companhia de Danças in 1990, in Rio de Janeiro, which has since been working all year round with classes, repertoire rehearsals, research, and creation. It presents its work both in Brazil and abroad. In 1992, she created Rio de Janeiro’s most important dance festival, Panorama Festival, which she managed for 14 years. Since 2004, invited by Silvia Soter, Companhia carries out artistic and educational actions in the Maré shantytown, Rio de Janeiro, together with Redes de Desenvolvimento da Maré. The Maré Arts Centre, which opened to the public in 2009, was born from that partnership. There, among others, Companhia produced and premiered her pieces “Pororoca”, “Piracema”and “Pindorama”. In 2007, she was made Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government.