Pororoca

Lia Rodrigues is nothing if not committed. A few years ago, this leading figure in dance in Brazil opted to base her work in a Rio de Janeiro shanty town which is where she created Pororoca, a show with truly communicative energy. In the Tupi language, the word “pororoca” signifies the battle that takes place between the Amazon’s roaring tidal bore and the Atlantic currents into which it flows. For Rodrigues, it is a metaphor for the collision between differences. Creating a turbulent swell on stage, she puts her eleven dancers in a multi-coloured wave, endlessly swelling, rolling, crashing and reforming in new embraces. It is the affirmation of an existence which spreads the rumour of “an alternative possible world”.

In a partnership with REDES de Desenvolvimento da Maré and support from Espaço SESC–Rio de Janeiro-Brazil as well as the Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development
The Lia Rodrigues Companhia de Danças is supported by Petrobrás, as part of the Petrobrás cultural assistance programme, and Brazil’s Ministry of Culture

A Dance Without Precautions, Raw Movement

The castaways arrive. They find shelter under a table, cling to an armchair, can find nothing better than their

t-shirts to hang on to, like lifelines. Pororoca, the 2009 piece for eleven dancers by Lia Rodrigues, gathers its momentum from its title, a reference to an enormous wave created by the encounter between the ocean and a river. ... Danced for the most part in silence, Pororoca lets bones and muscles clap, lets breathing rumble. In 2005, Incarnat, her first piece inspired by the favela, spit its ketchup blood to tell of the harshness of its context, and the choreographer's disbelief. Four years later, Pororoca extracts from the apparent chaos a tumultuous choreographic score of ferocious beauty.

R.Boisseau - Le Monde, April 11 and 12, 2010