Lia Rodrigues

Born in Brazil, Lia Rodrigues, after a training in classical ballet in San Paulo, set up the Andança dance group in 1977. She was part of the Maguy Marin company from 1980 to 1982. On returning to Brazil, she went to Rio de Janeiro, where she set up Lia Rodrigues Companhia de Danças. Her work has won several prizes both in Brazil and overseas. In addition to directing and producing all her shows, Lia Rodrigues is also a cultural producer and, since 1992, has been the Artistic Director of the Panorama de Dança contemporary dance annual festival.

Lia Rodrigues recently set up her company in the Favela de la Maré in Rio de Janeiro, where she has developed her artistic project “Residency Resistance” and opened the Art center for the Arts : A dance school has opened to give a professional training to young dancers of the favela and also from other parts of the country. They will be confronted also to the work of her own company rehearsing and creating in the same space.

Lia Rodrigues has celebrated the 23th anniversary of the company; her piece “Piracema” (2011) has toured in France with several major partners Paris Festival d’Automne/Théâtre de la Ville, Angers/National center for Dance, Vitry/Théâtre Jean Vilar , la Ferme du Buisson/Marne la Vallée, Belgian – Brussels / KunstenfestivaldesArts, Potsdam -+Tranzfabrik, Salamanca festival in Spain, Lisboa/Culturgest and Porto/Museo Serralves. Montreal Festival TransAmériques, Venice Biennale and Amsterdam Julidans festival, Salamanca Façil festival and in the main festivals in Brazil.

Her latest piece “Pindorama” was premiered in November 2013 in Vitry/Théâtre Jean Vilar, where she has been part of a long term residency for nine years now and the piece has been shown at the Théâtre de la Cité Internationale and Centquatre in Paris and Cergy - Pontoise coproduced by Théâtre National de Chaillot, La Briqueterie/CDC du Val-de-Marne, Kunstenfestivaldesart copresented by the Kaaïtheater /Brussells, HELLERAU-European Center for the Arts Dresden/Germany and will tour in Belgian Bruxelles – Kaaïtheater/ Kunstenfestivaldesarts, DresdenHellerau Center Potsdam – Tanzfabrik, Lisbon/Culturgest, Porto- Musée Serralves, Berlin - Hebbel Hau 2.

At the same time she has had two commissions: “Against those with difficult tastes” by the Petite Fabrique, and “Hymnen” (on music by Karl Stockhausen) by the CCN ballet de Lorraine, collective work with Didier Deschamps and Gérard Fromanger. Lia Rodrigues is a militant in her body, soul and spirit. Not surprising therefore, that in her art, the body itself takes on the mantle of a manifesto. At the crossroads between performance, plastic arts and dance, her work shifts the body from the comfortable and familiar to the probing and unknown.