Encantado
A Garden at the World’s Beginning
Encantado. In Brazil, the word means enchantment, wonder, a spell for healing the world. In the space of an hour, the legendary Lia Rodrigues choreographs a collective manifesto outlining nothing less than a new cosmology. The captivating scenes on stage are accompanied by the nurturing sounds of the Mbyá Guaraní people, in an outpouring of beauty and emotion.
A window opens on an immense patchwork quilt made from blankets. Before this visually stunning tableau, 11 performers transformed into spirits of healing unfurl the blankets one by one into vivid shapes. In this game of disguise and metamorphosis, mythical beings are revealed, both playful and seductive. An imaginary world slowly takes shape, into which we are drawn by the organic chaos of these creatures, who evade and transcend conventions. Enchanting everything in their path to dispel the fear of being different, or to proudly celebrate it, they make a revolutionary proposal: to achieve collective healing through partnership and desire.
About the artist
Lia Rodrigues (Rio de Janeiro) Lia Rodrigues Companhia de danças
Rodrigues’ works, performed in some of the world’s biggest theatres and festivals, are always performed in the working-class neighbourhood where they first take shape as well. Her entire oeuvre is therefore infused with a utopian spirit of togetherness, which also takes very tangible form through her social activism.
Media Coverage
« Une pièce baroque et explosive qui agit comme un rituel contre la domination raciale et sexuelle. […] La pièce va du dessous au-dessus, de la lenteur à la frénésie, du spectacle au rituel, au terme d’une métamorphose collective d’un fantasque fou. »
Ève Beauvallet, Libération (France), 2021-12-08
« D’une force visuelle unique »
Phillipe Noisette, Les Échos (France), 2021-12-08
« Lia Rodrigues semble n’avoir jamais aussi bien célèbre l’humanité »
Emmanuelle Bouchez, Télérama (France), 2021-12-08
« Lia Rodrigues orchestre un apparent désordre parfaitement maîtrisé et donne à voir un concentré de liberté et de créativité. Joyeuse, sensuelle, rebelle, sa danse se fait d’une théâtralité formidablement débridée. Elle célèbre la force du collectif, le pouvoir de l’imaginaire et affirme une belle diversité, toujours empreinte de combativité. »
Christophe Candoni, Scène Web (France), 2021-12-03
« La danse de Lia Rodrigues est enivrante. […] Un spectacle parfait. »
Amélie Blaustein Niddam, Toute La Culture (France), 2021-12-03
Interview
“Brazil’s Indigenous peoples have been putting ecological wisdom into practice for years. Their ancestral knowledge is there, readily available, but completely ignored. When I talk about moving toward the other and embracing difference, what I’m talking about is above all a displacement, a decentering.”
June 8: Audio Description
