Lavagem
Water Games
Beneath a large blue tarp, a creature breathes in, rasping. A collective spasm heralds the start of a flurry of activity: soap and buckets in hand, six performers slide around, falling over, frothing foam and filling the space with perfect, immaculate bubbles. The performance shows the interconnectedness of bodies, their complex and fragile intertwining, and it spatters the roles assigned in a profoundly unequal society.
The Brazilian choreographer Alice Ripoll has created a playful, political, poetic piece that upends notions of dirty and clean and the racial prejudices that binary evokes. The stage is a playground, happily shared by the dancers and the audience. Nothing stands still and everything is transformed, with the familiar fading away among clumsy domestic gestures. Combining dance, acrobatics, song, and percussion, the formidable performers of the REC ensemble weave a dreamscape that elevates daily chores into a ritual.
About the artist

Alice Ripoll (Rio de Janeiro) Cia REC
Born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazilian choreographer Alice Ripoll first studied psychoanalysis before starting dance at the age of 21, and went on to graduate from Angel Vianna school, an important centre for dance and motor rehabilitation. Ripoll draws her inspiration from urban dance and in the relationship with the dancers.