Encantado

About

Lia Rodrigues is an icon of the Brazilian dance scene, and we can enter her mysterious and colourful world for the very first time in Prague. What exactly lies behind the word "encantado" is inscribed in African American culture inseparably from nature. It is a spontaneous celebration of tradition and life, a wild jungle teeming with colour and movement and radiating vital energy.

Derived from Latin, the word "encantado" refers to something that has been enchanted. In Brazil, the word also refers to mysterious beings associated with nature that travel through time and can heal with magical power. They are magical, enchanted entities moving between the sky and the earth, in the jungle, in the water or in the plants. The phenomenon of the encantados inspired a dance production by Lia Rodrigues Companhia de Danças, which was created in response to the pandemic and the associated health crisis. Artistic creation is also a magical discipline in its own way. It must begin with some kind of incantation that causes various living beings to meet and forms them into a composition.

How to dispel your fears and get closer to yourself? How to enchant your thoughts and body and turn them into sacred images and landscapes? Encantado is a spontaneous celebration of African American culture, tradition and life.

 Piece dedicated to Oliver.

Cast

Danced and created in close collaboration by: Leonardo Nunes, Valentina Fittipaldi, Andrey da Silva, Larissa Lima, David Abreu, Raquel Alexandre
Also danced by: Alice Alves, Daline Ribeiro, Sanguessuga, Cayo Almeida, Vitor de Abreu

Creatives

Creation: Lia Rodrigues
Choreographic Assistant: Amalia Lima
Dramaturgy: Silvia Soter
Artistic collaboration and images: Sammi Landweer
Light Design: Nicolas Boudier
Music: (from excerpts of songs of the GUARANI MBYA PEOPLE / Village of Kalipety do T. I. indigenous territory / Tenondé Porã, sung and played during the indigenous demonstration in Brasilia in August 2021 for the recognition of their ancestral lands in danger)
Mixing: Alexandre Seabra
Production project Goethe Institut: Claudia Oliveira
Also created by: Carolina Repetto, Joana Castro, Matheus Macena, Ricardo Xavier, Tiago Oliveira

Lia Rodrigues is a Brazilian dancer and choreographer and the artistic director of Lia Rodrigues Companhia de Danças, which she founded in 1990 in Rio de Janeiro. Since 2003, the group has been active in Favela de la Maré, one of the city's largest slums, where they develop artistic as well as educational and community activities.
Lia Rodrigues is a warrior in body and soul. Her work resides on the border between fine art, performance art and dance. Through the body, it leaves comfortable and well-known spheres behind and sets out to discover everything that appears unknown and distant.

Partners, patrons

• The Fondation d'entreprise Hermès is the patron of Portrait Lia Rodrigues at the Festival d'Automne à Paris
• With the support of the International Relief Fund for Cultural and Educational Organizations 2021 of the German Federal Foreign Office, the Goethe-Institut and other partners.
• Lia Rodrigues is an associate artist of Chaillot - Théâtre national de la Danse and CENTQUATRE, France.

Acknowledgements: Thérèse Barbanel, Antoine Manologlou, Maguy Marin, Eliana Souza Silva, team of the Centro de Artes da Maré.