Lia Rodrigues - Borda

Mon, 1 Sep - Wed, 3 Sep

Comédie de Genève

La Bâtie - Festival de Genève

In 2022, Encantado lit up La Bâtie with its otherworldly magic. Lia Rodrigues’ dancers turned rags and scraps into a lush, heavenly garden of resistance and reconciliation. Driven by a desire for unity, the Brazilian choreographer founded both a dance school and an arts centre more than twenty years ago in the Maré favela – one of Rio de Janeiro’s largest and most challenged neighbourhoods – carving out a space for freedom amid the social violence and stark inequality. Her shows, performed by her students and collaborators, are imbued with this deep commitment, this vision of art as an act of resistance, as evidenced once again by Borda. Often heard as “border” – a dividing line – “Borda” also means embroider, decorate, illuminate, as Rodrigues reminds us. In this piece, ten performers from her school in Maré weave a living tapestry where edges shift, float and dance, creating a porous space of fluid otherness, stitched with dreams. Because Borda is also about imagination and dreamworlds.