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The first image that Encantado offers perfectly sums up Brazilian choreographer Lia Rodrigues: a luxuriant garden stretched with a mosaic of crumpled fabrics of naked bodies. It’s an Amazonian Garden of Eden, or in other words, a territory to defend. Aware of the ecological fragility, poverty and racism endemic to her country, the militant artist defends her commitments in each of her creations. The eleven performers of Encantado come from the school and art centre she created in 2004 in the favela of Maré in Rio de Janeiro. Together, they transform the stage with their multicoloured bodies, animated by the spirits of nature that are specific to Afro-American Indian rites – the Encantado – which circulate between heaven and earth, and driven by baroque dances or voguing in a moving wave of forms and sculptures. In this short-lived Eden, Encantado offers an exuberant manifestation of insouciance and freedom for an hour that brims with humanity and joyful struggle.