Lavagem

Foam brings tinges of colour to the bodies, dreams made of soap suds are flying around. “Lavagem” turns washing into a metaphor, the act of cleaning into a performative and political gesture. It is the latest work by the Brazilian choreographer Alice Ripoll and her dance company Cia REC, who explore social hierarchies and established relationships – and try to overturn them. For when bodies become slippery, lose their grip and cannot get hold of one another, this is perhaps when they manage to keep exploitative capitalist relations and racist attributions at bay. And this gives rise to something new: a slipping, floating and sliding that destabilises the relation between the viewing subject and the viewed object.  

Alice Ripoll is a choreographer, performer and movement trainer. She completed her training at Angel Vianna College in Rio de Janeiro, a centre for dance and motor rehabilitation, and began working as a choreographer in 2002. She is interested in contemporary dance, theatre, performance and Brazilian urban dance. In 2009 she became the director of the dance company Cia REC.