Lia Rodrigues
Centro de Artes da Maré
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil · Performing Arts
Dancers from the Escola Livre de Dança, Maré, ph. Douglas Lopes.
Choreographer and dancer Lia Rodrigues was awarded the Afield fellowship 2014 for her initiative Centre for the Arts of Maré, a cultural centre in the Maré favela, near Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She is a keen promoter of the democratization of access to art, especially for people who are generally excluded from cultural life.
Since 2004 Rodrigues has been working in the favela of Maré, a disadvantaged and densely populated area at the outskirts of Rio. This engagement culminated in the creation of the Centre for the Arts of Maré in 2009. It is in this context that she founded the Free Dance School of Maré, a project of dance, training and and socio-educational actions.
On the one hand this initiative includes a series of workshops and classes open to all residents of Maré, of all ages. On the other, it offers an experience of professionalisation to 20 young people, selected through an audition and often without any prior dance experience, who commit to a practical and theoretical daily training with the Lia Rodrigues Dance Company.
The Free Dance School of Maré is an experience of democratization and access to art, especially dance, to the residents of Maré as part of a process of creating new publics and spaces for debate, for raising awareness of issues related to contemporary art, politics and citizenships.
Dancers from the Escola Livre de Dança, Maré, ph. Elisangela Leite.
Lia Rodrigues rehearsing at Escuela Livre de Dança, Maré, photo: Sammi Landweer
Lia Rodrigues (São Paulo, Brazil, 1956) is a dancer and choreographer based in Rio. She studied classical ballet in São Paulo, before founding Grupo Andança in 1977. After a couple of years in France she returned to Brazil and in 1992 she founded the Lia Rodrigues Companhia de Danças. In 1992, she founded the annual Contemporary Dance Festival Panorama de Dança, which she ran until 2005.
Lia Rodrigues was awarded several prizes throughout her career, including the 2017 Bravo Bradesco Award, the Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers Award (SACD) for choreography (2016), the Prince Claus Award (2014) and the French Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres Medal (2007).
Lia rehearsing Pindorama, ph Adriano Vizoni, courtesy folhapress.
Dancers from the Escola Livre de Dança, Maré, ph. Elisangela Leite.
Related Program
Yasmeen Lari Exhibition: Architecture for the Future
Please join us in celebrating Yasmeen Lari & the opening of her first monographic exhibition #EVENT
Afield Portrait - Renata Carvalho
Renata Carvalho was awarded the 2020 AFIELD Fellowship for MONART - National Movement of Trans Artists, which questions the absence, exclusion, misrepresentation and misunderstanding of travesti / trans bodies in the arts and professional society across Brazil.
Afield Portrait - Fernando García-Dory
Portrait | Artist Fernando García-Dory - 2016 AFIELD Fellow - brings together art and agroecology to provide alternative strategies for ecological action and rural revitalization. Initiative INLAND. #VIDEO