Week 53: Cria

A UK Premiere from this Brazilian choreographer and her company of cis and trans dancers performing a fusion of stories and dance styles that could only come together in the melting pot of Rio.

The Portuguese word cria has two literal meanings: ‘young being’ and ‘to create’. In Brazil it is used to convey the favela you come from: ‘I am cria from Complexo’.

With CRIA, Brazilian choreographer Alice Ripoll combines these social, vital and affective interpretations into a rhythmic and sensual whole. Ten dancing bodies establish relationships of production, seduction and affection. Their movements propagate to a mix of funk and contemporary music inspired by Dancinha (‘little dance’), an urban dance style from Rio de Janeiro. After her triumphant dance performance aCORdo last year, Alice Ripoll returns this time with her group Suave to celebrate life as a state of caring.

CRIA is the result of research about sexuality, family and parenthood, friendship and community. Countless dance forms are activated by the moving bodies of the Suave members: passinho, break dance, the freshly new dancinha, voguing, samba.

The images that are evoked by CRIA tease our preconceptions about contemporary dance and how it is presented on stage. They can be hard to absorb, but their force easily makes the audience feel strangely dislocated. At least, if they can resist the urge to applaud after each act of virtuosity.

“We are CRIA, not created. Little breeds. Loneliness. To smear yourself. The act, the creation and its moment. Sprout. The heart saying, “hit me” with every punch of suffering. In scene birth and death. Each time. Even in childbirth there is a force that wants to give up.”