Brazilian Choeographer Alice Ripoll and Suave Make US Premiere at BAM, CRIA Next Week

CRIA makes its US Premiere/BAM debut Mar 29-Apr 2 at 7:30pm.

CRIA is the embodiment of youth. Taking the movement vocabularies of dancinha, a hot mix of funk, samba, and breakdance, and passinho, the life force of favela culture, choreographer Alice Ripoll relocates the wild exuberance of adolescence through dance. Driven by the social injustice in Brazil, the piece alternates between intense states of exultation and celebration, with the highly charged group absorbing and reconstructing the music's rapid and jerky rhythm.

Ripoll and the 10-member group Suave-an all-Black company of cis and trans performers from Rio de Janeiro, each brings their own narrative, dance history, and physicality to the stage-as CRIA makes its US debut.

Alice Ripoll was born in Rio de Janeiro. She studied to be a psychoanalyst at age 21 and took the path to study dance when she became curious about the bodies and movement research possibilities. Alice graduated from Angel Vianna's school, a well-known center for dance and motor rehabilitation where she began her career as a choreographer. Her work embraces contemporary dance and urban dance styles from Brazil through research that opens space for the dancers to transform into images the experiences and memories that still live in each one. Alice directs two groups: REC and SUAVE. Her shows have been performed in several places and festivals in Brazil, such as Panorama Festival, Bienal SES de Dança, MIT; and abroad: Kampnagel - Internationales Sommerfestival, Zurich Theater Spektakel, Noorderzo Performing Arts, Rencontres Chorégraphiques Internationales de Saine-Saint-Denis; HAU, Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Centre Pompidou, Wiener Festwochen.

SUAVE began with the creation of the performance Suave, which premiered at the Panorama Festival in 2014. Having as inspiration the Passinho (short step), a new style of urban dance that derived from Rio de Janeiro's funk, the show stood out for its unique energy, the quality of its performers, and the refinement of the structure created by the choreographer. The second performance of the group, CRIA, premiered in 2017. Inspired by the Dancinha (little dance), a derivation from Passinho dance, the performance explores a mixture of affection and sensuality through the interweaving of funk with contemporary dance.

For press information or to request critics or press tickets, contact Cynthia Tate at ctate@bam.org