WHEN IT BREAKS IT BURNS Comes to Contact Theatre

When it Breaks it Burns - produced by Brazil's coletivA ocupação and presented by Contact and Transform - tells the extraordinary true story of the high school occupations of 2015 and 2016 in Brazil - where students barricaded themselves inside schools for two to three months to protest against cuts in spending. Fifteen of the participating students have created and present this interactive production fusing live music, dance and performance to show how their lives were changed forever through their remarkable feat of student activism.

Running for two nights at the Millennium Powerhouse, Moss Side, the current home of Contact, from May 8-9 (following its UK Premiere at the Transform Festival, Leeds May 3-4), this timely and truthful piece of story-telling enables the students to re-live and share their stories and personal experiences of resilience and rebellion before, during and after their action led to key fundamental changes in Brazilian educational law.

Get up close to the action as real life invades the stage for a night of protests, partying and a political uprising like no other - and join the students as they tell their exceptional true story in Manchester for the first time.

coletivA ocupação is a collective composed of students from different districts of São Paulo who make projects that sit between art, activism and education. They regularly present their work at festivals and have toured to sell out audiences across Brazil.

When it Breaks it Burns is being produced and co-ordinated by artist Lowri Evans, former Contact Young Company member who lives and works in São Paulo, the UK and in Manchester, where she is part of the critically acclaimed all female performance arts group, Eggs Collective.

When it Breaks It Burns is performed in Portuguese with English surtitles.