Lia Rodrigues

Lia Rodrigues was born in 1956 in São Paolo, where she studied classical Ballet and History à the Sao Paolo (USP) University. She was involved in the contemporary dance movement of the seventies and was part of the Maguy Marin dance company from 1980 to 1982. When she returned to Rio de Janeiro in 1990, she created the Lia Rodrigues Companhia de Danças, with dance laboratories, creations, classes and rehearsals. In 1992, she founded the Panorama Festival, the most important Festival in Rio de Janeiro, and went on leading it for 14 years.

Since 2004, her Company is involved in developing educational and artistic activities in the Maré Favela in Rio de Janeiro, in partnership with with the NGO Redes de Desenvolvimento da Maré. From this collaboration the Centro de Artes da Maré, opened in 2009, and the Escola livre de Danças da Maré, opened in October 2011, were born. During 40 years of professional and artistic life, the choreographer Lia Rodrigues has dedicated herself not only to training and artistic creation, but also to education with workshops and seminars all over the world. Mixing militancy and utopias, she believes in the synergy between art and the social processes. She was awarded the medal of Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government in 2022 and in 2016 with the SACD Price for Choreography. In the Netherlands, she received the Prince Claus Award in 2014.

In France, she created Les Fables à La Fontaine (2005) and Hymnen (2007) with music by Stockhausen for the CCN – Ballet de Lorraine. Among her other recent pieces are Such Stuff as we are made (2000), Formas Breves (2002), Incarnat (2005), Chantiers Poétiques (2008), Pororoca (2009), Piracema (2011), Pindorama (2013), Para que o Céu nao caia (For the Sky not to fall) (2016), and Furia (2018) and Encantado (2021), both which were shown at the Wiener Festwochen.