Change Tempo 2022 Luiz de Abreu / Calixto Neto, Joy Alpuerto Ritter, Linda Hayford

Born in Minas Gerais (Brazil), Luiz Augusto Barbosa (known as Luiz de Abreu) discovered dance in the 1960s through the rituals of the Afro-Brazilian Umbanda religion. The choreographer-interpreter is a graduate of the Angel Vianna School of Contemporary Dance in Rio de Janeiro, and holds a master’s degree from the University of Uberlândia in Minas Gerais. Mainly focused on exploring the stereotypes related to the black body, his work has been shown in France, Germany, Portugal, Croatia, Cuba, Spain and Brazil, where he lives and works. His piece O Samba do Crioulo Doido is part of the Centre Pompidou’s videodance collection.   

Photo Marc Domage

Originally from Recife, Brazil, and living in France since 2013, Calixto Neto is trained in theatre at the Federal University of Pernambuco, then in dance at the Experimental Dance Group, in Recife, before taking a master’s degree in choreography ex.e.r.ce at the CCN of Montpellier. During his studies, he created the solo petites explosions as well as the duet Pipoca, with Bruno Freire. oh!rage, his second solo, gives visibility to minority bodies and identities and is interested in “peripheral” dances on the fringe of institutional circuits. Member of Lia Rodrigues’ company from 2007 to 2013, Calixto Neto is also a performer in the creations of Anne Collod, Mette Ingvartsen, Eve Magot (formerly Kevin Jean) and Luiz de Abreu, whose famous piece O Samba do Crioulo Doido he re-enacted in 2020 as part of the Panorama festival at the CN D in Pantin and with which he is still touring. In May 2021 he created Outrar upon the invitation of Lia Rodrigues during the Kunstenfestivaldesarts in Brussels. In September 2021, he premiered FEIJOADA, a piece created in the frame of Lia Rodrigues’ portrait for the Festival d’Automne in Paris 2021. In May 2022, he launched the project Crazy Evil Nigght, a project around the life and work of Julius Eastman, in the frame of Kunstenfestivaldesarts. A new piece, Il Faux will premiere in May 2023 in Brussels.

Photo Merav Maroody

Joy Alpuerto Ritter was born in Los Angeles and grew up in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany and learned Philippine Folk Dance in the cultural dance group led by her mother. In 2004 Joy graduated at the Palucca School in Dresden, Germany. She started working as a freelance dancer with choreographers like Christoph Winkler, Heike Hennig, Wangramirez and Constanza Macras.

After expanding her repertory in urban dance styles, she was active in the Hip Hop and Voguing Ballroom scene in Berlin. In 2011 she joined Cirque du Soleil as a dancer and aerial artist for the Michael Jackson Immortal World Tour. Since 2013 she has become a member of the Akram Khan Company and has been nominated as “outstanding female dancer” (modern) in the performance Until the Lions by the National Dance Awards UK in 2016.

In the last years Joy has been creating her own work that was presented in various Festivals in Europe such as in the Barbican. She found international response as a Choreographer and is one of the Aerowaves artists 2020. Her work as a choreographer established new collaborations with Akram Khan, Ballet Black, Mavin Khoo, Chen Shi-Zheng, Viviana Durante, Floria Sigismondi and Florence & the Machine.

Photo Thibault Montamat

Although Linda Hayford is best known as an ambassador of popping, her dance practice has evolved through the encounter between genres and moves. Taking a crossover of styles as her starting point, the choreographer seeks an aesthetic focused on metamorphosis. Her inaugural solo Shapeshifting (2016) materializes the power represented by the passage from one form to another in an intimate fresco that deploys a succession of chimeras. In AlShe/Me (2019), Linda Hayford, working alongside her older brother Mike Hayford, turns her attention to the ephemeral nature of popping. Created in 2022, Recovering invites 3 performers to reflect on the healing process following a trauma through the transmission and appropriation of different tools from Linda Hayford’s “Shifting Pop” vocabulary. For Linda Hayford, alteration has become an object of reflection on the constantly changing nature of identity, where every stage embodies a facet of humanity, culminating in the complexity of displacement.

Presented by Dance Umbrella in partnership with Brixton House

O Samba do Crioulo Doidi
Co-production: Centre chorégraphique National d’Orléans, Charleroi Danse, Teatro Municipal do Porto
Reenactment residencies at Casa Charriot, Espaço Xisto Bahia, Casa Rosada.
O Samba do Crioulo Doido was created in its initial version in 2004, as part of the Rumos Itaú Cultural programme.

BABAE
Supported by Sophiensaele Berlin and Tanzfonds Erbe

Shapeshifting
A Cie INside Out show
Production: Garde Robe
Executive production: Collectif FAIR-E / CCN de Rennes et de Bretagne
The Centre chorégraphique national de Rennes et de Bretagne, directed by the collective FAIR-E, is an association that receives grants from the Ministry of Culture (Direction régionale des Affaires culturelles / Bretagne), the city of Rennes, the Regional Council of Brittany and Ille-et-Vilaine Departemental Council.
Co-productions: Initiatives d’Artistes en Danses Urbaines – Fondation de France – La Villette 2016, Le Triangle, Cité de la danse – Rennes, Le Pont des Arts – Centre culturel de Cesson- Sévigné, Cie Engrenage. With the support of the DRAC Bretagne under the project aid 2016 and Rennes Métropole.