Alice Ripoll

Asked to create a show to explain how Rio de Janeiro had been transformed by the urban improvements brought about by major sporting events such as the World Cup and the Olympic Games, choreographer Alice Ripoll chose to respond indirectly by staging a show with dancers she had worked with in previous years, all of them Black and from the city’s favelas. This was the origin of aCORdo. The name of the show is a word that means, among other things, ‘agreement’, ‘deal’ or ‘waking up’. When read syllable by syllable (a-cor-do), it also means ‘the colour of’. The four performers in this choreography come from a world and an environment that you probably know nothing about. This is by no means unusual. In our societies, contact between social groups, between rich and poor, is minimal. People can essentially live their entire lives in complete ignorance of anyone who is not part of their social sphere. In Rio de Janeiro, for example, poor people live in favelas and their movements are subject to constant controls and searches, all designed to intimidate them and keep them in their place. These controls act as a kind of border, allowing spectators of stage shows like this to live in a safe environment, separated from the chaos and crime inherent in a hierarchical system that separates classes and groups. The performers in this piece turn the situation on its head to show us that the man who sweeps the streets or the woman who cleans the university classrooms we use every day are in fact poets or rap artists, people madly in love or contemporary dancers. In an enclosed, restricted space, four uniformed dancers create a series of images and feelings that aim to upend the hierarchies and relationships we are used to, making us switch places for a while. Without words, the dance creates mysterious and unpredictable bridges between seemingly closed-off universes. Who is stealing from whom? Who is actually committing a crime?