DAVI PONTES & WALLACE FERREIRA

Davi Pontes&Wallace Ferreira develop choreographic strategies of resistance with visionary imagination. In their Repertório trilogy, the Rio de Janeiro-based artists develop choreographies of self-defense for which they received the jury prize of the “ImPulsTanz —Young Choreographers’Award” in 2022. Originally conceived in the context of the Bolsonaro regime, the series uses dance to explore how the body develops its own ability to defend itself. Drawing on personal experience and movement practices such as capoeira or baile funk, Pontes and Ferreira harness a collective archive of Black corporeality. They measure the stage with stomping steps, interrupting their powerful movements with playful gestures, thus evoking a forgotten movement repertoire of Black resistance. Repertório N.3, premiered at the recent São Paulo Biennial, offers new readings in the wake of a country liberated from Bolsonaros repressive politics — and now marks the Summer Festival debut of a duo whose magical intensity captivates audiences around the world.