Michelle Moura

In a choreographic exorcism, Brazilian artist Michelle Moura composes a trio that speak a blood-curdling language, a mastery in exag-geration, that tells the tale of these troubled times. Lessons for Cadavers stages ultra expressive bodies, alternately dumbfounded, absurd or driven by external forces, constantly swaying between life and lifelessness, immobility and puppet like movement. Cast in a murky tonality, on the threshold between life and death, the three dancers are strange, disturbing creatures, yet vulnerable, mortal beings. The political backdrop in the Brazil of recent years, the realisation of the country’s alarming situation and the far right’s brandishing of fear like an arm to govern bodies, hearts and minds are at work in this production. Moura dissects how being trapped in a necropolitical system makes us living dead.

Born in Brazil, Michelle Moura currently lives in Berlin. She trained at the CNDC in Angers under Emmanuelle Huynh’s direction between 2008 and 2010, then at Das Choreography in Amster-dam. Her work examines movement as a mini-malist and masterful language, and the frames that shape our perceptions and our identities. Her three main works, Overtongue (2020), BLINK mini unison intense lament (2015) and FOLE (2013) delve into the body’s physical, affective, and neurological ability.