A choreographic work that celebrates encounter and conflict, blending Brazilian folk dances, live music, and a collective and political approach to dance.

Encruzilhada is a choreographic work about encounter and conflict, about celebration as a space of resistance and negotiation as a shared path. Rooted in Brazilian popular dances and movement vocabularies often marginalized by hegemonic cultural discourses—such as street dance, footwork, and ballroom dancing—the work reveals how the body becomes a living place of exchange, partnership, and conflict. It is at this crossroads of worlds that tradition connects with the urban, the popular with the institutional, conflict with mutual learning.

The piece centers on collectivity —not as an idealized image, but as an unstable and essential practice. In times marked by fragmentation, competition, and the privatization of happiness, moving as a group becomes both a creative challenge and a political stance. The performers don't just dance together: they negotiate presence, friction, silence, and alignment , seeking a common rhythm amidst tension.

Power is constantly shifting. The choreography becomes a field of negotiation , where bodies assert, yield, confront, and sustain. Violence and vulnerability coexist. Balance is not given, but constantly constructed. The work embraces contradiction: silence is broken into rhythm, gestures emerge from ancestral codes and current urgencies.

The soundtrack is created live, in real time, as part of this collective effort. The dancers are also musicians—they play percussion, manipulate electronic textures, and use their voices as an instrument. The music doesn't accompany the movement, but arises from the same body, the same pulse , blending drumhead with breath, beat with intention. Traditional and digital sounds intertwine, creating a dense, raw, and vibrant soundscape.

The choreography exposes its own process of construction. The way the performers organize themselves—how they adapt, fail, and return to being a group—is visible. The audience is invited to witness the creation of the work as it unfolds: a porous boundary between process and performance, preparation and final product , where each decision reverberates within the collective.

Encruzilhada doesn't seek perfection. It seeks presence. And it asks: how can we sustain each other's space when everything around us pushes us toward solitude?

About Renan Martins
A Brazilian choreographer and dancer based in Barcelona, ​​began his artistic career in Rio de Janeiro and, at the age of 17, moved to Europe to study contemporary dance at the Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance (SEAD) and the Performing Arts Research and Training Studios (PARTS). As a dancer, he has worked with renowned artists and companies such as Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Peter Savel, Daniel Linehan, and Meg Stuart. His first group work, " Let Me Die in My Footsteps ," was selected by Aerowaves in 2016. Since then, he has developed and presented his own creations in theaters and festivals in Europe and Brazil. As a choreographer, he has collaborated with companies such as Dance Theatre Heidelberg, Unusual Symptoms of Theater Bremen, Danish Dance Theatre, and Cullberg. From 2021 to 2024, Renan was part of DDE, a research project on diversity and inclusion, carried out in partnership with PARTS, Manufacture, and Stockholm University of the Arts (SKH).