A carnival of bodies, shedding the weight of tradition and reborn through the rhythms of the city

<CARCAÇA> by choreographer Marco da Silva Ferreira uses the body as a medium to research community, collective identity, memory, and cultural stagnation. Taking footwork derived from traditional dance and contemporary urban culture as its starting point, the piece breaks away from authoritative and entrenched past legacies to open up new spaces for the body and identity.

The stage, brought to life by ten dancers and two live musicians, weaves a contemporary body language based on folkloric dance and memories of the past. Footwork, internalized by the dancers through clubs, cypher battles, and studios, intersects with diverse street dance elements such as house, kuduro, Top Rock, and hardstyle, allowing dance and culture to blend intuitively. The dancers embody a collective, sensorial identity under the name 'we'.

<CARCAÇA> poses the following questions: What do we remember, and what will we forget? What is the driving force behind identity? What meaning does individual identity hold within a community? How does the body cross the world today?

The complex steps, performed in trainers, strike the ground, bringing not just rhythm but the energy of movement, heat, and light to the stage. This physical rhythm is accompanied in real time by João Pais Filipe’s drums and Luis Pestana’s electronic music. Ranging from traditional military bands and marches to techno, trance, and dub, the multilayered soundtrack blends with <CARCAÇA> ’s rebellious and carnivalesque spirit, culminating in a march of bodies that traverse past and present.