Maria Clara Villa-Lobos
Maria Clara Villa-Lobos was born in Brasilia, Brazil in 1972. Her father being a diplomat, she had a very “international lifestyle”, living in different countries and continents from the age of three. She speaks therefore several languages, including Portuguese, Spanish, French, English, Dutch, German and Swedish.
She is a multi-faceted dancer, performer and choreographer, who is skilled in technical, improvisational and theatrical types of work, with more than twelve years of experience in the performing arts scene. As a dancer and collaborator she has worked with different choreographers such as Rui Horta (SOAP dance theatre), David Hernandez, Willi Dorner (Mazy), Christine De Smedt and Les Ballets C. de la B. (9×9), Sasha Waltz (Dialogue), Lilia Mestre, Thomas Lehmen (Monosubjects) and Tino Sehgal among others.
She has been based in Brussels since 1995 and set up her own structure, “ XL Production”, in 2002. She has since then been mainly active as a choreographer and has created and directed about 15 pieces/ performances of different scales, both solos and group works, amongst which is the trilogy “M”,”XL” and and ”XXL”, as well as several choreographies for the ”Bal Moderne” project.
What characterizes her work is a humorous, critical and ironic approach to social topics such as consumer society and mass media, highly influenced by pop art and pop culture in general, more recently also with a connection to visual arts.
Using a hybrid language that mixes dance, physicality, objects, sometimes texts or songs, her work has been shown in important venues across Europe (Festival d’Avignon/ Hivernales, Théâtre de la Bastille, Dansens Hus Stockholm, The Place/ London, Impuls Tanz Festival to name a few…), but also in Brazil, Canada, USA and South Korea.
She regularly teaches yoga and dance to children and adults.
Source: Maria Clara Villa-Lobos website
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