Piny

I question the hyper-sexualization of movement and the obsession with shape and what is tolerated, distorted, forbidden, what is displayed — in circles, accentuations, vibrations, tremors. I search what the lyrics of pop, rap, r&b, funk say to us without we ever really hearing them, masked in the rhythm in which we shake the body. I decontextualize. Of things private and public, of ritual, from before and today, all with no defined geography but the body itself. In all these, the femininity and masculinity of being a woman in a social and political space of power and vulnerability, claiming freedom, amusement, pleasure and pain. Reclaiming the body’s own space through extreme exposure and competition, or its castration and hyper-protection. The fear of an attack leaving the body up front in the struggle. It may be a manifest.


Anaísa Lopes a.k.a. Piny was born in Lisbon, in 1981. She finished a degree in Architecture in Lisbon, in 2007, then a post-graduation in set design. She started Middle Eastern dance classes, in 1999, and in 2003 shifted her focus to Hip Hop culture, creating an all-female crew — Butterfliesoulflow. In 2012, she finished a degree in dance in Lisbon, and founded the company Orchidaceae Urban Tribal —Breakdance, House, Waacking, Vogue and Tribal Fusion Belly Dance. She presented her first piece, “Corpo (i)lógico”, at Festival de Criadores Emergentes, in 2011. She choreographed Vhils’ piece “Periférico” for BoCA – Biennial of Contemporary Arts (2017). As a performer, she worked with Kwenda Lima, Filipa Francisco, Tiago Guedes, Victor Hugo Pontes, Ricardo Ambrózio, Tânia Carvalho, Marco da Silva Ferreira, Raquel Castro and Cristina Planas Leitão.