POL PI
Transmasculine dance artist from Brazil living in France since 2013, Pol Pi is interested in a broader understanding of the choreographic field. His works investigate memory and temporalities, language and translation, becomings and impermanence, with fragility and intimacy as safe havens.
He graduated in classical music from the University of Campinas (Brazil) and has a master degree in choreography from exerce/CCN of Montpellier (2013-2015). Before encountering contemporary dance, he studied music, theater and butoh, having already worked as an actor, a musical director and as sound designer for theater and dance shows and a short film, as well as signed the mise en scène of two comic operas. Pol worked as a professional musician for more than ten years (viola and rabeca), having accompanied important figures of the Brazilian music scene, such as Alzira E, Lucina, Déa Trancoso, Ivan Vilela, Tetê Espíndola, Ná Ozzetti and Ceumar.
Between 2010 and 2013, based in São Paulo, Pol made his first choreographic pieces, presented in several cities and festivals in Brazil, such as SESC Pompeia, Semanas de Dança / Centro Cultural São Paulo and Mostra Rumos Itaú Cultural. He produced and directed the 5 editions of the project Free to Fall São Paulo (an evening of artistic scratches) and as a dancer he collaborated with Marcelo Bucoff, Clarissa Sacchelli, Holly Cavrell, Keyzettaecia and Juliana Moraes. Since he arrived in France, Pol has performed for Eszter Salamon, Latifa Laâbissi/Nadia Lauro, Pau Simon, Aude Lachaise, Anna Anderegg and Anne Collod.
© Phil Dera
In 2016, Pol founded the company NO DRAMA in Paris and has since created the solos ECCE (H)OMO (2017), ALEXANDRE (2018), ME TOO, GALATÉE (2018), LÀ (2019) and Schönheit ist Nebensache ou la beauty is accessory (2021), as well as the trio DATED (2020) and the quartet IN YOUR HEAD (2022 - in collaboration with the Berliner music ensemble Kaleidoskop).
His shows have already been presented in Spain, Bulgaria, Croatia, Belgium, Germany, Brazil and the United States, as well as in many cities in France, in places or contexts such as the Centre national de la danse, the Rencontres Chorégraphiques Internationales de Seine-Saint-Denis, the Montpellier Danse Festival, the Musée de la Danse, the CNDC, Antistatik Festival/Sofia, Transforma Festival/Sevilla, NEXT Festival/Espace Pasolini, PACT Zollverein/Essen, La Raffinerie/Charleroi Danse, the Centre Pompidou, Mercat de les Flors/Barcelona, Tripostal Museum, MacVal, Akademie der Künste and Radialsystem/Berlin.
In 2019, Pol was one of the founding members of Trans'On'Danse, a series of dance workshops by and for transgender, non-binary, intersex and questioning people, set up in partnership with the Association Acceptess-Transgenres (Paris). He is also part of the Brazilian queer collective Danças em Transições, with which he directed and produced the film TANGLY (2021).
Pol was a resident at the Cité internationale des arts in 2018/2019 (winner of the Performing Arts commission), and for the 2018/2019 and 2019/2020 seasons he was artist in residence in the department of Seine-Saint-Denis (in partnership with the Rencontres Chorégraphiques Internationales de Seine-Saint-Denis and the city of Romainville). From 2019 to 2021, he was also in residency at the Collectif 12 in Mantes-la-Jolie.
His new project "the cave", produced by "Mondes Nouveaux", a program of the Ministry of Culture, explores trance as a creative tool. A residency showing of this project took place at Regard du Cygne (Paris) in November 2022.