Puff Alice Ripoll / Hiltinho Fantástico

Puff: A Dance of Transformation

Puff is a performance that takes the spectator into a world of continuous, spontaneous transformation. Hiltinho Fantástico enters the stage and his body seems to take on a life of its own. It is dragged along, accelerated, to plunge into a hectic movement. The dancer alternates between control and surrender. His feet tap at lightning speed along different dance styles, while his body sometimes floats and then abruptly collapses. Every breath, every pause, the rhythm of his body; everything becomes dance. The performance also explores the body as a place where memory, imagination and change come together.

The cultural depth of Puff

This solo builds on a years-long collaboration between Alice Ripoll and Hiltinho Fantástico, who worked together within the dance companies SUAVE and REC. These companies develop a hybrid dance language that combines contemporary dance with Brazilian urban dance forms. Ripoll and Fantástico have already worked together on international performances such as Cria, Lavagem, aCORdo and Zé De Franca. The piece also explores the concept of ‘concealment’ as a means to pass on cultures that would otherwise disappear in silence, by hiding techniques, messages, traditions or ancestral knowledge.