Rezas e Folhas

National Dance Project Winner & Viver Brasil’s latest Work in Progress

In 2024, Viver Brasil received its second National Dance Project Production Award from the New England Foundation for the Arts to create Rezas e Folhas. The work is a genre-defying original performance ritual by Co-Artistic Director/Choreographer Vera Passos, that posits Afro-Brazilian traditions of sacred herbalism as urgently necessary interventions against ever-growing acts of climate injustice.  Rezas e Folhas seeks to act as a ritualized intervention within this reality, uplifting our sacred connection to earth–and the Black and Indigenous knowledge from the Caboclo and Orixá practices that preserve this wisdom–as key to our collective reimagining of alternate life-affirming futures that have the power to heal in Passos’ contemporary gestural language. 

Passos states, “I am nourished with my inherited ancestry, “my ancestralidade”, the orixa, the caboclo, the samba, the reflection and memory of ancient and spiritual stories, show us ways in which to understand our body, the home of our memories that bring cures and healing. We dance with the earth’s wisdom, I invite the company as interpreters of our collective and individual memories, we dance with our audiences, and we welcome new friendships in this encounter, which we call Rezas e Folhas, affirming our potential to heal in community celebration. 

UPCOMING PERFORMANCE:

October 17 & 18, 2025 at 7:30pm

Sierra Madre Playhouse (Tickets available here)

PERFORMED AT:

2023: Grand Performances Los Angeles, CA

2023: Art & Practice Los Angeles, CA

2024: Park Avenue Armory (Choreographer Solo) New York, NY

2024: Nate Holden Performing Arts Center, Los Angeles

PREMIER:

Fall 2026: The Ford Theatre Los Angeles, CA

Viver Brasil intends to tour the US and beyond as early as late Fall 2026 and seeks presenter partners for the premiere and subsequent touring. Please click below for more information and how to book Rezas e Folhas.