Luiza Braz Batista is a choreographer, director, curator, producer and performer. Born in Vitória, Brazil, she began her dance career at a young age with Grupo de Dança Primeiro Ato in Belo Horizonte. At just 16 years old, she received her first award as a choreographer and started gaining experience as a producer. At 19, she completed her master’s degree in dance at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen. From 2009 to 2015, she worked at the Folkwang Tanzstudio, also in Essen.
Since 2008, she has been a guest dancer with Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch and since 2024, has worked as a rehearsal director for the Pina Bausch Foundation.
She has performed as a soloist in Susanne Linke’s "Frauenballett", Pina Bausch’s "Wind von West", "Zweiter Frühling" and "Orpheus und Eurydike" and has collaborated with renowned choreographers and directors such as Suely Machado, David Hernandez, Moya Michael, Emanuel Gat, Hannes Langolf, Thomas Dannemann, Maura Morales, Lucyna Zwolinska and Julio Cesar Iglesias Ungo.
From 2015 to 2018, she was a solo dancer with Susanne Linke’s company at Theater Trier, where she was also responsible for the company’s social media presence. From 2018 to 2022, she worked as an actress, choreographer and director in the acting ensemble of Theater Trier.
Currently, Luiza works as a freelance artist, building cultural bridges between continents. Her work is primarily connected to themes of identity, memory, and ancestry. She develops her own artistic projects and collaborates with various dance, theater and performance companies and collectives worldwide.
Beyond her artistic practice, she is an active member of the political group Trier für Alle, which was elected as the second-strongest force in the newly constituted Advisory Council for Migration and Integration of the city of Trier, in Germany.
In 2024, she curated the first edition of the ReConexão Africanidades Festival in Congonhas, Brazil, and is currently responsible for the development and production of the dance film festival "InCorPorAr" in Belo Horizonte, also in Brazil.
Since 2010, Luiza has been collaborating with Susanne Linke and contributing to the development of Susanne’s dance technique INNER SUSPENSION. Since then, she has also been teaching Modern Dance Technique, Movement Awareness, Tap Dance and Improvisation.
Improvisation has been a fundamental part of Luiza’s artistic journey since childhood, and she has always felt deeply drawn to it as a performance form. Since 2008, she has been working with painter, dancer and performer Milton Camilo, building a solid body of work that includes performances, installations and exhibitions rooted in improvisation.
Since 2014, Luiza has also been developing a music and dance improvisation project in collaboration with Malaysian multi-artist Ng Chor Guan.
In addition to her work as a performer and choreographer, Luiza is also a writer. Alongside her poetry and personal blog (Meu Caderno de Flores), one of her texts was published in the book Tausend Bilder und eins: Comic als ästhetische Praxis in der postmigrantischen Gesellschaft, edited by Angela Weber & Katharina Moritzen (Transcript Verlag).
SELECTED PRESS:
The Guardian
Opus - Kulturmagazin
Tanzweb
O Tempo
Trierischer Volksfreund