Amanda Piña, To Bloom () Florecimiento, 2024 © Britt Ryckebosch
To Bloom ( ) Florecimiento
To Bloom ( ) – Florecimiento by Amanda Piña explores water as a sacred, fluid force and the ocean as a site of ancestral knowledge, resistance, and transformation. Developed as part of Endangered Human Movements Vol. 5, it unfolds in two interconnected formats: an immersive installation performance and a sculptural-installative space for shared practices.
The immersive performance version, created with Afro-Brazilian artist Nyandra Fernandes and a diverse ensemble, moves through dance, sound, and ceremony. Drawing from the deep memory of marine life—sponges, jellyfish, mollusks—it engages with the violent histories carried by the Atlantic Ocean: slavery, colonization, forced migration. But it also makes space for something else—survival, adaptation, and the re-emergence of ancestral spiritual knowledge. The performance becomes a living act of resistance, where Orishas reappear, and water is honored not as a resource, but as life itself.
The second format, Prácticas de Florecimiento, presents large-scale performative sculptures—hand-woven nets and textile works that double as spaces for transmission. Here, visitors can engage in workshops that center collective and bodily practices for adapting to environmental crisis. Through movement, touch, and imagination, participants explore what it means to become fluid, to unlearn modern-colonial understandings of the body, and to re-member themselves as part of a multispecies, oceanic lineage.
Together, both versions of To Bloom ( ) – Florecimiento invite a rethinking of how we relate to water, the body, and the more-than-human world. They call us into a future rooted in ancestral memory—where life blooms not through dominance, but through connection, fluidity, and care.
CREDITS
Artistic direction
Amanda Piña
Created in collaboration with
Nyandra Fernandes
Integral design
Michel Jiménez
Dramaturgy
Nicole Haitzinger
Assistant Choreographer & Research
Inés Sofía Cardona Parra
Creative Adviser
Mae Celina de Xangó
Choreography and Dance (original creation)
Nyandra Fernandes, Layza da Rocha Soarez, Zora Snake, Amanda Piña and the students of second year of the Bachelor of dance of the conservatory of Antwerp, Vera Asunción, Olivia Busquets, Moreu Bianca, Neyre Caroppo, Joséphine Chaix, Szczurek Linde, Engelen Lluna, Galarza Tomàs, Gispert Jiménez, Aster Henderieckx, Julie Leysen, Silas Martens, Dominika Novak, Tuur Sweerman, Oliver Vilhelmsen, Daniel Garcia, Emily Jane Steele, Joanne Jacob
Performative Sculptures
Amanda Piña / Estudio Fortuna
Costumes
Federico Protto / Rheremita Cera
Traditional costumes and masks
Afrobrazilian traditional
Makeup and body painting
Rheremita Cera
Sound Design
Dominik Traun
Technical Direction
Marcelo Daza
Light
Emilio Cordero Checa
Production
Amanda Piña/ Studio Fortuna
Co-production
De Singel
Funded by
Cultural Department of the City of Vienna, Arts and Culture Division of the Federal Chancellery of Austria
CREDITS (Performative Sculptures)
Artistic direction
Amanda Piña
Integral design
Michel Jiménez
Assistant Choreographer & Research
Inés Sofía Cardona Parra
Performative Sculptures
Amanda Piña / Estudio Fortuna
Costumes
Rheremita Cera
Sound Design
Michel Jimenez
Music
Christian Müller
Produced by
Amanda Piña/ Estudio Fortuna
Coproduction
De Singel
Funded by Cultural Department of the City of Vienna Arts and Culture Division of the Federal Chancellery of Austria