Amanda Piña, To Bloom () Florecimiento, 2024 © Britt Ryckebosch
To Bloom ( ) Florecimiento
To Bloom () Florecimiento by Amanda Piña is a project exploring the ocean as a space of ancestral knowledge. Through artistic practices, the work reimagines our understanding of water—not just as a resource, but as a life-giving force that shapes bodies, identities, and ecosystems.
The project has been designed in two formats:
Stage Performance
This version of To Bloom () Florecimiento is an immersive performance installation designed for theatre stages. Its performers, a mixed cast of Amanda Piña's collaborators and local performers - dance students and professional dancers - are selected from a workshop led by the artist preceding the presentation. They embody the ocean as a place of origins, movement, transformation, and renewal.
The performance draws on cultural perspectives from mestizo, Indigenous, and Afro-descendant traditions, expressed through dance and sound. These traditions have been preserved and evolved across Abya Yala (the Americas), despite historical challenges.
The performance-installation explores oceanic movements inspired by ancient marine species such as sponges, cnidarians, mollusks, and echinoderms. It links these movements to the historical and contemporary flows of ocean currents, migrations, and human movement. By embodying these oceanic ancestors, the performance invites audiences to reflect on their relationship with the natural world and embrace the interconnectedness of all living beings.
Performative Sculptures
Under the title To Bloom () Prácticas de Florecimiento consists of an installation of seven performative sculptures performed by participants - dance students or professional dancers - of a workshop led by Amanda Piña in the place where the installation is on display.
The sculptures, made from handwoven textiles and movement, can be exhibited in museums, outdoor spaces, or unconventional venues such as port buildings and others.This installation is based on the movements of ancient animal species such as corals, anemones, sea urchins, and sponges that live underwater and whose bodies resemble flowers.
Amanda Piña connects them to the constant movements of ocean currents and human migration in order to bring forth another and embodied understanding of water ecologies and the origins of climate change, deeply connected with the transatlantic slave trade.The sculptures, activated during performances, invite you to think about being part of a web of invisible and visible relations.
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