Graduation Performance 2026

Following their residency in Lausanne, the contemporary dance bachelor students at La Manufacture present a brand-new performance, supported by two acclaimed guest choreographers. Brazilian choreographer Lia Rodrigues took the lead. Her creations unfold like scores that energetically reveal the power of the collective, somewhere between organic outburst and collective rebellion. The students also worked with the Swiss dancer and choreographer Jeremy Nedd, whose work addresses racial and collective issues, and questions the means of building community in a hostile social and political climate. With this performance, the students definitively enter the professional dance world. 

• Jeremy Nedd is a Brooklyn-born choreographer and performer living in Switzerland. Nedd has worked for the Semperoper opera house in Dresden and for Ballett Basel. He is a guest artist connected with Schauspielhaus Zurich, where he collaborated with Trajal Harrell. He has also presented productions at Kaserne Basel, ROXY Birsfelden, Arsenic - center d'art scénique contemporain, Palais de Tokyo, and the Münchner Kammerspiele. He has previously appeared at KunstenfestivaldesArts, where Kaaitheater co-presented the production blue nile to the galaxy around olodumare in 2024.

• Lia Rodrigues was born in São Paulo, Brazil, in 1956 and studied classical ballet and history at the University of São Paulo (USP), where she participated in the São Paulo contemporary dance movement in the 1970s. In 1980 she joined Maguy Marin's company, where she stayed for two years. Upon her return to Brazil, she founded the Lia Rodrigues Companhia de Danças in Rio de Janeiro in 1990, which organizes year-round activities such as research, design, classes, and rehearsals. She combines activism with utopianism, and believes in the synergy between art and social processes.