Lake Machine

In LAKE MACHINE, Mari Paula reinvents—with determination and sensitivity—the classical universe to which women have been bound for centuries. Drawing from the traditions of ballet and theatre, the Brazilian choreographer based in Cantabria reclaims three iconic figures—Odette and Odile from Swan Lake, and Ophelia from Hamlet—to free them from the roles of victims, madwomen, or martyrs imposed by the “boys” who wrote their stories.

The piece is a contemporary and visceral response to the classist, white, and patriarchal logic that has shaped these works for more than twenty-five centuries. Yet LAKE MACHINE does more than rewrite the fate of these characters—it also becomes a profoundly autobiographical act, as the director confronts the grief of her three stillborn daughters and transforms that intimate pain into a liberating choreography.

Here, madness is neither punishment nor destiny; love is not sacrifice; death is not drama; and gender is a fluid terrain. The music of Tchaikovsky and José Venditti enters into dialogue with the stage, opening spaces where the female body and its multiple identities not only exist but demand presence and recognition.

LAKE MACHINE is a mechanism that beats with its own life force. It is vital humidity—an organic dimension that dismantles the machinery of structural power on stage and offers an emancipatory vision that challenges both performers and spectators. A work that transforms classical tragedy into the light the choreographer could not reach in her personal life.

Lívia Delgado was part of the research process supported by the Goethe-Institut and later worked as assistant director for the creation, which premiered in Cantabria in September 2025.