Cecilia Lisa Eliceche
Cecilia Lisa Eliceche (1986), sometimes known as Quilomba Yupanki, is a dancer, choreographer, dance advocate and bruja born in east Wallmapu terrority, known today as south Argentina. Her heart and feet are rooted in the territories of Abya Yala where she became who she is. She’s eternally thankful to her mum, dad and sister: Maite Eliceche, Maite Lisa and Cesar Ruben Lisa, for their love.
Her institutional dance education started in the local public free dance conservatory of Bahia Blanca. She has been fed by learning and dancing various popular dances such as cumbia, tango, milonga and danzas vascas. At the age of 18 she moved to Brussels to study 4 years in the Training and Research Cycles at P.A.R.T.S., the school of Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker. In between she was invited as a guest student to Movement Research in NYC.
She trained in Capoeira Angola with Mestra Ritinha from 2017 until her passing in 2019. As a dancer she has performed for DD Dorvillier, Claire Croize, Etienne Guilloteau, Eleanor Bauer. With Heather Kravas she has been working for more than 10 years. She is assistant to ballet master Janet Paneta. She has collaborated with Natalia Martirena, Ayelen Parolin and Manon Santkin.
Since 2016, she has had the honour of crafting and cultivating experimental art together with Brazilian artist Leandro Nerefuh, most prominently the epic one-month series “Orphic Exuberance vs. Solar Capitalism” during KunstenFestivaldesArts in 2018. She is devoted to practicing anti-colonial narratives, the erotic, conjurations and touch.
Her first work as a choreographer was a female trio that won the prix Jardin d’ Europe for “its intense physical investigation of construction dynamics and social relationships”. Her work “Unison” (2014) is a queer feminist quartet based on weaving and erotics. Her Dancerly Lecture: “The ghost of Lumumba” (2017) is an anthropological study of the Flemish cultural field. It is a reaction to working in a context of white supremacy and deep structural racisms. She lives her “Touching Sessions”, touch experiments, and devotion to exploring the erotic as a counter action to the violence of colonialism.
In 2017, she received a Master in Choreography from DAS in Amsterdam. She graduated with her Conjuration “Caribbean Thinkers for a New Europe” with the excellent guests and collaborators Teresa Maria Diaz Nerio, Nadia Ellis, Gloria Wekker, Quinsy Gario, Leandro Nerefuh and Jennifer Tosch. She has been twice invited as a guest researcher in the English Department at UC Berkeley by professor Nadia Ellis to study Black, Caribbean studies and Post-Colonial theory.
In 2018, she received a post-graduate in Decolonial Feminism and Andean Thought from IDECA (Instituto de Estudio de las Culturas Andinas) and GLEFAS (Grupo Latinoamericano de Estudio, Formación y Acción Feminista) in Puno, Peru. She had the honour of studying with great feminists of Abya Yala such as Angela Y. Davis, Rita Segato, Carmen Cariño, Ochy Curiel, Yanet Medrano, Judith Butler and others.Since 2018 she’s been developing her research on afro-diasporic dances with the mentorship of legendary scholar and living library: Nancy de Souza (Dona Cici).
In 2014 Carine Meulders invited her to be an artist in residence at wpZimmer, where Cecilia continues to this date.
Currently, she is based between Salvador de Bahia and Brussels and, together with Leandro Nerefuh, has devoted the past year and coming ones to dive in the deep waters of Ayiti.
Note for theatres and others: for a shorter version of Cecilia’s bio please contact wpZimmer.