Biography

Born in 1998, Rafael Candela is an italian brazilian dance artist. He trained at the "Paolo Grassi" School in Milan, the Biennale Teatro in Venice, and the "DanceWEB" program at the Impulstanz Festival, where he was selected with a scholarship. As a performer he collaborated internationally with choreographers such as Alexis Vassiliou, Simona Bertozzi, Nicola Galli, Sharon Fridman, Ariella Vidach and others.

His first work, Forrest, an itinerant site-specific practice, has been presented in several contexts (FOG/Triennale Milano, Danza Urbana, IIC Paris) and won Domino Pubblico's selection call and prize. This project, supported also by Outdoor Arts Italia, received a special mention in 2023 from Bodyscape, an initiative by Danza Urbana in Bologna.

In 2025 he is a selected artist for "Nouveau Grand Tour", promoted by the Italian Ministry of Culture, with a residency at Le Centquatre in Paris.

His artistic practice, still in its early stages, is based on immersing his body in urban spaces, creating associations, encounters, and sometimes small accidents. With a soft spot for irony, Rafael embraces the use of the body in search of a presence in a heightened state of alertness, seeking to balance external stimuli with his own imagination.

Artistic project

Forrest, a bunch of people is a project based on performativity in public spaces, exploring the role and presence of bodies within them and how they can manipulate the atmosphere, seeking encounters, interactions, and relations with both accidental and aware audiences. The desire is to search for a sense of community and ease within spaces that seem to limit and regulate human behavior, reimagining them instead as arenas for expression and sharing.

The project takes the form of a group performance and originates as a continuation of the solo Forrest, which is still active and touring, a piece characterized by a site-specific, itinerant nature and strong interactive elements in typically crowded spaces. The aim is to involve a group of local professional performers and, by sharing the tools and methodologies developed in the previous work, to create a brand-new performance each time the project is hosted by a festival.

Format: residency + performance

Size of audience: variable

Specific location: urban spaces such as roads, squares, parks, a moderately populated environment 

Timing / duration: one week residency + 30 min performance