Carmen S, Rizzo (she/her), from São Paulo, Brazil, is a freelance dancer/choreographer and a company member of KAIROS Dance Theater who is inspired by scientific perspectives on themes of universal human experiences. She graduated from the Boston Dance Theater trainee program and from Manhattanville College with a Summa Cum Laude and highest honors double degree in Dance and Theatre (Dance concentration) and Business Management (Psychology minor). She successfully completed the 8-year professional training program at Escola de Dança de São Paulo (EDASP), culminating in experience with Balé da Cidade de São Paulo and Ballet Stagium. She had the opportunity to work with choreographers such as Akram Khan, Shannon Gillen, Shawn Bible, Mike Esperanza, Leah Ives, Michaela McGowan, Yoshito Sakuraba, Julia Ehrstrand, Max Stone among others. She also performed works by Martha Graham, George Balanchine, Itzik Galili, Yin Yue, Rena Butler Micaela Taylor, Marco Goeke and Ohad Naharin.

 

         Carmen’s dance films have been featured in festivals such as Homegrown, Shut in Dance Festival, Manhattanville’s Film Festival and the DFA College Exchange (Lincoln Center, NY). A recent guest artist at her alma mater, she has also had the opportunity to present her own work in local festivals such as ArtBeat, LabWorks, NACHMO Boston, Roots & Routes, Salem Arts Fest, Dance for World Community, WeCreate and Boston WiP, and in her first self-produced show  "Unchosen". She has recently been seen performing in works by Kristin Wagner, Grant Jacoby, Chavi Bansal, Rachel Linsky, Alex Nunweiler and Madison Florence in the Boston area and beyond. Carmen has been honored to be a recipient of the Boston Moving Arts Creative Soul Residency in 2024, the 2025 We Create Fellowship and be a part of the 2025 Rough Drafts Cohort.

 

         She is also currently a dance teacher, Pure Barre instructor, BTPT and AAHC Social Media Manager, BEATS Social Media and Community Engagement Manager, and Dance Church lead teacher in Boston.

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         Carmen is passionate about discovering and exploring dance in everything “non-artistic”, especially in science, pulling artistic concepts from neuroscientific research. While diving into articles, papers and books on how the human neurological system works, she envisions choreography that relates the science to lived experiences. Part of the goal is to make very rational and exact concepts (that sometimes are difficult to understand and find relatable) into abstract emotional experiences through dance (that many times can be relatable without the need to be fully understood). Taking into consideration her multicultural upbringing, it is an essential part of all her work to involve artists of different fields as well as those with a variety of perspectives and lived experiences. Not only does that enhance Carmen’s work by enriching the pool of knowledge to pull ideas from but it also allows her work to elevate the voices of those who haven’t always had the opportunity to be heard, making the work more relatable to diverse audiences.