Nominated for the Latin Grammy in 2022 in the category 'Best roots music album in Portuguese', Iara Rennó is a high voltage body. It goes from acoustic to electronic, from experimental to song, in an intense and diverse musical production that cannot be reduced to a single style or a single voice. It is in plurality that Iara asserts her uniqueness. Creates and presents multilingual projects covering poetry, music, video art; literature, theater, dance. It deals with female sexual power and reverence for the cultures of native peoples by expressing decolonial and aphrodiaspora art.

 

Born into a family of artists - the Espíndola family - Iara began singing alongside her mother, Alzira E, and was vocalist in the band of the great master Itamar Assumpção for three years. Artist of perennial expansion, she is a singer, instrumentalist, producer, performer, actress, poet, producer and music director. A prolific composer, she has more than 100 songs recorded by great names in Brazilian music such as Elza Soares, Ney Matogrosso, Gaby Amarantos, Jaloo, Ava Rocha, Virgínia Rodrigues and Lia de Itamaracá. He worked in collaboration with international artists such as Quantic, Anita Tijoux, Project Compass, among others.

 

In 2021, his first film “Transflorestar – Ato I” was released at the 19th International Literary Festival in Paraty. A hybrid work with direction, script and acting by Iara Rennó, editing and video art by Mary Gatis, art direction by Alma Negrot and guest appearances by Curumin and Ed Trombone, Transflorestar reviews the world through the forest while promoting dialogues between music, poetry, visual arts and body, proposing the subversion of anthropo-phallo-Eurocentrism and the supremacy of Cartesian thought over feeling. In partnerships with Thalma de Freitas, Ava Rocha, Tetê Espíndola and Alzira E., but also in the inspiration sought in the reports of Davi Kopenawa and in the speeches of Ailton Krenak, in fragments of texts by Eduardo Viveiros de Castro and in the echoes of Makunaimã in Macunaíma , the film incorporates the possibility of a “(M)otherworld”, legacy of the Burkinabe philosopher Sobonfu Somé, and Lélia Gonzalez's perspective on “Améfrica”. Everything takes place in a dreamlike universe inhabited by Xapiri and Orisá, in which the roots of Yãkõana and Iroko are found under the Atlantic Ocean.  

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In the first half of 2021, he released the album “Pra Te Abraçar” and the homonymous webseries, made from different musical encounters. The videos add up to 30 songs and provide an overview of the composer's production during the confinement of the pandemic in 2020. They feature in the episodes Thalma de Freitas, Lucina, Céu, Peri Pane, Curumin, Alzira E, Ava Rocha, Duda Brack, Gustavo Galo , Julia Rocha and Josyara.  

 

Produced in 2020, AphrodisiacA is a synesthetic and intersemiotic project, bringing together  poetry, music, video art, web series and even gastronomy. AfrodisíacA - the album - is a hybrid of music and poetry, being released in October 2020, featuring artists such as Elza Soares, Camila Pitanga, Alice Ruiz, Josyara, among others.

 

2019 was a year marked by two major projects: the musicals Macunaíma Ópera Tupi - Transcriação (SESC Vila Mariana, SP, February - creation, performance and general direction) and Pretoperitamar - O Caminho Que Vai Dar Aqui (SESC Pompéia - acting and co- musical direction).  

 

During 2018 and 2019, the artist carried out a series of activities related to the commemorations of 90 years of the book Macunaíma – the Hero Without Any Character, celebrating 10 years of her album Macunaíma Ópera Tupi. There were concerts, show classes and debates in theaters, cultural centers, universities, festivals, fairs and literary exhibitions in Brazil and Portugal. To crown it all, the digital release of the disc by Selo SESC and the re-assembly of its great macunaímica opera.  

 

In mid 2018, he launched his first children's project, Iaiá e os Erês – with a record and a show. In it, Iara is Iaiá – a parallel character to the one who works on the Pratinho da Iaiá program (TV Rá Tim Bum/ TV Cultura), for which he composed the soundtrack. The album features new songs with various partners, including children, sons and daughters of partners such as Ava Rocha, Anelis Assumpção, Curumin, Moreno Veloso, Nina Becker. The album is produced by Iara and Lucas Martins, graphic art by MZK.

 

In June 2016, he released the twin albums ARCO and FLECHA (ybmusic/ Selo Circus), with FLECHA being produced in partnership with Curumin, and Arco (where Iara signs the production) recorded together with the multi-artists Mariá Portugal and Maria beraldo.  

 

At the end of 2013 he launched IARA (Jóia Moderna) produced by Moreno Veloso and a band formed by Ricardo Dias Gomes (band Cê, by Caetano Veloso, and Do Amor) and Leo Monteiro (Orquestra Imperial and Duplexx).

 

In 2008 it was the turn of the great Macunaíma Ópera Tupi (SESC label, 2008), thematic album made from fragments of Macunaíma - the Hero Sem No Character, by Mario de Andrade, with the participation of artists such as Tom Zé, Siba and Barbatuques, among many others. The production turned into the musical Macunaíma no Oficina – Ópera Baile, set up in 2010 at the anthological theater of Zé Celso.  

 

During 2017, Iara launched the first documentary about her work, Afiando a Flecha; circulated in different formats of shows throughout Brazil, started the #feministic project; debuted in cinema with a participation in the film 'A Moça do Calendar' (by Helena Ignez); recorded his first television work on TV Rá Tim Bum; and ended the year singing with Elza Soares – the singer of the millennium and the greatest muse of ARCO and FLECHA.  

 

In June 2015 Iara launched her first literary adventure, the book of erotic-comic poems Lingua Brasa Carne Flor, in a very limited edition by Editora Patuá. Also in 2015, she circulated with the show DRAMA – interpreting Maria Bethânia's original album.  

 

In partnership with Cibelle, Ruben Jacobina and Do Amor, he presents the original marching album ABRA Pré-Cá (ST2, 2012).

 

In 2009 Iara conceived and carried out the multimedia project ORIKI IN CORPORE – Sound Installation, an exhibition of 12 parts totaling 400 square meters at the Museu Afro Brasil, an unprecedented work of musical and sensorial creation based on poems for orixás from the millenary Yoruba tradition.  

 

Her first authorial project in music was DonaZica – a band headed by Iara, Andreia Dias and Anelis Assumpção – feminist and author, who released the albums Composition and Filme Brasileiro, in 2003 and 2005, respectively.

 

Solo Discography:  

 

• To Embrace You (Iara Rennó, 2021) 

• AphrodisiacA (Iara Rennó, 2020) 

• Iaiá and the Erês (ybmusic, 2018) 

• Arco (ybmusic/ Selo Circus, 2016)

• Arrow (ybmusic/ Selo Circus, 2016) 

• IARA (Gem  Modern, 2013)

• Macunaíma Ópera Tupi (SESC seal, 2008)