Born in 1955 in a poor district of São Paulo, Ismael Ivo became one of the world’s most famous and successful dancers. As instigator and director of festivals like the ImPulsTanz Festival in Vienna, he shaped dance history. He has now become a figure symbolizing Afro-Brazilian emancipation. I Believe in the Body brings together interviews from different periods of his creative career, visual essays by Anno Wilms and Dieter Blum, and a comprehensive catalogue raisonné.