Seminar I

Oficina, Bixiga, Lina

Enacting Resistance

1366943

Submitted in part fulfilment for the degree of MA Diploma in History and Business of the Contemporary Art Market

IESA/University of Warwick

December 2014

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Table of Contents  

PROLOGUE 1

ENACTING RESISTANCE ACT I - TEAT(R)O OFICINA 3

ACT II - LINA BO 5

ACT III - BIXIGA 8

ACT IV - CONVERGENCES 10

EPILOGUE 17

BIBLIOGRAPHY 19

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Prologue

Yes, lets go (Looks around) Let’s go.

A soldier at your side. Forward march!

Against the jungle of the city.

Bertolt Brecht1

São Paulo city, Brazil, 1969. A dictatorship was implemented five

years ago and a state of siege was declared in 1968. At this moment, a

monumental urban planning mistake was on its way: Elevado Costa e

Silva; a 3.5 kilometres elevated highway that inserted a scar in the city,

catastrophically transforming its landscape. Connecting the east side to

the city centre, Elevado also passes by the Bixiga neighbourhood, where Teat(r)o Oficina is located at Jaceguai Street.

Construction works of Elevado Costa e Silva in São Paulo, 1958

1 Bertolt Brecht, ‘In the Jungle of the Cities’, in Collected Plays – Volume I Part IV, eds. John Willet and Ralph Manheim (London: Eyre Methuen, 1980), p.61

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On September 1st in that same year, In the Jungle of the Cities was

performed for the first time at Teat(r)o Oficina. Inside the theatre the

scenario wasn’t that different from the city outside: much of the chaos had

been brought in. In a boxing ring laid beams, pieces of metal, concrete,

wood, rests of decapitated trees and demolished houses, that were taken

from of the ongoing construction works across the street. The

scenography was the first collaboration between Italian born architect Lina Bo Bardi and theatre group Teat(r)o Oficina.

Actors Othon Bastos and Renato Borghi on stage during In the Jungle of the Cities

In the Jungle of the Cities, an adaptation of the play written by a

young Bertolt Brecht, tells the story of Garga and his family’s struggle in

1920s Chicago, to make a living in the big city. The plot, written between

1918 and 1924, builds a discourse around intricate relationships

established within the fierce urban environment, reflecting on how its

inhabitants connect with their surroundings morally and socially. The play

also tells the story of a family that moves from the prairies to the big city, encountering hostility, sarcasm and brutality.

I believe In the Jungle of the Cities encapsulates an extensive and

significant bond between Lina Bo, Oficina and Bixiga; moreover, its

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theme certainly relates to the reality of most people who live around

Jaceguai Street, where Teat(r)o Oficina is situated since 1958. This triad

can be seen, both in what concerns their separate trajectories as well as

where their paths meet, as expressions of cultural, social and political

resistance. I would like to picture these complex interrelations by coming

from a micro to a macro level – from a specific moment in history, when

In the Jungle of the Cities might have provoked what would follow later, to

a broader conceptual setting, where I would like to analyse how and why the described landscape can be seen as a resistance enactment.

The present study relies mainly in literature concerning the

histories of Teat(r)o Oficina, Lina Bo and Bixiga neighbourhood, for a

factual understanding of their backgrounds; moreover primary research

was undertaken and Marília Gallmeister, the company’s scenic architect

since 2011, was interviewed, contributing with invaluable insider

information. Additionally, the works of Christian Norberg-Schulz and Henri

Lefebvre were essential theoretical resources that led to a

phenomenological approach when seeking to understand the points of

convergence, also enabling a macroscopic reading of culture, urban

planning strategies and its ideologies, bound by a broader conceptual frame.

Act I - Teat(r)o Oficina

In 1958 a group of students from São Paulo’s Largo São Francisco

Law School started a theatre company: Teat(r)o Oficina. Among them,

was José Celso Martinez Correa, who is until today the head of the

group. At that moment, Brazilian people had strong political expectations

for the country’s future, as architects Oscar Niemeyer and Lúcio Costa

were building the new capital, Brasília, from scratch. It was a very fruitful

moment for Brazilian theatre. Teatro de Arena, Teatro Opinião and Teatro

Brasileiro de Comédia, known as TBC, were also groups that flourished

then, sharing Oficina’s leftist political inclination; however, today only

Oficina conserves its vigour as an acting group.

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Oficina has been at the cutting edge of Brazilian and world theatre

since its foundation – it is best known for its transgressiveness and

boldness, producing plays that have critically reflected Brazilian cultural,

political and social state of affairs with a thorough understanding of the

country’s history. Important influences are the writings of Brecht,

Constantin Stanislavsky and Antonin Artaud. Also Influenced by

existentialism, Jean Paul Sartre himself collaborated with a text for the

program of A Engrenagem, an adaptation for theatre by José Celso and

Augusto Boal.2

Brecht’s theory is essential for underpinning a feature that can be

considered seminal for Oficina: the rupture of the audience-actor

hierarchy through the use of a theatrical space that substitutes the Italian

stage with the arena structure. For José Celso, the play is a proposition

open to the public, who in turn is responsible for signifying in reality what

they experience in the play. In more than 50 years of history, their plays

are not only ideological and philosophical statements but also demand

physical and intellectual the engagement from the public. Oficina, can be

seen today as more than just a theatre group, being an actual cultural hub

in an expanded sense, since their program includes music, literature, art

festivals, workshops and an active participation from the population of

Bixiga. Additionally, their propositions also tend to blur the boundaries

between art genres. In José Celso’s words, Active for 55 years now, always pulsating with our art towards the world

in its entirety with what Cacilda Becker called the “theatrical class”, we

create a new value for theatre. From the 40s to the 60s this started to

be seeded here in Sampã [São Paulo city] and above all, in Bixiga.

Even during the dictatorship period, theatre has played an enormous

role in a heroic fight against this system’s latter fall. With the shift from

military to financial dictatorship, theatre was relegated to ostracism,

succeeding only in its Northern-hemisphere cover version, now in total

decay, but here functioning as a marketing tool for “television

2 Edelcio Mostaço, Teatro e Política: Arena, Oficina e Opinião – Uma Interpretação da Cultura de Esquerda (São Paulo: Proposta Editorial, 1982), p.53

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commodity artists”. But Oficina Uzyna Uzona, with all the OficinaFobia,

has reconstructed from its own 60s DNA a productive company that

values this archaic and always contemporary art.3

It is with this expanded approach towards theatre, that Oficina has

become a centre of experimentation highly involved with its surroundings.

Today they have chosen to work not only as a theatre group, and shifted

the company’s name to Associação Teat(r)o Oficina Uzyna Uzona4, a title

that is almost impossible to translate for its intricate semantic

construction. This way of addressing themselves accordingly mirrors their

seeking for establishing new paradigms through language, may it be that

of popular culture or high art – in Oficina’s practice these merge into the same compass.

Act II - Lina Bo

With a holistic approach to theatre, issues as architecture and

urbanism have constantly permeated the group’s production. Lina Bo

Bardi played an important role on this strand, with a partnership that

started during the 60s with In the Jungle of the Cities, until in 1993, a year

after her death when the building where Oficina’s headquarters sit today

was finalised. The project was a collaboration between Lina and architect

Edson Elito, that started during the 80s. The building was graded as a 3 Jr., Dirceu Alves, ‘Veja São Paulo’, Nos 55 anos do Teatro Oficina, Zé Celso Martinez Corrêa desabafa: “o momento mais difícil é agora”, February 6, 2014, http://vejasp.abril.com.br/blogs/dirceu-alves-jr/2014/02/06/nos-55-anos-do-teatro-oficina-ze-celso-martinez-correa-desabafa-o-momento-mais-dificil-e-agora, consulted on December 1, 2014 [Com nossos 55 anos de atividade, sempre vibrando para o mundo todo com nossa arte, criamos, com o que Cacilda Becker chamava de “classe teatral”, um valor novo para o teatro. Dos anos 40 aos 60, isso foi sendo plantado aqui em SamPã e, sobretudo, no Bixiga. Mesmo durante a ditadura militar, por sua luta heróica, o teatro teve importância enorme em sua posterior queda. Com a mudança da ditadura militar para a ditadura financeira, o teatro foi relegado ao ostracismo, vingando somente um teatro cover do hemisfério norte, hoje em total decadência, mas que aqui é o instrumento mercadológico dos artistas commodities de televisão. Mas o Oficina Uzyna Uzona, com toda OficinaFobia, reconstruiu de seu DNA dos anos 60 uma companhia produtiva e valorizadora dessa arte arcaica e sempre contemporânea.] 4 Oficina literally means workshop, while usina is a large manufacturing plant. The express misspelling (Uzina) connects this word with Uzona, that by itself has no meaning while “zona” can be translated as a zone, but also means “a mess” or a “brothel area”.

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historical building by the Brazilian Institute of Artistic and Historic Heritage on July 18th, 2011.

Lina has an authorial architectonic style that influenced and

shaped Brazilian architectural tradition. Her projects bring together

aspects of modernist architecture, influenced by Mies Van der Rohe and

Corbusier, at the same time it holds characteristics that a very unique to it.

Iconic modernist materials are vastly present in her buildings: cement,

glass, iron, as well as sharp angles, clean shapes and economy of

details. A very particular feature that can be noticed in many of her

designs is a constant effort to connect the interior and exterior, not only

visually, but in a way that lines and shapes integrate indoors and

outdoors, creating a sense of mutual pertaining to whatever is in or

outside. For Lina, the sensual and spatial experience is an underlying

aspect of all her projects. ‘She intended to perceive her buildings not as discrete spaces, but as a means of perceiving the greater whole’.5

An internal view of the building: on the left the glass windows, on the right the

seating area. The stage is the walkway.

5 Joshua Mack, ‘Architecture – No boundaries, No limits - Lina Bo Bardi’, Modern Painters, February (2005), pp.44

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We can see all these characteristics in Oficina’s building. The

project has as its basis, as we see in many of Lina’s designs, elements

that are very representative of Brazilian popular culture – and in this case

creating a connection to Bixiga’s local culture (that will be addressed

shortly). From this perspective, two features can be highlighted. Firstly,

the building’s shape and the seats positioning are configured as a

‘sambódramo’, a place where every year the samba parade takes place,

one of the most popular events in Brazil. This parts with the classical

theatrical setting, enabling original choreographies for plays, at the same

time is connects the construction to a broader historical context, that of

Brazilian samba and carnival culture. Secondly, the theatre’s lateral wall

is all built in glass, both a modernist influence and one of Lina’s

signatures: the will to integrate the inside and the outside, the interior and

the exterior. The audience seats in the theatre and is able to see what’s

outside, in this case, Bixiga neighbourhood. Both actors and audience

never break with the urban exterior, at the same time the play becomes

part of it, creating a game between reality and enactment, physicality and sensibility.

Lina stated that ‘From an architectonic point of view, Oficina looks

at the true signification of the theatre – its Physic and Tactile structure, its

Non-abstraction – by deeply differentiating itself from cinema and TV, at

the same time it allows for a total incorporation of these media’ 6. Her

lines reinforce the idea that Oficina aims at a theatre that goes beyond

the genre, equally summarising her project and what the building signifies

in relation to Oficina. According to Marina Gallmeister, Lina’s ‘will to

develop an interplay between the theatre’s interior and the city, and more

than that, bonding with the immediacy of Bixiga’s neighbourhood, made

her incorporate the 100m2 window, creating a theatre bound to anti-

illusionism – not only regarding the building, but also making sure that

audience and actors never lost contact with the city’s and the cosmos’s

6 Lina Bo Bardi, Lina Bo Bardi (São Paulo: Insituto Lina Bo e P.M. Bardi, 1993), p.258

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here and now.’ 7 This means that there is a complementary relationship

between Lina’s and Elito’s architectonic proposal, and the theatre’s

conceptual framework, all aiming at theatre as an open artwork, that

connects to its audience on a broader level, extending itself past its walls while ontologically embracing its surroundings.

Act III - Bixiga Bixiga is a neighbourhood situated in one of the most traditional

areas of São Paulo city. Bixiga’s history is that of a conspicuously

heterogenic formation. When it emerged in the late 19th century, the

surroundings were mainly occupied by Italian immigrants whose influence

can still be noticed nowadays, for example, in the popular Acheropita

party. But before the immigrants arrived, the area around Saracura brook

was known to be a hiding spot for and occupied by runaway slaves. This

would origin the first “cortiços”8 , and also Cordão Vai-Vai Saracura,

renamed then to Escola de Samba Vai-Vai, nowadays still one of the

most important in São Paulo.9 The culture of samba and other afro-

descendant influences still remain at the core of the neighbourhood’s

identity, as Bixiga is also known for being a samba driven neighbourhood in São Paulo, with Adoniran Barbosa as one of its main protagonists.

During the 1950s, two important reconfiguring shifts happened: the

migration of people from the Brazilian northeast region, who went to São

Paulo mainly to work in construction works and factories, as at that time

industrialisation grew exponentially; and, the establishment of the many

theatres in Bixiga. Nowadays it is the neighbourhood with the highest

amount of theatre rooms per square meter in the city, and also known for 7 Marina Gallmeister, Teat(r)o Oficina’s scenic architect. Interviewed on November, 2014. [E seu desejo de fazer o dentro do teatro contracenar com a cidade e sobretudo, mais imediatamente com o bairro do Bixiga, fez ela incorporar ao projeto o janelão de 100m², que criou um teatro fadado ao antiilusionismo não só dentro do prédio, mas fazendo plateia e atores nunca perderem o contato com o aqui agora da cidade e do cosmos.] 8 Cortiços are houses where people live in precarious situtations, usually inhabited by many families who share small spaces, with no privacy and low infrastructure. 9 Cirrincione, Alessandra, ‘Brás, Bexiga/Bela Vista, Barra Funda: estudo antroponímico’, MPhil Dissertation (Universidade de São Paulo, 2010), p.62

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its theatrical scene that flourished in the 60s with names as Antunes Filho and Maria Della Costa.

On the left images of Bixiga, on the right its neighbour Paulista Avenue

Bordered by some of São Paulo’s main hubs, such as Paulista

Avenue, Bixiga differs drastically from its adjacencies; correspondingly, it

is seen by many as a geographical point of resistance within the urban

fabric of one of the world’s largest capitals. In comparison to the violent

processes of gentrification that many of São Paulo’s neighbourhoods

have been through, Bixiga was little affected, still maintaining its original

character. Brazil’s history is marked by deep social gaps, which are

largely reflected in its civic structures; in the case of urban configuration

causing a discrepant class-led distribution of population. But Bixiga is one

of the very few central neighbourhoods where, until now, a

heterogeneous population can be seen: the African and Italian

descendants have mixed with migrants from Brazil’s northeast region;

children can still be seen playing in the streets, something very rare in big

cities nowadays. In São Paulo, as in other capitals, government’s

neoliberal initiatives have given way to a high level of real estate

speculation, with developers and bankers taking over the city’s decisions

regarding urban planning issues. Subsequently, this caused large areas

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to be verticalised and the population to be homogenised, leading to the

loss of memory and character, lowering life quality and social interaction. But why did this not happen at Bixiga?

Final Act - Convergence

The story of Teat(r)o Oficina encounters that of Bixiga

neighbourhood in what relates to its geographical location, its history and

cultural body. In that sense, there is a synergic correspondence between

the two. A cultural and political resistance area, Bixiga can be seen as

inseparable from Teat(r)o Oficina’s history, while in turn, Oficina can also

be considered as a trigger of social and cultural awareness. I would like to

look again at these issues coming from a micro level, where I consider

the building itself, to then unfold Oficina’s exchange with the local

population, finally tackling the question posed in the previous paragraph – why does Bixiga still resists the process of gentrification?

In The Phenomenon of Place, Christian Norberg-Schulz looks

back at the Roman concept of genius loci – or the spirit of the place.

Schulz states that architecture has the power to make the environment

meaningful through the creation of specific places, as long as the user

develops a relationship with them. He also states that human identity is

largely related to that of the places, when people say for example ‘I am

Parisian’, or ‘I am a New Yorker’, it means that they build their conception

of themselves through what a certain place means to them. This way,

Schulz understands ‘phenomenology’s potential in architecture as the

ability to make the environment meaningful through the creation of

specific places’ – that is, places with identity and meaning.10 When

working towards the integration of the interior and exterior of the building,

Lina breaks an architectural paradigm by moving away from the

perspective that architecture is ‘the act of marking or differentiating a

10 Christian Norberg-Schulz, ‘The Phenomenon of Place’, in Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture – An Anthology for Architectural Theory 1965-1995, ed., Kate Nesbitt (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2003), p.412

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place in space’ and instead, merges the building with the very space it would delimit.

This way, I believe Oficina’s premises are integrated in Bixiga not

only for its history, but because the architectonic project has succeeded in

connecting what happens in its interior to what is outside: it has spread its

transgressive spirit, calling for the genius loci. The building not only

associates Teat(r)o Oficina with the local community, but actually means something to the people who live around the area.

Movimento Bixigão, for instance, is an ongoing project that started

in 2002, consisting of a multiplicity of actions that were undertaken since

then. The group has managed to reach around 800 children in difficult

social situations and to provide them with workshops that went from

sports to music. For their play Os Sertões (2002-2006), kids from the

area were engaged in forming a choir that travelled with the company

through Brazil and Germany. The play is an adaptation of the seminal text

by Euclides da Cunha and pictures the vicissitudes of life in the Brazilian

sertão.11 In another spectrum, a collaboration with Escola de Samba Vai-

Vai integrated young people in music lessons culminating with the

production of a record that led to a series of concerts.12 In 2010, the play

Macumba Antropófaga drove actors and audience through the streets of

Bixiga in a parade that the dwellers would join, dress-up and even recite

their own poetry. Gallmeister describes the people from Bixiga as ‘creative, curious and very willing to interact with art’.13

11 Sertões are the lands from the northeast region where draughts and poverty result in strenuous living conditions, 12 Teat(r)o Oficina Uzyna Uzona, Bexigão, http://www.teatroficina.com.br/plays/17, consulted on December 1st, 2014 13 Marina Gallmeister, Teat(r)o Oficina’s scenic architect. Interviewed on November, 2014.

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Scenes from the play Macumba Antropófaga

Schulz also mentions the importance of using the right terminology

when referring to our habitat: instead of living, he puts an emphasis on

the verb to dwell. What does it mean, to dwell? According to Lefebvre,

there is a connection between building, dwelling, thinking (and

speaking)… We are, he sums up, faced with a double demand and a

double movement: to think through the deeper existence of the human

being by taking dwelling as our starting-point – thinking of the essence of

Poetry as a form of ‘building’, a way of ‘making dwell’ [faire habiter] par

excellence.14 Lefebvre adds that whenever people are not gifted with the

possibility of living poetically, they will manage it the best way they can;

yet, in an over-commodified environment where advertisement rules and

exchange has been nearly abolished, poetry ceases to exist (and this is

the situation in the great majority of big cities, São Paulo included).15

However, we might think the opposite to be true: when given the

possibility to think and express themselves poetically, people can then

develop meaningful exchanges among themselves and their habitat,

leading to social configurations that will reproduce themselves,

particularly within a well developed cultural scene, by guarding the place’s memory, its history and its character – in a word, its spirit.

14 Henri Lefebvre, ‘Preface to the Study of the Habitat of the ‘Pavillon’, in Key Writings, eds. Stuart Elden, Elizabeth Lebas and Eleonore Kofman (London and New York: Continuum, 2003), p.122 15 Lefebvre (2003), p.82

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It is at this point where Oficina is inserted in Bixiga within the

capacity of a cultural, or even poetic stakeholder: by providing its

neighbours with tools for constantly reimagining themselves as a

community that has endless possibilities, and allowing the area to

perpetuate itself as a point of resistance, apart from processes of

gentrification, while also maintaining its authenticity. It is also relevant to

meditate on how, when people have the possibility to be imaginative it will

be harder for an area to be homogenised, an aspect that is central to

gentrification. According to Lefebvre, ‘every attempt to define the human

being through a single dimension or attribute fails under attack from

critical thinking. Similarly with any attempt to reduce to static

combinations the dynamics that make history. Therefore, let no one

assume the right to determine the fate of society by setting for its

members rules for their habitations, or modes of habitation. Invention and discovery must remain possible.’16

Oficina’s approach in relation to Bixiga is in accordance with the

ideas of Lefebvre. In a text written by Gallmeister and Carila

Matzenbacher, the scenic architects call attention to the lack of cultural

policies aimed at preserving Bixiga in its singularity through cultural

instrumentalisation, such as the possibility of including Bixiga in

UNESCO’s World Heritage List of Cultural Landscapes.17 This inclusion

means that the aim of this listing, that is ‘to reveal and sustain the great

diversity of the interactions between humans and their environment, to

protect living traditional cultures’18, would guarantee Bixiga’s protection by

an international agency. Today, even though the building that

accommodates the theatre, together with its surroundings, and other

venues of extreme cultural importance as Casa de Dona Yaya, TBC and

Vila Itororó, are all graded by the Brazilian Institute of Historical and 16 Ibid., p.124 17 Marilia Gallmeister, Carila Matzenbacher, ‘Teat(r)o Oficina Uzyna Uzona’, Um Corpo para o Bixiga, March 22, 2014, http://www.teatroficina.com.br/posts/772, consulted on December 1st, 2014 18 UNESCO, Cultural Landscapes, http://whc.unesco.org/en/culturallandscape/, consulted on December 1st, 2014

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Artistic Inheritance, there are no specific regulations to protect the area from predators as real estate investors.

In the minutes of Uzyna Uzona’s meeting from 2009, when he

group celebrated its 50th year, one of the propositions was to build

Bixiga’s Agora, constituted of a public square around and under Elevado

Costa e Silva, which should serve as a space for social interaction and

dialogue. ‘With live music and performances, but above all a place for

local people to meet each other, as well as people from the rest of the city

to mingle, talking about their problems, solutions and mainly about their

dreams. On the other side of the expressway, over two empty estates,

the ‘Memory Tower for São Paulo and Brazilian Theatre’ should be

built’.19 This is another important project that also relates to Oficina’s

engagement in the urban planning of São Paulo city. Anhangabaú da

Feliz Cidade can be considered an amplification of Lina Bo Bardi’s and

Edson Elito’s initial planning. It proposes a theatre shaped as a stadium

and adjoining buildings with a public program. The cultural conglomerate

would also surpass Elevado expressway, suggesting its vanishing as

such, something that has finally started to be discussed by São Paulo

city’s council this year. During the X São Paulo Architecture Biennial,

curator Guilherme Wisnik invited the group to collaborate with

architecture studio Vazio S/A and SUPERSUDAKA collective to engage

in a residency program in Oficina’s premises. In a think tank format, they

spent two months designing a project for Anhangabaú da Feliz Cidade.

The developed project again moves forward with Lina’s and Mendes da

Rocha’s projects, proposing a connection between Oficina, Praça

Roosevelt, Casa da Dona Yaya and TBC through a green cultural corridor,

connected by Elevado. It is a monumental project, which includes a

university, but that until now has not been carried out.

19 Teat(r)o Oficina, ‘Programa e Gestão do Anhangabaú da Feliz Cidade’, http://www.teatroficina.com.br/teatro_estadio, consulted on November 29, 2014

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A sketch for one of the proposals within Anhangabaú da Feliz Cidade project

Finally, I would like to mention the situation of the grounds behind

Oficina theatre. Even tough the building and its surroundings are graded,

one of Brazil’s main telecommunication groups, Grupo Silvio Santos, own

the lands behind the theatre space and at some point are willing to build a

shopping mall and a skyscraper on it, what would cause the view from the

windows to be obstructed, not to mention a fatal deviation from Bixiga’s

zeitgeist. More than being important for the company’s activities, the

grounds being commercially used mean the beginning of gentrification in

an area that is at the very heart of Bixiga. The disagreement between the

two parts have been going on for 34 years now, and after the building

was graded in 2011, the government proposed to the group that they

exchanged the lands for another estate. Silvio Santos group then signed

a lending contract with no fees involved. With that, Oficina has expanded

its program to the area and have been actively using it for its plays and

parallel activities. Now Silvio Santos group is trying to call off the

agreement, wanting the outdoor stairway that gives public access to the

building to be removed, and to regain possession of the land. Again, the

company is bravely resisting, looking for means of not letting Bixiga’s soul

be sold – legally and poetically. While waiting for the council and official

agents to act in their favor, on November 5, 2014 they did a “Rainbow

Teact for the Stairway” calling public attention to real estate speculation.

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José Celso remembers that stairways were one of Lina’s leitmotivs,

saying that it is where poetry and politics might meet. Norberg-Schulz,

also states that elements in a landscape can condensate what this

landscape signifies, such as a tree, an entrance or a stairway – every

element that forms a landscape plays a part in it. Resisting Grupo Silvio

Santos’s take over is an ideological and cultural statement that once

again reinforces the importance of the synergy between Bixiga and Teat(r)o Oficina.

A view from Grupo Silvio Santos grounds towards the theatre and the stairway to the left

José Celso and cartoonist Laerte during the “Teact” in November, 2014

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Epilogue

The theatrical scene that begun during the 50’s in Bixiga and that

has been largely manifested by Teat(r)o Oficina in its 56 years of

existence is one of the reasons, or circumstances, that provides the local

community with tools to reproduce itself poetically. Many actions that

socially integrate the people and that are truly engaged with local

specificities have been undertaken by Oficina, while in its building not

only plays take place but also music, literature and art festivals. The

cultural integration goes beyond the theatre headquarters and a circular

movement enables that the multiplicity of cultures that constitute Bixiga as

a cultural body to be incorporated by Oficina; in completing the cycle, the group offers back its symbolic weapons to the zone.

The question of what Bixiga resists can then be answered by

pondering its historical formation, which culminates in the brave standing

of an area that endures real estate speculation through culture and poetry.

Resisting real estate speculation means not giving way to artificial, vile

and homogenised gentrification processes that commodify social

relations. It also means that there is a cultural nucleus in Bixiga formed

by theatres, music groups, community associations, popular parties, that

are engaged enough to destabilise the current urban policies framework, understanding and responding to them by their own terms.

Teat(r)o Oficina is, in my opinion, a cultural axis pulsating with a

multiplicity of ideas. These ideas, when turned into projects or proposals

are sometimes so far reaching that they might seem utopic; yet, I prefer

to think of them as being prophetic. Through this prism, art can be

considered a trigger for new ways of thinking and relating to the world,

where the capacity of dreaming and imagining go beyond what is given,

or most of the times, sold to people as reality. It is in this sense that

poetry and beauty are able to permeate people’s lives and minds as tools

for rethinking the world, for relating with it differently and finally

uncovering paradigms, developing new forms of expression,

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reinvigorating language. Instead of merely reproducing ready-made models, in invention is where the possibility to resist lies.

Scene from the play Os Sertões – actors and audience merging in a single body

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Bibliography

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