Arika x Take Me Somewhere
We’re collaborating with Arika on two events from their programme Episode 12: From the Rivers to the Seas.
Oficina Theater, Elito Arquitetos and Lina Bo Bardi, São Paulo/SP, 1984 | Credit Nelson Kon
Teat(r)o Oficina - Power of Presence in the presence of Power
Fernanda Taddei
13 November 2026 | 10:30 - 12:00
Tramway (Studio) (Directions)
Discussion
Free and unticketed: first come, first served.
Fernanda will share some of the practice and history of Teat(r)o Oficina, one of the most important counter-colonial, radical theatre companies in the world, of which she is one of the directors.
Fernanda Taddei is one of the co-directors of Teat(r)o Oficina, along with Marília Piraju and Rodrigo Andreolli. Oficina is the longest-running theater and company in Brazil; and has made major contributions to the formation and history not only of the performing arts, but culture in Brazil in its broadest sense. In this event, Fernanda will join us to share some of the history and approaches from Oficina’s world important radical theatre practice.
Oficina has developed a host of approaches, tools and ways of being that contribute to its ongoing experimental practice of resistance and counter-colonial aesthetics. Their performances are rites in which the distinction between the individual and the chorus is constantly dissolved and remade. Tragedy becomes a horizon of organising, in which persecution, violence and even the 500 year colonial legacy of Brazil are things that can be overcome in the here and now. By combining the Brazilian cultural notion of anthropophagy (cultural cannibalism: devouring of the other) with group improvisation, their performances, especially under founding director Ze Celso, became a means to find in the body a collective lysergic way of wanting.
More context to be found at Arika’s website.
This event is part of Episode 12: From the Rivers to the Seas by Arika. For more events at the Episode visit their website.
Leda Maria Martins | Credit: Rafael Motto
Routes of Black Theatre in Brazil
Leda Maria Martins
13 November 2026 | 13:00 - 14:30
Tramway (T4) (Directions)
Discussion
Free and unticketed: first come, first served.
A rare conversation with Leda, who is the leading philosopher of Black Theatre in Brazil, exploring the specificities of its aesthetic, theoretical, and poetic intersections, and connection with African cultures, rituals, and philosophies.
Leda is the leading philosopher of performance and theatricality in Brazil. In the 80’s her hugely influential work theorised a specifically Brazilian practice of Black theatre—exploring the specificities of its aesthetic, theoretical, and poetic intersections—as well as its connection with African cultures, rituals, and philosophies. This thinking has yet to be translated into English, so this is a rare opportunity to engage with an important current in anti-colonial theatre and performance globally.
This conversation is a chance to engage with the thinking and practice of one of the major contributors to South American Black Theatre, and the understanding of theatricality in general.
Before Leda’s writing, theatre in South America was entirely understood through a colonial, Western set of references. Leda revolutionised this, by reframing Afro-Brazilian and Black theatricality in general through multiple other theoretical frameworks, including African ones, and Afro-Brazilian thinking. Broadening beyond Western hegemony, she was able to map, analyse, and understand more of the traits, traces, and marks that signalled the singularities, aesthetics, and politics of Black scenes and theatricalities. This was done not to essentialise or reduce a theatrical production to a single substance (phenotype or colour); but rather as an affirmation of specificities and differences. We can see here why her friend Denise Ferreira da Silva—who theorised the concept of difference without separability—loves Leda’s work so much.
More context to be found at Arika’s website.
This event is part of Episode 12: From the Rivers to the Seas by Arika. For more events at the Episode visit their website.