Ongoing Thought

With the director Eugênio Lima. Mediation by José Fernando Azevedo (USP)
March 18th, from 10am to 11am | Venue: Itaú Cultural

Crossing Dialogues

With Silvio Luiz de Almeida
March 19th after the performance | Venue: Auditório do Ibirapuera – Oscar Niemeyer rehearsal room

Essays Space

Check out the text by José Fernando Peixoto de Azevedo about the show The Mission in Fragments: 12 self-defense scenes of decolonization (only in Portuguese)

Synopsis

The Legítima Defesa (Legitimate Defense) group, created in the International Theatre Festival of São Paulo – MITsp in 2016, decided for Heiner Müller’s text The Mission: Memory of a Revolution, assuming the premise that not betraying the author would be the same as denying him. Three emissaries of the French Convention – Debuisson, son of a slave lord, Galloudec, an “almost-white” man, and Sasportas, a black man – go to English colony Jamaica in the winter of 1798/1799 to organize a slave revolt. As soon as they establish their first connections, they are struck by the news that Napoleon had seized power on November 9, 1799. Debuisson then interrupts the ongoing plan: believing that he did not have the support of the new regime, he betrays his companions Sasportas and Galloudec, surrendering them to British crown. In “The Mission in Fragments: 12 self-defense scenes of decolonization”, 15 black performers, actors, actresses, musician, DJ and director, are on stage. Other authors are used in the show to confront, articulate and reaffirm other visions and paradigms. The group introduces the need for a narrator change and a narrative change, as well as a change in the way of telling it. They defend decolonization and the voice of the dead, since the causes that killed them are still alive.

History

The Legítima Defesa (Legitimate Defense) is a group of artists, actors and actresses of poetic and political action, who discuss the depiction of blackness, its historical social unfolding and its reflection on the construction of the “black persona” in the scope of artistic languages. The group was first formed by black actresses and actors who were part of the Brazilian cast of Exhibit B, directed by the South African Brett Bailey. The show was about the exploitation in colonial and postcolonial Africa and it was challenged by black movements in Brazil. After the show was canceled for budgetary reasons, those involved decided, under the direction of Eugênio Lima, to create the poetic-political performance In Self Defense, presented at MITsp 2016.

Credits

Director: Eugênio Lima
Cast: Eugenio Lima, Walter Bathazar, Gilberto Costa, Luz Cabeiro, Junior Cabral, Mawusi Tulani, Jhonas Araújo, Renato Caetano, Palomaris Mathias, Tatiana Rodrigues Ribeiro, Nádia Bittencourt, Thereza Morena, Fernando Lufer, Luiz Felipe Lucas and Luan Charles
Production: Maia Gongora
Dramaturgy: Claudia Schapira
Body Training and Choreography: Luaa Gabanini
Vocal Preparation and Spoken Word: Roberta Estrela D’Alva
Musical Direction: Eugênio Lima and Neo Muyanga
Music: Eugênio Lima, Neo Muyanga, Roberta Estrela D’Alva, Luan Charles and Renato Caetano
Artistic Consulting: Daniel Lima
Set Design: Arianne Vitale
Photography and art: Cristina Maranhão
Vj / Audiovisual: Astronauta Mecânico
Animation: Beto Bassi
Light: LabLUXZ_by Paulinho Fluxus and Diogo Terra
Costume Designer: Claudia Schapira
Drawing in the scene: Renato Caetano
Sound Operator: Doctor Aeilton