Insurgency in times of scarcity by Guilherme Marques

by Guilherme Marques, Founder and Production Director To become insurgent in times of scarcity has always been my challenge. I have always sought in artistic making the strength to transform scarcity into something crucial to bring about exchange, knowledge and dialogue. Throughout my course I have had many successful projects and others not so much, however, I remain committed as a citizen in the search and dignity of my artistic and intellectual choices. However complex our work may be, in a country where the artist is made invisible and marginalized by a large part of the population, this challenge makes the task a stellar effort! Do we resist or die?! In Brazil's current political situation, I propose to review my "convictions", "truths" and "certainties" before such dehumanization and authoritarianism. As a cultural manager and producer, I bring the thought and debate on the friction between idealization and execution of projects. Because the often-bureaucratic standoffs and the late responses of the resources to carry out the festivals, beside increasing the costs make us all sick. It is urgent and necessary for both public and private authorities to rethink the times and the ways of producing culture in our country. Medium and long-term planning has a direct impact on expenses reduction and gives greater visibility to both artistic actions and supporting institutions. Therefore, we all win. I believe the cultural sphere is a power! It is quite clear, through previous studies, that this is one of the sectors that generate more wealth for our country. I mean, we are talking about a labour market that generates millions of jobs. It is urgent to have in our hands the culture economic indicators in order to know exactly the power and wealth generated by the sector. That is why within the current scenario I appeal to all of us artists to organize around a national movement to develop this survey and show the strength of our area! Taking as an example MITsp 2020 edition, we generated something around 150 direct jobs and 300 indirect jobs. We put hotels, restaurants, theatres, public transport in motion, pay taxes and, in addition, we promote 63 free reflective and educational activities, 12 international shows and 13 national shows. With MITbr Platform Brazil - Program for the Internationalization of Brazilian Performing Arts, one of the four axes of MITsp, we created a direct dialogue with 68 national and international programmers aiming at the circulation of Brazilian artists in festivals and exhibitions around the world. In just two Platform editions we had the evidence of shows and artists being invited to perform at many festivals. Which shows the strength and the distinction of our artistic production. I regret that the three spheres of government have not yet developed public policies aimed at the internationalization of our artists. Is it not time to have a parliamentary group that advocates for our causes? Finally, I want to acknowledge our partners for their acceptance, be it economic or even hosting actions in their venues, as it would be impossible to hold the São Paulo International Theatre Festival without their support. I have always been grateful to Banco Itaú, Itaú Cultural, Secretaria Municipal de Cultura, Secretaria Estadual de Cultura e Economia Criativa, Sesc São Paulo, Sesi-SP, Sabesp, Porto Seguro, Veólia, Instituto Francês de Paris, French Consulate in São Paulo, Goethe-Institut and German Consulate in São Paulo, Pro Helvetia, British Council, Cultura Inglesa, Instituto Italiano, Instituto Camões and Consulate of Portugal in São Paulo. Thank you very much for believing and encouraging this Festival in such troubled times!

At The Third Bell by Antonio Araujo

by Antonio Araujo, Founder and artistic director of MITsp A Festival not only entertains, but provokes, agitates, convulses. It creates outburst and produces bleeding. It confronts, as the nature of art always doubt the right, the solid, the smooth and the round. When it shows, it is more about the blind spots. If it hides, it is only provisionally, as a dramaturgical effect to what will be later revealed. A Festival doesn't wish to save anything or anyone. Perhaps, at best, it will help save us from ourselves. But we don't need to be saved by any country, family or religion. Damnation can be an option. Mainly because asexual and abstinent paradises are the very image of hell. Conversely, we want gluttony. How many gods are yet to be created to mask oppression and expropriation mechanisms? On the other hand, when our gods exist, they push us to life, to party, to the game. They intoxicate us until we laugh out loud at our pointless tragedy-comedy. A Festival has no nation. The participating countries are the artists themselves: the country Andréia Pires, the country Tiago Rodrigues, the country Janaina Leite, the country João Fiadeiro, among many others in this 7th edition of MITsp. All of them constituted by a cartography without borders, full of edges and folds, cliffs and surfaces. In our non-delimited territories, we despise the idea of people, so dear to the new authoritarian populists. We are a heterogeneous crowd and we believe in sharing the common. We also reject the idea of a homeland, as it creates a strained and false belonging that threatens our bastard freedom. We are prodigal children, pink-sheep, jilted or unwanted – but our brothers, we are the ones who choose them. In the lands we occupy, we don't sing anthems or raise flags, so that the nationalism cancer dies of starvation and quits multiplying. Therefore, our art will never be national or heroic. In fact, a Festival has no heroes, it is built, little by little, by countless people. Workers like any other, even if they are denied or made invisible to that status. We must understand that the cicada and the ant inhabit the same bodies. And, for not having heroes, a festival is a vulnerable organism. It can end at any time, because those who work on it also feel exhausted, become weak, get sick in the face of continually adverse contexts. A Festival is not binary, but transdisciplinary and also transgender. That's why it's against the conninvence and the invisibility of daily transphobia. It's urgent to denaturalize violence and the cult of ignorance to which we are being subjected by those in charge of this country. We must fight any political power that seeks to imprison our bodies and libidos. Our desires are as fluid as our genders. We are proudly out of the box. And we don't cut corners. Thus, no moralistic crusade will convert us. A Festival has no bibles or tablets of law. It is the exercise of contradiction, failure, groping in the dark, uncertainty, discomfort. And although the hunting season in Brazil for artists is in full swing, in the end, we will wreck rifles and revolvers. As there is no Index that makes us banned for a long time. The new religious inquisitions won't resist and will be excreted through the holy holes. And the hypocritical conservative manipulations, which they call “curatorship”, which is actually “censorship”, will be unmasked. That a Festival, perhaps this one, can help us to leave Hamlet's inaction towards fighting barbarism. May the shows presented in it help us to overcome collective depression, anesthesia, indifference and dangerous complacency. Let it offer antidotes against paralysis and other states of catatonia. Economics cannot be a justification for obscurantism. Under no circumstances. Therefore, let our bodies be involved, let our voices be activated, let our senses be enlarged and that all this could be shown. The third bell just sounded. Welcome all to the action!