Three Festivals/showcases took place in September in Brazil, bringing together artists from different regions of the country, as well as abroad, in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Niterói.
17th Paideia International TYA Festival: a Window to Utopia
Paideia is delighted to have held its seventeenth International Festival, celebrating its 25th anniversary as a company. As part of our Festival, we had the honour of holding a regional workshop on the ‘Babel or The Art of Listening in Theatre for Young Audiences’. It was a great inspiration for the curation of the festival and its activities as a whole. The four workshop meetings were very rich and provided space for debates, conversations and in-depth discussions about theatre for children and young people and its language. They were attended by artists, thinkers, journalists, theatre critics and young people from São Paulo and states far from São Paulo. We tried very hard to bring together distant regions of Brazil, which is a very large country with a vast cultural diversity. Unfortunately, three countries were unable to attend: Colombia, Peru and Cuba. Artists from Argentina, Uruguay, Mexico, Chile and Brazil were present as organizers and stimulators of the discussions.
Cia. Paideia
More on the 17th Festival: https://paideiabrasil.com.br/festival2023/paideia/
2nd CBTIJ Repertory Showcase
Between 29 August and 15 September, CBTIJ/ASSITEJ Brasil held the second CBTIJ Repertory Showcase in a belated celebration of the centre’s 25 anniversary in the north side of Rio de Janeiro. All the activities were free for the audiences and were centred at the Arena Carioca Jovelina Pérola Negra, a public arts venue run by the Municipality of Rio. Ten shows by theatre companies from different regions of the city of Rio and the Baixada Fluminense were selected and presented to an audience of 1.300 schoolchildren from the public educational system. Two roundtables were held with guest experts, who discussed representativeness in TYA and aspects of arts education for children and young people, which were mediated by Renata Tavares and Paulo Merisio. Along with the artistic programme, 12 young people aged 18 to 29, took part in a 45-hour Residency Program named “Connecting Voices”, inspired by ASSITEJ ‘Next Generation’ Program. These young people were mentored by three artist-educators (Flavio Vidaurre, Gabriel Mendes and Naira Carneiro), who led morning workshops, joined everyday after-show discussions and took part in the roundtables.
The three curators (Alexandre Damascena, Leandro Fazolla and Marcia Frederico) of the shows highlight that: “In terms of audience formation, it’s also interesting for us that different languages can be presented to this audience that is now coming to theatres. Thus, more playful and poetic shows take turns with more realistic ones. Actors, animated forms and even projections and technology are mixed into the program, dialoguing with the most diverse audiences and age groups”.
The showcase was sponsored by the Rio de Janeiro Municipality and the Municipal Secretariat of Culture.
16th Niterói em Cena International Theatre Festival
Niterói em Cena reached its 16th edition with 95 free performances in various theatres and public areas in Niterói, nearby Rio, from 22 September to 1 October; the event featured 95 free performances for both young and adult audiences. The project is held yearly and is supported by the Municipal Department of Culture and the Niterói Arts Foundation.
Created in 2008 by cultural producer Fabio Fortes, this year’s Festival was made up of several shows featuring theatre artists from various locations, such as Germany, Argentina, Ecuador and Peru, who shared the festival’s stages with artists from Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, Pernambuco and Bahia. The festival promoted showcases of plays, short scenes, street theatre, seminars and training activities, which started a few days before the Festival opened in Niterói public schools.
CBTIJ/ASSITEJ Brasil has been collaborating with the Festival’s internationalization in the past few years. For more info on this year’s edition, check the Festival’s website www.niteroiemcena.com.br.
