A Brazil of questionable achievements appears in a new piece by Grupojogo

Brazil is world champion. In football, five times – unbeatable, so far. But it also occupies the podium in other themes, which cause us anything but pride. Emerging in rankings of feminicide, homophobia, transphobia, use of pesticides and other ills, Brazil often materializes in this internal conflict of feelings and realities. And, true to the role of theater as an agent for reflection and construction of our time, the play Brazil world championa show at the conclusion of Grupojogo’s Creation and Assembly Workshop, comes to question what are the, so to speak, achievements that the country has been achieving in recent times.

The show will be presented on February 27th and 28th, always at 8 pm, at the Teatro do Centro Histórico Cultural Santa Casa (Avenida Independência, 75), and tickets can be purchased at Sympla, from R$ 25.00. Inspired by the text Champions of the World, by the giant Dias Gomes, the show was built horizontally by the workshop members. The text by Dias Gomes brings us a record of Brazil during the dictatorship, its contradictions and narratives – it is a portrait of its time. Now, the piece has been transformed and updated to cover the issues of Brazil today. The montage presents us with a universe that mixes narrative, dreamlike and performative elements through the perceptions of the performers. In this way, reflective provocations are carried out about what is happening in society and in the contemporary political world.

“Theater is the record of what we are living”, says the production director and one of the founders of Grupojogo, Alexandre Dill. “We came to the conclusion that we wanted to talk about Brazil today and about the things in which our country is a champion. Brazil has so many beautiful things in which it is a champion, but at the same time, so many scary things”. The stage then looms large to include this country of continental dimensions. Brazil world champion is a fictional work, which brings elements of reality to allude to the Brazilian socio-political situation. Placed on the couch, Brazil undergoes a profound analysis, in the quest to understand the reasons that brought us here.

After four months of work focused on training as actors and building critical reflection from the student, students are given complete autonomy to create texts and write improvised scenes, which are then polished by the director. With instruction from three advisors, the seven students in the workshop pored over the classic text and, in a form of anthropophagy, synthesized Brazil in the form of art. Brazil Champion is the group’s second work of authorial dramaturgy. “We liked working on this model of creating from a work and arriving at an unprecedented result. I think it has much more to do with this critical place of reflection on society (which we want to occupy)”, explains Dill.

The Grupo Jogo, far beyond just teaching theatrical techniques and acting models, seeks to form new artists and conscious citizens, capable of using art as an instrument of analysis and exposure of social issues. With the students of the Group, affective bonds and a sense of autonomy and collectivity are built, with everyone participating fully in all processes of artistic creation. Thus, artists capable of collectively creating, for the collective, a way of seeing the world are formed. And that, according to Dill, “they manage to reflect on art and through theater. And that this is a critical reflection on society, and not just the reproduction of staging molds and the repetition of models with which we have already he’s used to it.”

With more than 15 years on the road, Grupojogo emerged from a training course for actors from Terreira da Tribo at the popular theater school Ói Nóis Aqui Traveiz. First acting as a group of actors, the members of the group decided to create a pedagogical nucleus, with affordable classes to encourage new artists in the city. During its history, the Group has already staged 13 shows, ten of which were workshop completions.