Brazil: Ballet Macunaíma premieres at the Municipal Theater of Rio de Janeiro

The ballet Macunaíma will premiere today, September 22, at 7 PM, at Rio de Janeiro’s Municipal Theater, located in the central region of the state capital.

Based on the book of the same name by Mário de Andrade, the work is part of the celebrations of the centennial of the Week of Modern Art of 1922 and is rated 14.

The premiere screening is geared towards public schools.

“We will take some public schools to watch, children and young people to have contact with the Municipal Theater and with this unprecedented work that marks 100 years of the Week of Modern Art,” said Tamoio Athaíde Marcondes, president of the National Arts Foundation (Funarte).

On the 23rd and 24th, there will be sessions at 7 PM for the public, and on Sunday (25th), at 5 PM. Tickets range from R$20 (US$3.91) to R$80 and can be purchased at the theater box office.

Rehearsals started in June. Almost 50 dancers are working on the one-hour-long multimedia show, with image and photography direction by Igor Correa and artistic supervision by Hélio Bejani and Jorge Texeira.

Carlos Laerte’s choreographic conception deconstructs the bodies of the classical dancers and brings the contemporaneity of Brazilian dance.

The soundtrack was specially composed for the work by composer Ronaldo Miranda and will be performed during the show by the Symphony Orchestra and the ballet of Theatro Municipal, with choreography by Carlos Laerte.

A result of a partnership between Funarte and the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), the ballet was created within the Arte de Toda Gente program, with a conception by conductor André Cardoso, coordinator of the project Sistema Nacional de Orquestras Sociais (Sinos), which is part of the program along with the projects Bossa Criativa and Um Novo Olhar (UNO).

EMANCIPATION

Marcondes pointed out that Brazil has very pertinent celebrations this year: the bicentennial of Independence, which marks the country’s emancipation, and the 100 years since the Week of Modern Art.

It celebrates artistic emancipation, with all the icons that are part of the 1922 Week, such as maestro Villa-Lobos, writers Mário de Andrade and Manuel Bandeira, and painter Di Cavalcanti”.

The president of Funarte also says that the ballet Macunaíma presents some peculiarities about the entity, which works very strongly with integrated arts.

“This ballet, specifically, is brilliant because it is a junction of a series of languages: the orchestra, with the language of music; the dramaturgy itself, with stagings of the dance of the corps de ballet; the visual arts.”

Marcondes called attention to the visual effects that the ballet presents, with the transition from what is real, which are the dancers on stage, to what is being transmitted on the screen.

In addition, the work presents something that Funarte has been working on for the past two years: urban art.

The scenography, for example, uses mirrors and was developed by artists from the Graffiti Museum.

Also, in the scenery and costumes, the artistic standard of sustainability stands out, in which Funarte has invested through the Rouanet Law.

The scenery is also composed of recycled material from the Trouxinha Collective, Rio de Janeiro’s Federal University.

The costumes are all made with elements of sustainability and reuse of material and are a re-reading of the TMRJ collection, with a modern language, increasingly seeking to reuse.

The Macunaíma ballet preserves the peculiarities of the tones characteristic of the works by the great painters of the Week of Modern Art.

“Whoever attends will see the yellow of Anita Malfati, the cobalt blue of Portinari; the green of Ismael Nery; the light blue of John Graz; the orange of Di Cavalcanti; the pink of Milton Dacosta; the red of Tarsila do Amaral.

All this will be present in the scenery and will be noticed, praising the artists of the Art Week of 1922,” says Marcondes.

AMAZON FOREST

The ballet has one act, four scenes, and, as its initial scenario, brings the Amazon Forest into the region of the Uraricoera River, Macunaíma’s birthplace, where the Tapanhumas Indians live.

The narrative is also told through audiovisual language. The dancers act with images and, in many moments, “go in and out of the screen”.

The president of the Municipal Theater Foundation, Clara Paulino, highlighted the unprecedented nature of the show, which is supported by the Association of Friends of the Municipal Theater and sponsored by Petrobras.

“Macunaíma is one of the highlights of our 2022 artistic season, and we are thrilled with the expectation of delivering to the population a work so important for national culture, made in a format never seen before that, for sure, will impact the public.”

With information from Agência Brasil