São Paulo Premieres Reset America Latina Trilogy Finale
BRAZIL · THEATRE
—The premiere: Coletivo Estopo Balaio premiered Reset America Latina at Sesc Belenzinho in São Paulo on Friday, May 29, with the opening weekend running through Sunday, May 31.
—The concept: The 120-minute production transforms a luxury cruise ship into an allegory of Latin American identity formation.
—The trilogy: The work closes the Trilogia da Amnesia, opened by Reset Nordeste in 2020 and continued by Reset Brasil in 2023.
—The director: Ana Carolina Marinho directs the production. Estopo Balaio won the Premio Shell in the Innovation category for A Cidade dos Rios Invisiveis in 2020.
—Latin American impact: The work positions São Paulo theatre as a central voice in continental reflection on regional identity in 2026.
The Coletivo Estopo Balaio premiered Reset America Latina at Sesc Belenzinho in São Paulo on Friday, the third and final work of the Trilogia da Amnesia. The Reset America Latina staging transforms a luxury cruise ship into an allegory of Latin American identity formation. The company, awarded the Premio Shell in 2020 for innovation, runs the opening weekend through Sunday, May 31.
What Reset America Latina puts on stage
Reset America Latina runs 120 minutes and uses a cruise-ship setting as its central metaphor. The work uses the satirical figure of luxury travel to interrogate what the company calls the construction of Latin American identity.
The first act takes the form of a guided travel pitch, in which the audience is invited to embark. Subsequent acts unravel the comfortable framing through territorial and ethnic narrative work that the company has carried from previous productions.
Director and actress Ana Carolina Marinho leads a cast that draws on the company’s long-standing core members. The work is rated for audiences from 12 years and up, with sessions interpreted in Brazilian Sign Language on several scheduled dates.
The Reset America Latina trilogy and the Estopo Balaio company
The Coletivo Estopo Balaio was founded in 2007 and is based in São Paulo’s eastern zone, the zona leste. The company is best known for site-specific work in public spaces, streets, plazas, and on board CPTM commuter trains across the city.
A Cidade dos Rios Invisiveis won the Premio Shell in the Innovation category in 2020. The work used a moving train as its stage and brought audiences into contact with the buried São Paulo waterways that lend the production its name.
The Trilogia da Amnesia opened with Reset Nordeste in 2020 and continued with Reset Brasil in 2023. The third and final work, Reset America Latina, is only the second piece the company has built specifically for a conventional indoor stage among its nine-production history.
The move to an indoor stage in Reset America Latina
Director Ana Carolina Marinho has framed the shift to indoor staging as a change of skin for the company. The choice marks an aesthetic and strategic inflection point in the collective’s 19-year history.
The change also responds to a wider funding context. Cultural-policy conditions for itinerant work have tightened in recent years, and many Brazilian collectives have moved towards formats that fit the institutional grant and presenter circuit.
Estopo Balaio is also preparing the opening of its own permanent venue in Jardim Romano, also in the zona leste. The new space, converted from a former religious hall, is scheduled to open in July immediately after the Sesc Belenzinho run closes.
The Sesc Belenzinho run schedule for Reset America Latina
The full São Paulo season runs from May 29 through July 5, with sessions Thursday to Saturday at 8:30pm and Sundays at 5:30pm. June 18 is the only weekly off-day in the run. Tickets range from R$18 ($3.60) for full Sesc card holders through R$30 ($6.00) student rate to R$60 ($11.90) full price.
The venue is Sala de Espetaculos I at Sesc Belenzinho, with 130 seats. The capacity is intentionally close-up and intimate, in contrast to the typical scale of the company’s outdoor work.
Libras interpretation is scheduled across the run, with named accessibility dates on June 6, 14, 20, 25, 28, and July 5. Audio description is available on June 7, 12, and 21. The full schedule is published through the Sesc São Paulo portal.
Where Reset America Latina sits in the 2026 São Paulo cultural calendar
The opening weekend falls in the same window as the closure of several long-running plays across the city. São Paulo theatre districts in the centre, west, and south zones see substantial turnover as the May calendar ends and new programming opens.
The closure of the Casa-Atelie Tomie Ohtake show on Sunday, May 31, also marks the close of the inaugural exhibition at the new Instituto Tomie Ohtake annexe. The two dates together close a defining weekend for São Paulo’s culture map.
São Paulo has been the most active Latin American theatre and visual-arts city through 2026 by some distance, helped by MASP’s year-long Latin American Histories programme and the Theatro Municipal opera season under construction for the second half.
When does Reset America Latina run?
From May 29 through July 5 at Sesc Belenzinho in São Paulo. Sessions are Thursday to Saturday at 8:30pm and Sundays at 5:30pm. June 18 is the only weekly off-day.
What is the Trilogia da Amnesia?
A three-part series by Coletivo Estopo Balaio. It opened with Reset Nordeste in 2020 and continued with Reset Brasil in 2023. Reset America Latina closes the trilogy.
Who directs Reset America Latina?
Ana Carolina Marinho. She is also an actress in the production and co-founder of the Coletivo Estopo Balaio, which was founded in 2007 in São Paulo.
How much do tickets cost?
R$60 ($11.90) full price, R$30 ($6.00) student rate, and R$18 ($3.60) for full Sesc card holders. Tickets are sold through the Sesc São Paulo portal and box office.
Is the production accessible?
Yes. Libras interpretation is scheduled across the run, with audio description available on June 7, 12, and 21. The full accessibility schedule is published through the Sesc São Paulo portal.
For more on Latin American cultural programming in São Paulo this year, see our coverage of the MASP 2026 Latin American Histories programme. For another fixture of this weekend, read our piece on the Met Opera Frida and Diego HD broadcast.