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Feminist

The Feminist series showcases performances by the Brazilian feminist group Atrizes ou... (Actresses or...), co-founded by artists Beatriz Provasi and Brenda Lua. 

This collective blends decolonial and ritualistic practices with influences such as witchcraft, tarot, Afro-Brazilian and indigenous traditions, meditation, yoga, nutrition, and nature. In works like Care (2018) and Ritual with the 4 Elements (2021), the group creates emancipating atmospheres through holistic experiences.

State of Siege: Open De-rehearsal (2015), by Group Atrizes ou...

In 2016, in response to the right-wing pro-coup movements that led to the impeachment of Brazil's first female president, Dilma Rousseff, from the Workers' Party, amidst widespread misogynistic attacks, the group engaged in anti-coup themed performances. That same year, they, along with other artists and cultural workers, initiated the occupation of the Ministry of Culture headquarters in Rio de Janeiro, known as the Ocupa MinC (Occupy MinC).

Founded in 2015, the group's initial profile was slightly different. The artists first united to create a work at the intersection of theater and performance art, influenced by the Brazilian demonstrations of 2013 (related to bus fares) and 2014 (related to the World Cup). Presented as a work in progress, State of Siege: Open De-rehearsal (2015) depicts a city under siege while also exploring potential lines of flight.

Group Atrizes ou... at Occupy MinC RJ (2016)
Performance Let All Women Awaken! (2018), by Group Atrizes ou...

After a setback in that struggle and Provasi's move to Denmark, the group took a hiatus. They reunited in 2018 for a performance at Provasi's PhD thesis defense. The group soon grew in both size and in their feminist and decolonial awareness, now including Aline Vargas, Ana Karenina Riehl, Beatriz Provasi, Brenda Lua, Karol Santos, Letícia Gelabert, Marcella Camargo, and Sol Jaci.

Although the group's current profile emerged in 2018, some of its characteristics have been present since the beginning. The group has always been composed of women with an activist mindset and a focus on research and experimentation in performance, art, and politics. Experiments with the four elements were already part of the State of Siege rehearsals, as were explorations of public art and audience engagement.

Performance Care (2018), by Group Atrizes ou...
Artistic Immersion in Serra Negra (2018), by Group Atrizes ou...

Currently, with co-founders Beatriz Provasi and Brenda Lua living abroad in Denmark and Portugal, respectively, the group is on standby. However, they are ready to resume activity at any time, even remotely, as they did when creating their latest work, Ritual with the 4 Elements (2021).

All Works in the Feminist Series

Performance Ritual with the 4 Elements (DK, 2021)

Performance Feminist Zine Theater (BR, 2018-2019)

Performance With Open Chest (BR, 2018)

Artistic Immersion in Serra Negra (BR, 2018)

Performance Care (BR, 2018)

Performance Let All Women Awaken! (BR, 2018)

Performance Join the Fight Beloved (BR, 2018)

Performance Fly, Darling! (BR, 2016)

Political-Artistic Occupation Atrizes ou... at Ocupa MinC RJ (BR, 2016)

Performance Coup and You: All Connected (BR, 2016)

Performance Whose Brazil Is It? (BR, 2016)

Theater Performance State of Siege (Open De-Rehearsal) (BR, 2015)

Performance Urban Contaminations (BR, 2015)

Performance Separation of Bodies (BR, 2015)

Ritual with the 4 Elements (DK, 2021)

Collective Performance

Group Atrizes ou... (Actresses or...), with Beatriz Provasi

Collaboration: My Abrahamsen, Tamara Kristensen, and Artem

Feminist Summer Solstice, Refshaleøen

Copenhagen, Denmark

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In the performance Ritual with the 4 Elements, Beatriz Provasi takes the stage at the Feminist Summer Solstice event and reads into the microphone a text collectively created by the group Atrizes ou... (Actresses or...). During the reading, the song As Ayabás, sung by Maria Bethânia, plays through the speakers, creating a ritualistic atmosphere. The text reflects on the witch hunts, with their knowledge connected to nature, both past and present, in Europe, Brazil, and other parts of the world where Black and Indigenous women were/are massacred. She calls resistance and greets Pachamama, the indigenous deity that represents our mother earth.

 

Following this, the performer invites the audience to participate in a ritual of connection with the four elements of nature: water, fire, earth, and air. With Brazilian songs playing through the speakers, each song inspiring the energy of one element, four action moments are proposed.

Performance Ritual with the 4 Elements (2021), by Group Atrizes ou..., with performer Beatriz Provasi

First, the audience is invited to dance, waving their cangas e scarves in the air to create winds, to the sound of Menininha do Gantuá, sung by Clementina de Jesus and Clara Nunes. Waving her canga in the air and producing gusts of wind, Provasi leads the audience out of the event venue to an open space by the pier.

There, she forms a circle and leads the audience in stomping their feet on the ground, reminiscent of the indigenous circles she had participated in at Aldeia Maracanã. An indigenous chant recorded by Sol Jaci for the occasion plays through the speakers. Firmly stomping their feet on the ground, the performer, along with the audience, invokes the element of earth.

 

Next, she sits on a canga in the center of the circle. Collaborators, followed by the audience, begin to scoop handfuls of sand and place them in her lap, as she embraces being "planted" in the soil of København (Copenhagen).

Performance Ritual with the 4 Elements (2021), by Group Atrizes ou..., with performer Beatriz Provasi
Performance Ritual with the 4 Elements (2021), by Group Atrizes ou..., with performer Beatriz Provasi

When the speakers start to play a Yemanjá chant performed by Grupo Ofá, the performer stands and moves to the top of some rocks, where she mixes herbs in a basin with water. There, she undresses and bathes, bringing the energy of the water element and invoking the goddess of the waters in Afro-Brazilian religions, the queen of the sea, Yemanjá.

The energy of fire is finally invoked with the song Exu nas Escolas, sung by Elza Soares, simultaneously saluting Exu, another Afro-Brazilian deity. The performer distributes dry branches to the audience, who wave the branches in the air to the frenetic rhythm of the music. Meanwhile, the event organizers light the bonfire.

 

At the end, the audience is invited to feed the bonfire with their dry branches.

Performance Ritual with the 4 Elements (2021), by Group Atrizes ou..., with performer Beatriz Provasi

Feminist Zine Theater (BR, 2018-2019)

Collective Performance

Group Atrizes ou... (Actresses or...), with Aline Vargas, Ana Karenina Rihel, Beatriz Provasi, Brenda Lua, Marcella Camargo, Maria Arêas, Priscila Albuquerque, Rosane Fênix, Sol Jaci, Tainã Aynoã, Tavie Gonzalez, Vittória Braun, among others.

Photos by Adriana Schneider, Gabriela Almeida, Maíra Barillo, and Tati.

Events: VIII National Meeting of Health Residencies, Noel Rosa Theater / UERJ (2018); Bonobando na Praça, Tiradentes Square (2018); Ovárias Occupation, Laurinda Santos Lobo Cultural Center (2019), among others.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

The Feminist Zine Theater (2018-2019) was proposed by Aline Vargas based on her research with the Teatro de Operações group, and soon became part of the repertoire of the Atrizes ou... (Actresses or...) collective. Using collage techniques and a fluid script, the Zine incorporates diverse propositions, voices, and bodies.

Vargas leads a chorus of women, dressed in costumes with feminist inscriptions and lace over their faces, in performing a series of actions in public spaces. The performers walk in procession, sing, dance, form circles, draw crucifixes with dirt on the ground and stab them, recite texts, create living statues, parade with bricks on their feet and break them on the ground, hang fanzines on trees, recite poems, and interact with the political architecture of each location.

With Open Chest (BR, 2018)

Collective Performance

Group Atrizes ou... (Actresses or...), featuring Beatriz Provasi, Brenda Lua, Letícia Gelabert, Lu Vicentini, Marcella Camargo, Sol Jaci, and special guest Luciana Melo

8th Symposium on Image, Identity, and Territory: BodyStreet: crossings, intersections, and mischief, Industrial Design Faculty, UERJ

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Performance With Open Chest (2018), by Group Atrizes ou...

In the performance With Open Chest (2018), held during an academic symposium, the participants blend into the event's audience and/or present their academic work with the utmost naturalness, but with bare chests. At a certain point, the performers hand out notes with different questions for men and women, asking the audience to read them aloud. Unscripted, someone from the audience bursts into song with a feminist chant while undressing in the middle of the circle. In the end, the performers lead a feminist anthem and conclude by forming a large circle with all the women at the event.

Artistic Immersion in Serra Negra (BR, 2018)

Collective Artistic Immersion

Group Atrizes ou... (Actresses or...), featuring Beatriz Provasi, Brenda Lua, Letícia Gelabert, Marcella Camargo, and Sol Jaci

Cottage in Serra Negra

Itamonte/MG, Brazil​​​

The group Atrizes ou...(Actresses or...) traveled to an isolated cottage in the mountains of Minas Gerais for four days of Artistic Immersion in Serra Negra (2018). There, they engaged in activities that connected them with the four elements, including meditation and yoga, the river’s current, mermaids and Oxum, yam harvesting, cooking with a wood-fired stove, gatherings around the bonfire, the araucaria trees, the sound of the tambourine, songs and dances, the mountains and animals, witchcraft, tarot, and holistic healing processes. Serra Negra is for the performers not only an immersion in nature, but also in themselves and their community, fostering diverse exchanges and deepening common bonds.

Care (BR, 2018)

Performance Care (2018), by Group Atrizes ou...

Collective Performance
Group Atrizes ou... (Actresses or...), featuring Aline Vargas, Beatriz Provasi, Brenda Lua, Karol Santos, Marcella Camargo, and Sol Jaci
Event: Cena Sapucaia, Casa Sapucaia
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

In the performance Care (2018), the performers create acts of care during a party, where each of them gives and receives something for their well-being. More than a performance, Care is a collective holistic healing experience shared with the audience.

First, the group creates a play space with hula hoops, balls, soap bubbles, etc., for Beatriz to enjoy with her 2-year-old niece. Next, Brenda receives a relaxing massage with essential oils by many hands. Then, Sol undergoes an energizing treatment with damp cloths applied to her body, speaks a text about her mixed heritage, and sings an indigenous chant.

Performance Care (2018), by Group Atrizes ou...

Moving to the kitchen, Karol is given a savory potato cake made from her grandmother’s recipe, talks about her ancestor, her emotional connection with food, and reads a poem dedicated to Dona Rosa. At the end, the cake is shared with the audience. Aline and Marcella’s acts of care are presented in subsequent events. Marcella shares her indigenous ancestry using various objects around a bonfire during a symposium, and Aline receives a bath with rose petals while singing a song at the next party at Casa Sapucaia.

Let All Women Awaken! (BR, 2018)

Collective Performance
Group Atrizes ou... (Actresses or...), featuring Alarisse Mattar, Aline Vargas, Beatriz Provasi, Brenda Lua, Karol Santos, Marcella Camargo, and Sol Jaci; Special Guest: Isabel Gomide
Photos: Charlotte Dafol
Event: 2nd Anniversary of Ocupa MinC, Palácio Capanema Street
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

In the performance Let All Women Awaken! (2018), one of the performers sits on the floor with her legs crossed while the others gradually deposit soil into her lap. Once she is buried up to her waist, her hair is cut. She remains in meditation for a while, listening to speeches from a situational evaluation meeting of Ocupa (Occupy movement). Another performer then circles around her and slowly digs her out, bringing her into her arms. The rest of the group plays and sings "Reloj de Campana," a Latin American anthem “para que despierten las mujeres todas” (for all women to awaken).

Join the Fight Beloved (BR, 2018)

Collective Performance
Group Atrizes ou... (Actresses or...), featuring Aline Vargas, Ana Karenina Riehl, Beatriz Provasi, Brenda Lua, Marcella Camargo, and Sol Jaci
Photos: Maria Fleury
PhD Thesis Defense: "Look at Me Here Again!" The Taking of the Streets in 2013 and Its Inexhaustible Poetry, PUC-Rio
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

In the performance Join the Fight Beloved (2018), the performers take over the Catholic university with feminist performances and redecorate the space, moving throughout the campus to the classroom where group member Beatriz Provasi would defend her thesis. They start in the Vila dos Diretórios, where they form a circle and invoke the names of deceased women who are political icons.

Next, they go to the Edifício Leme's pilotis, where they wear costumes from the Feminist Zine Theater with feminist inscriptions, walk on bricks, and parade along a runway made of newspapers, breaking the bricks with their feet.

​Then, they start renaming university spaces, replacing names of priests and cardinals with those of important female figures in Brazilian political and cultural history. They create posters and sing as they go.

In the bamboo garden, they hang feminist zines. They change into everyday clothes and cover them with fabrics bearing phrases like “Join the Fight Beloved”, "My Body, My Rules", and “Feminism is Revolution”.

They continue their demonstration with chants and drumming until they reach the Edifício Padre Leonel Franca, which is renamed Marielle Franco in honor of the councilwoman murdered that year.

Performance Join the Fight Beloved (2018), by Group Atrizes ou...

Finally, they redecorate Cleonice Berardinelli's classroom by dressing the Christ that hangs from the crucifix on the wall with a beautiful floral skirt and covering the walls with various photos of the 2013 and 2014 demonstrations, which are the subject of Provasi's thesis.

Fly, Darling! (BR, 2016)

Collective Performance
Group Atrizes ou... (Actresses or...), featuring Aline Vargas, Ana Karenina Riehl, Brenda Lua, and special guest Beatriz Provasi
Filming: Gaia Gatta
Event: Festa da Ocupa MinC RJ, Canecão
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

In the performance Fly, Darling! (2016), the group Atrizes ou... (Actresses or...) pays tribute to member Beatriz Provasi with a surprise performance on the stage of Canecão during the Ocupa MinC RJ occupation. The performance takes place at Provasi's farewell party on the eve of her move to Denmark.

Performance Fly, Darling! (2016)
Performance Fly, Darling! (2016)

First, the performers undress and begin reading poems from Provasi's latest book As Guerras nos Porta-retratos (The Wars in the Picture Frames) (2014), while writing fragments of the texts on each other's bodies.

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After being surprised, Provasi joins the group, which is also joined by two other participants from the Canecão occupation.

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At the end, the performers tie shirts around their faces in black bloc style and raise posters with messages supporting their partner's new venture, filled with feminism and poetic vandalism.

Atrizes ou... at Ocupa MinC RJ (BR, 2016)

Political-Artistic Occupation
With participation of various individuals and collectives active in the cultural sector, including the Group Atrizes ou... (Actresses or...), represented by Ana Karenina Riehl, Beatriz Provasi, and Brenda Lua
Ocupa MinC RJ, Palácio Capanema and Canecão
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Atrizes ou... at Ocupa MinC RJ (2016) participated as a group in this occupation movement, joining forces with various individuals and collectives active in the cultural sector to oppose the coup that aimed to overthrow President Dilma Rousseff. The movement began with the occupation of the Ministry of Culture in Rio de Janeiro, starting with Palácio Capanema and later moving to Canecão.

 

The occupation lasted over three months, during which the performers were involved in a range of creative processes and demonstrations by cultural workers at the intersection of art and politics. They helped form the feminist collective Formação de Sereias (Mermaids' Formation), took part in public shaming protests against the Minister of Culture in the interim government, occupied the Olympic Park, and engaged in various demonstrations and performances. They also contributed to the organization of numerous events and actions.

Coup and You: All Connected (BR, 2016)

Performance Coup and You: All Connected (2016), by Group Atrizes ou...

Representing the coup-supporting congressmen, one performer is dressed in a suit with a green and yellow ribbon pinned to the lapel. Representing the coup-supporting business sector, another performer wears a white lab coat covered in stickers with corporate logos. These two performers gag the others, snatch the boxes from their hands, spray over the words with paint, and repeatedly write a single word on top: "coup". They then instruct one of the gagged performers to stack the altered boxes on the opposite side.

 

Finally, after freeing themselves from their costumes and gags, all four performers topple the pile of “coup” boxes together.

Collective Performance
Group Atrizes ou... (Actresses or...), featuring Ana Karenina Riehl, Ana Paula Penna, Beatriz Provasi, and Brenda Lua
Filming and Editing: Marcelo Valle
Rua Jardim Botânico, Rede Globo Headquarters
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

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In the performance Coup and You: All Connected (2016), the performers line up on the sidewalk in front of the headquarters of Brazil's largest television network, Rede Globo. On one side, there are stacks of boxes with various words written on them, which one performer rearranges in different ways.

Whose Brazil Is It? (BR, 2016)

Collective Performance
Group Atrizes ou... (Actresses or...), featuring Ana Karenina Riehl, Beatriz Provasi, and Brenda Lua
Filming: Thaiana Rodrigues
Editing: Ethel Oliveira
Rua Jardim Botânico, Rede Globo Headquarters
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

In the performance Whose Brazil Is It? (2016), the performers, dressed in green and yellow in coup-supporting uniforms, lay out a Brazilian flag on the sidewalk in front of the headquarters of Brazil's largest television network, Rede Globo. They set up a picnic with a bottle of champagne in a bucket labeled “Whose Brazil Is It?” and a tray full of coxinhas, a popular snack that has become a slang term for right-wing individuals with strong coup-supporting tendencies.

 

While two performers toast, drink, and eat continuously, the third reads aloud the short story “A Hunger Artist” by Franz Kafka. Some coxinhas are also offered to the audience. As the tray empties, logos of major media corporations appear in the background. After finishing the story and consuming the coxinhas, the performers chew through some pages of the magazine Veja and, ultimately, vomit into the champagne bucket.

Performance Whose Brazil Is It? (2016), by Group Atrizes ou...

State of Siege (Open De-Rehearsal) (BR, 2015)

State of Siege: Open De-rehearsal (2015)

Theater-Performance Production
Group Atrizes ou... (Actresses or...), featuring Ana Karenina Riehl, Beatriz Provasi, Brenda Lua, Lívia Diniz, Marcela Mara, and Tânia Ikeoka
Special Guest: Sérgio Luiz Santos das Dores (President)
Collaboration: Peter Franco
Photos: Clayton Leite and Rany Carneiro
Filming and Editing: Ethel Oliveira
Casa Nuvem
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

In the theater-performance production State of Siege (Open De-Rehearsal) (2015), the performers create a besieged city environment, blending fictional elements with the realities of Rio de Janeiro and navigating between theater, performance, dance, and visual arts. Presented as a work in progress, this de-rehearsal is the result of six months of experimentation through weekly meetings, influenced by the Brazilian demonstrations of 2013 (related to bus fare hikes) and 2014 (related to the World Cup).​​

State of Siege: Open De-rehearsal (2015), by Group Atrizes ou...
State of Siege: Open De-rehearsal (2015), by Group Atrizes ou...

On stage, the artists traverse a chaotic and tense atmosphere, intertwining facts, dreams, nightmares, and desires, sometimes succumbing and at other times creating new possibilities for the city. The script is a collage of diverse scenes/performances, incorporating texts from authors such as William Burroughs, Julio Cortázar, and Bertolt Brecht, original poetry, images from the 2013 protests, newspaper headlines, audio, video, installations, audience interaction, and more.

State of Siege (Open De-Rehearsal) not only reveals the traps of a besieged city but also seeks to explore its potential lines of flight.

State of Siege: Open De-rehearsal (2015), by Group Atrizes ou...

Urban Contaminations (BR, 2015)

Collective Performance
Group Atrizes ou... (Actresses or...), featuring Ana Karenina Riehl, Beatriz Provasi, Brenda Lua, Lívia Diniz, Louis Allien, Michelly Barros, and Tânia Ikeoka
Route: From Lapa to Cinelândia Square
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Urban Contaminations (2015) was an experimental performance carried out on the streets of Rio de Janeiro during the creation process of the production State of Siege. Among the numerous experiments conducted by the group over six months of weekly meetings at Casa Nuvem, this one stands out for occupying public space, making the experiment an action in itself.​

The group sought to provoke contaminations through the presence of their bodies in the space, creating small gestures such as looking/pointing upwards, holding onto a building’s gates/looking inside, grouping together in the same gesture, or spreading out and blending in with passersby while maintaining the same gaze direction.

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The event exceeded the performers' expectations, as their simple gestures captivated many onlookers into gazing at "nothing", creating a small short-circuit in the city's everyday flow.

Separation of Bodies (BR, 2015)

Collective Performance
Group Atrizes ou... (Actresses or...), with Beatriz Provasi and Brenda Lua
Event: Suruba na Pedra
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

In the performance Separation of Bodies (2015), the performers announce over a microphone at a cultural event that they need the audience's collaboration to organize the performance space. They begin to manipulate the audience members' bodies, directing where each person should stand and how, separating them according to their own undisclosed criteria.

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At a certain point, when the audience is "prepared for the performance", the performers quietly slip away from the event. The people remain in the designated spots for a while, waiting for the performance to begin, until they finally realize they have already been victims of the happening.

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