Inclusive Performing Arts Criticism: Batucada by Marcelo Evelin
Reflections on Collective Creation and Performance-Making
as Exercise in Reshaping Social Ethics
In Poetics of Relation, Martinican writer, poet, philosopher and literary critique Édouard Glissant interrogates notions of centre, origin and linearity within the context of Caribbean reality, creolisation and history-imposed suffering, conjuring two «varieties of identity». The first one, «root identity», coincides with the idea of self founded in mythological time, in distant pasts, anchored to a legitimate claim to territory – our lineage. The second one, «relational identity», is «linked not to a creation of the world but to the conscious and contradictory experience of contacts among cultures». By rallying all meanings of this friction between diversities (telling, listening, connecting and the parallel consciousness of self and surroundings), he argues that identities are constructed in relations, not in isolation, and that those relations are the key to transforming mentalities and reshaping societies.
Further expanding on this thought, Glissant writes: «Relation contaminates, sweetens, as a principle or as a flower dust». When honeybees return to their hives covered in pollen and stuffed with nectar, they spit the sweet liquid into the body next to them, who swaps spit with the body next to them, who again swaps spit with the body next to them, thickening the soup until they regurgitate honey. This is Relation, too.
And, in a way, this is also what Brazilian choreographer Marcelo Evelin’s Batucada does: by inviting its participant to recognise themselves as both part and crowd, this sweaty, sticky collective performance affixes, roves, rubs, pollinates and bears fruit, just like flower dust, allowing for an ethics of Relation to surface.
Co-presented together with Lisbon’s Casa da Dança within the framework of the Transborda Festival 2023, Evelin’s proposal took shape thanks to the participation of both professional and non-professional performers who, after being selected via open call, partook in the week-long rehearsals that led to a two-day premiere in Almada’s Municipal Theatre Joaquim Benite. «Batucada refers to the percussion ensemble used in samba music. A batucada can also be played on pots and pans, in celebration and/or protest. It is a common way of gathering people and communities in Brazil, open to participation by all. In this event the main instruments used in the batucada will be the body and the singularities of each participant, as the rhythmical structures, repetitive style and fast pace of the music are translated into a choreographic composition. Batucada is an anti-Olympic parade stuck in time and space, in a kind of suspension that operates as a re-organization of its movements and goals, charging the occupied public space with a symbolic power. A parade to demonstrate, to protest and to celebrate the human community, considering diversity and antagonism to be an essential part of democratic revolution».
Steered and cartographed into this space by the Brazilian choreographer, the 40+ professional and non-professional performers agree to carry out an attack on society’s structure by undermining its most problematic aspect: individualism. Donning nothing but a black mask drenched in Brazilian culture and sweat, these naked fools pull back their selves just enough to let alterity be heard – and togetherness take the lead.
Especially created for Brussel’s 2014 Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Evelin’s «allegoric-politic intervention» comes down to a negotiation to redefine the «landscape of public space» by demolishing its leviathanic, oppressive foundations so that a more just and inclusive collectivity may rise from the ruins. Loving each other at the speed of utopia, the fleeting drops of personality evaporate into a communal cloud that rains down on the public with tribal atavism, festive resistance and sinewy outrage, washing away its fear, its pain, its loneliness only to uncover, underneath it all, a stifled sense of belonging.
Indeed, throughout the various stations of this constant dialogue between performers and bystanders, the segregating, hierarchical preconfigurations of the space (and thus of society as a whole, seen here as the performative space par excellence) are shaken up and reshuffled by means of their polar opposites: union and horizontality. The choreographic tool, then, becomes the spatial enunciation of a social construction that must be assembled jointly every step of the way, every day, striving for a shared experience of change and self-government (see our ongoing research on Structure, Access and Translation for a reflection on these three pillars of collaborative artistic productions).
But with every change, comes a risk. On the side of the performers, bodies are exposed and identities are questioned, creating pockets of vulnerability that the audience can (and does) fill with its own fragilities; on the side of the spectators, power structures are challenged and control issues are raised, bringing fear, mistrust, angst and indignation to the surface (and sometimes also to the body of the performers around them, via defensive, tremulous, deplorable but nevertheless still human outbursts of either physical or verbal violence). The performance itself is not exempt from dangers: its incendiary potential is dampened time and again by the dogmatic normativity of the theatre’s spatial layout and lack of management’s flexibility, with its adamantine division between stage and stalls that keeps reinforcing the hierarchy-making duality between performing bodies and observing ones.
And yet, among the laborious struggle of compromise, a threshold opens up, and new territories spread out. Because Batucada does not take place. Batucada is a place, a space. Not a physical one – and yet filled with bodies – nor a spiritual one – albeit brimming with soul and soul and soul and soul. Batucada is an ethical space, a territory tentatively silhouetted by the constant meshing and unmeshing of those clusters of needs and bones we call “subjectivities”. Batucada is a heaving, unorthodox holy throng chanting to the rhythm of revolution. Batucada is an opportunity for love.
In an attempt to maintain alive the space of contamination and cross-pollination opened up by Evelin’s practice -and in line with our ongoing Inclusive Performing Arts Criticism’s project of including the general public in a critical, active discourse on performing arts, seen not only as artistic expressions but also and foremostly as a political action with tangible effects on society-, we invited the people who took part in Lisbon’s rehearsal and premiere to freely share their impressions on the whole process by answering the following, apparently simple question: “What is Batucada for you?”.
Be it poetry, a recount or a drawing, the contributions here selected and collected represent their own embodied experience and phenomenological description of it - by putting them in communication with each other, what languages around and about performances emerge? What can we learn about the community-making potential of performances and the performative nature of relations between bodies - here intended as a historical idea, a set of possibilities or, as Judith Butler purports, a «material that bears meaning»?
Written by Francesco Chiaro
Ph. by Pedro Ivo Carvalho - Transborda
Eduardo
〰️
Eduardo 〰️
Body as the first political space.
Heart on the finger, on the ceiling, in the air.
Touching the other together with the touch of others.
Of other selves, other people, other us.
Naked us.
Air shared very tightly.
The mass that enlaces, intertwines, joins inside and outside, ethics and poetics.
Touch. Fingers meet in sweet touch.
Walking. Cross an ocean of sensations.
A call.
Differences coexist in the same space.
Orgy and bubble in the centre and the peripheries.
Decentralize.
Getting out of the axis.
Latinicity.
Brazilian corporeity.
Ancestries.
Brazilian sonority.
+Nations in the mix who arrive together.
The lump of the body.
Mass sound!
The samba of meetings.
Go down a little, softly, go up to the top, to the apogee!!!!!
The circle of the earth.
A pulsing-drumming body.
The collective/tribe that communicates.
Asks, hears and listens more.
Listens outside the box. Dialogues.
The connection through body language.
A group assault of affectivity, dragging love everywhere.
Take whoever is in front to the sides and behind!!
Come together, it's better together.
Cloud of condensed love-affection.
An audience summoned by desire drums its unmasked freedom.
Sweaty movement.
Small block in sinuous waves of different bodies that fit in a transAction.
Multitimbral pans moved by singular and plural bodies.
Responds. Contributes.
Gathering of IDs manifests within the limits.
Butterflies are born around the waist.
Come closer. Sit down. Relax into the other bodies’ front and back.
Walk with your hand on the sole of your foot.
Wake up for the rope, on the spine!
Silence drips water from the body-cup.
Pool.
The pot boiled, the stick turned to dust, gush and spread everything to the smallest corners.
It overflows with everything that is a corporeal scream and a revolutionary scream. The no erupts in war howls.
Up.
Approach!
Scrape! Scrub!
Samba in the face!!!!
Protest that does not end because there is always something to be indignant about and to look into.
Then question.
Think.
Rethink.
Do not think!
Walk with the thought.
Think with the body.
Change
of look and points of view.
Act.
Gooooo.
The whole.
The whole dance.
Placement, in the other's shoes.
Transform.
Echo. Sweat. Resonate.
Change of bodies.
Of Souls.
Soul-gathering of people.
Funk yourself!
Get close. Shake yourself!
Cosiness.
Flow.
Replacement
of realities
also of
Tone
take and vibrate!
Circulate.
Fall and shatterrrrr
Keep on drumming.
L
I
N
E
Raise!
Silence too hits cans, makes noise, moves the chair.
Apotheosis of jolly folly!!!
Get out on the street.
Naked street.
Ground ground Ground ground Ground naked chorus
the
Cord
Oh sea of people
The hips
assorted
Will wake up,
give hope
in a party
for life ♡
-
Corpo como primeiro espaço político.
Coração no dedo, no teto, no ar.
Tato do outro junto do tato de outros.
De outros eus, outres, de outros nós.
Nós nus.
Ar compartilhado bem junte.
A massa que enlaça, entrelaça, fitilha dentro e fora, ética e poética.
Toca.
Dedos se encontram no doce toque.
Andança.
Atravessar um oceano de sensações.
Chamado.
Diferenças coexistem no mesmo espaço.
Surubar e borbulhar o centro e as periferias.
Descentralizar.
Sair do eixo.
Latinicidade.
CorporeidadeBR.
Ancestralidades
SonoridadeBR.
Nações na mistura e chegam junto.
A bossa do corpo.
Som massa!
O samba dos encontros.
Desce miudinho,baixinho, sobe no auge,pro apogeu!!!!!
A roda da terra.
Um corpo em pulso-batuque.
O coletribo que se comunica.
Pergunta, ouve e mais escuta.
Escuta fora da caixinha.
Dialoga.
A conexão pela linguagem do corpo.
Arrastão de afetividade, arrasta amor pra todo lugar.
Leva quem estiver na frente dos lados e atrás!!
Vem junto que junto é mais gostoso.
Nuvem de amor-afeto-condensado.
Um público convocado pelo desejo batuca em sua liberdade não mascarada.
Movimento suado.
Bloquinho em ondas sinuosas de corpos diversos que se encaixam numa transaAção.
Panelas de multitimbres movidas por corpos singulares e plurais.
Responde.
Contribui.
Reunião de IDs manifestam nos limites.
Borboletas nascem pela cintura.
Encoxa.
Senta.
Relaxa no corpo do outro diante e detrás.
Andar com a mão na planta do pé.
Acorda pra corda, na lomba!
Silêncio pinga água do copo-corpo.
Poça.
A panela ferveu, o pau enfarpou, jorra e espalha tudo até pros microcantos.
Transborda tudo que é grito corpóreo e grito revolutivo.
O não explode em uivos de guerra.
Pra cima.
Aproxima!
Rela!
Esfrega!
Samba na cara!!!!
Protesto que não acaba porque sempre há o que indignar e indagar.
Então questiona.
Pensa.
Repensa.
Não pensa!
Caminha com o pensamento.
Pensa com o corpo.
Mudançade olhar e pontos de vista.
Age.
Vaiiiiiiii
O Todo.
O baile todo.
Colocação, no lugar do outro.
Transforma.
Ecoa.
Sua.
Ressoa.
Câmbio de corpos
De Almas.
Almada de gente.
Funk-se!
Se achegue.
Shake-se!
Aconchego.
Fluxo.
Troca de
realidades
também de
Tom
toma e vibra!
Circula.
Cai e estilhaçaaaa
Continua a batucar.
L
I
N
H
A
Levante!
O silêncio também bate lata, faz barulho, mexe a cadeira.
Apoteose da `'foliacidade`'!!!
Sai pra rua.
Rua nua.
Chão chão Chão chão Chão nu refrãoo
Cordão
Óh mar de gente
Ôs quadris
sortidos
Acordarão,
hão de esperançar
em festa
pra Vida♡
Leni
〰️
Leni 〰️
Murmuration
José
〰️
José 〰️
A Rite of Passage
It is impossible to understand what protects the collective body that mobilizes all of its Batucada structures, in an intense process of negotiations and disarticulation of social logics by turning into gestures ー sounds, sweats, flavours, smells, pains, mysteries ー the crossings and restlessness of spirits . Building memories of the freedom that drumming represents, in a body of bodies, dynamic and complex, that renews and expands itself every day and that acts unaware of its own drumming - this was the area that I felt was aroused by Marcelo (with Bruno's partnership), in its performative proposal, in a post-pandemic Lisbon.
The sensation of transcendence built by the freedom that is beating on a pot, undressing (do it if you want!), dripping litres of sweat under a mask that unites me to a spiritual dimension of collective existence, of opening paths, of forming Candomblé terreiros, of the consecration to the rite – all of this can only be registered in a cry:
ー LAROIÊ EXU! ー roar while clapping 3 crossed palms.
Drumming and saluting subjectivities in respectful and honourable work, in the expansion of the present state of (un)consciousness is what we did.
Understanding idiots with their powers, gaps, acts, touches, gazes, displacements, paralyses, was to attribute new lenses to the world. Perceiving the transition to the displacements that sweep the ground, when looking at the clouds, when so many birds are just one inoperative bird, which not only flies in a spiral, but entangles the senses - this is the beginning of the surrender of the collective. Alternating marches, being a tribe, establishing a terreiro and moving forward cannot bring less than rite gestures to the rite.
ー EXU IS MOJUBÁ! ー repeat by crossing your fingers and putting your palm down.
A rite expanded by the challenge of breaking away from the family and moving as relatively as possible, concentrating the energy constructed in that time-space dimension, not only dilated but also succumbed to the smells of assholes and crotches that emanate from the grimaces. A smell that makes every performative body integrated in the density of the wall delirious, dissolved in the group assault that leads us to the marginality of samba.
There we throw sweat to laughter, we join the party that we ourselves exploded. To launch into the circle all the debauchery that Batucada summons, all its provocation and sluggishness, all its ancestral logic, in groups and tones ー that are not only sonorous, but human in explosion ー a delirium stripped of fantasies.
To construct an outline with the shadows we release, in the gooey density of naked and sweaty bodies, and from it, in silence, to transition to a noisy line of affirmation and confrontation, a basic contrast of protests and purges that only their gestures memorize in this collective body, which for the most part never went through a street carnival or a bloodthirsty protest. Flirting with discomfort and surrendering to Marcelo's ritual meant to guide life ー in Lisbon, one begins to be beaten gratuitously by the police in street demonstrations. Let us be attentive! In the theatre, the production is the Lisbon police. Woe, woe, woe to conservatism!
I offer the ass of this collective to you!
From the line that crosses the chest, its maximum span, to the fold of the collective body in confrontation. A true look inside with new lenses. Batucada is an apotheotic ceremony of freedom. A powerful rite, which launches from the centre of the room the lying collective body that resists, protests, breathes and sleeps, while the accidents make the march move forward, dislocating it to such an ecstasy that it is impossible not to shake your ass.
And from the inside, along the way of the arse, the drumming body leads the immersion of the external with a drumming that is more insane than rhythmic. Once in the rite, that glance at the collective butt is essential ー if you have the opportunity, don't avoid it! Let it touch you and smear you!
Cathartic and apotheotic. We explode in fullness. Until we offer ourselves as ground to the paths of those wanderers who, after having crossed the ground zero of the territory sacralised by Marcelo, will never be the same.
If a collective body explodes in drumming, how many collectives are (re)born? Marcelo would never leave an answer, I leave with the question - and it is a collective one.
-
Um rito de passagem
Impossível entender o que protege o corpo coletivo que mobiliza todas as suas estruturas na Batucada, em processo intenso de negociações e desarticulações de lógicas sociais ao tornar gestos ー sons, suores, sabores, cheiros, dores, mistérios ー os atravessamentos e a inquietude dos espíritos. Construir memórias da liberdade que é o batucar, em um corpo de corpos, dinâmico e complexo, que se renova e expande a cada dia e que age desconhecendo seu próprio batuque foi a zona que senti ser excitada por Marcelo (com a parceria de Bruno), em sua proposição performativa, em uma Lisboa pós-pandêmica.
A sensação de transcendência construída pela liberdade que é bater panela, a despir-me (fazer se quiseres!), a escorrer litros de suor sob uma máscara que me une a uma dimensão espiritual da existência em coletivo, da abertura de caminhos, da formação de terreiro, da consagração ao rito, só pode ser registrada em um grito:
ー LAROIÊ EXU! ー esbraveje ao bater 3 palmas cruzadas.
Batucar e saudar as subjetividades em trabalho respeitador e honroso, na expansão do estado presente da (in)consciência foi o que fizemos.
Entender os idiotas com suas potências, lacunas, atos, toques, olhares, deslocamentos, paralisias, foi atribuir novas lentes ao mundo. Perceber a transição para os deslocamentos que varrem o chão, ao mirar as nuvens, quando tantas aves são apenas uma ave inoperacional, que não apenas voa em espiral, mas emaranha os sentidos, é o princípio da entrega do coletivo. Alternar a marcha, ser tribo, firmar terreiro e avançar não podem trazer menos que gestos de rito para o rito.
ー EXU É MOJUBÁ! ー repita ao cruzar os dedos das mãos e pôr sua palma para baixo.
Rito expandido pelo desafio de desregrar-se da família e mover o mais relativo possível, concentrando a energia construída naquela dimensão tempo-espaço, não só dilatada quanto sucumbida pelos cheiros de cu e virilha que emanam os caretas. Cheiro que faz delirar todo corpo performativo integrado na densidade do paredão, dissolvido no arrastão que nos conduz à marginalidade do samba.
Ali lançamos o suor ao riso, integramos a festa que explodimos. Lançar na roda todo deboche que sua Batucada convoca, toda sua provocação e molejo, toda sua lógica ancestral, em grupos e tons ー que não são apenas sonoros, mas humanos em explosão ー um delírio despido de fantasias..
Construir um contorno com as sombras que libertamos, na densidade gosmenta dos corpos nus e suados, e dele, em silêncio, transitar para uma linha barulhenta de afirmação e confronto, um contraste basilar dos protestos e das purgações que só seus gestos memorizam nesse corpo coletivo, que em sua maioria nunca atravessou um carnaval de rua ou um protesto sanguinário. Um flerte com o incômodo e um entregar-se ao ritual de Marcelo para orientar a vida ー em Lisboa começa-se a apanhar da polícia gratuitamente nas manifestações de rua. Estejamos atentes! No teatro a produção é a polícia lisboeta. Ai, ai, ai o conservadorismo!
Oferto o rabo deste coletivo para si!
Da linha que atravessa o peito, a sua máxima envergadura até a dobra do corpo coletivo em confronto. Um verdadeiro olhar para dentro com novas lentes. Batucada é uma cerimônia apoteótica da liberdade. Rito potente, que lança pousado do centro da sala, o corpo coletivo que resiste, protesta, respira e dorme, enquanto os acidentes fazem a marcha avançar a deslocá-lo a tal êxtase que não rebolar o cu é impossível.
E de dentro, pelo caminho do cu, o corpo em batucada conduz a imersão do externo com um batuque mais insano que ritmado. Uma vez no rito, é fundamental essa olhadela para o rabo coletivo ー se tiveres a oportunidade, não evites! Deixe que te toque e que te lambuze!
Catártico e apoteótico. Explodimos em plenitude. Até ofertarmos chão aos caminhos daquelas pessoas caminhantes que, depois de terem cruzado o marco zero do território sacralizado por Marcelo, jamais serão as mesmas.
Se um corpo coletivo explode em batucada, quantos coletivos (re)nascem? Marcelo jamais deixaria uma resposta, saio com a pergunta e ela é coletiva.
Ph. by Pedro Ivo Carvalho - Transborda
Frédéric
〰️
Frédéric 〰️
Inês
〰️
Inês 〰️
“Hi Francesco, buongiorno.
I’m going to talk a little bit about Batucada through here, cause I’m like running around, so… To not postpone it more and just walk to wherever I gotta go, but I’ll also record myself, if that’s ok with you.
Actually, Batucada’s effects – I’ve been feeling them since finishing it. Obviously during the process loads of things were happening to me, with people, because we were working so closely together and with so much empathy and with such proximity with the bodies, but in a new way for me, even though I work with the body, with movement, with dance; it was new.
Since we finished, a few days after, I got this surprising feeling that there’s hope because there are different ways of living and of thinking that are doable, you know, and that might work in the society we live in. It’s kind of a hard feeling to explain just like this, but I was talking a little bit with Thays about it and I think we both kind of understood each other on that… It’s this light, hopeful feeling that since we did that -in the way that we did it and we still managed to put together Batucada- maybe in other aspects of life we can also apply different ways of being and different ways of living that go a little bit (not a little bit, quite a lot) against the normative way of being and living, but that maybe can also coexist with what we have around us. There was so much in the process, but I feel like this is what I’ve been seeing also through other people’s comments (ops, almost fell!).
What I enjoyed so much in the process were actually the practices that Marcelo would propose to us before we started learning the structure with the stations for Batucada. I really liked trying the other practices that he suggested and I think that is also really what made us be a group that could do Batucada.
I liked really much the pre-Batucada practices and the post-feeling of Batucada, but obviously the main moments were when we were all doing the structure together, especially the last performance.
It was great because it was the last chance we had and there was already a feeling of a “last blast”, and it was also the third time we were doing it with people around us, so we were softer with the idea of it. It was a great last parade, all together. Even though it’s not part of the piece, when we all went and celebrated and drank, ate and danced together, that also helped me do that transition.
I think I’ll leave it here.
Hope you have a good day and thank you for this initiative. You told me a bit about your research and so it’s great to be part of it, even though through this voice message.
Bye, ciao.”
Ph. by Pedro Ivo Carvalho - Transborda
Cláudia
〰️
Cláudia 〰️
Batucada in the Form of a Poem
Movement of bodies
Bodies without direction.
Directions without meaning.
And so we walk…
Together
Towards what, we do not know
All we have is a will…
To be together.
And together we remain.
Until sweat
Detaches us.
-
Batucada em forma de poema
Movimento de corpos.
Corpos sem direcção.
Direcções sem sentido.
E assim caminhamos...
Juntos
Para algo que, não sabemos
Só temos uma vontade...
Estar juntos.
E juntos permanecemos.
Até que o suor
Nos despegue.
Ph. by Pedro Ivo Carvalho - Transborda
The show was played within the Transborda Festival 2023
Municipal Theatre Joaquim Benite
av. Prof. Egas Moniz – Almada (Lisbon)
Saturday 6 and Sunday 7 May 2023
18:00
Batucada
by Marcelo Evelin
idea, creation and direction Marcelo Evelin
with the participation of citizens and artists selected via open call (Afonso Costa, Aline Belfort, Beatriz Forjaz, Bobby Brim, Bruno Brandolino, Bruno Moreno, Camilla Morello, Carolina Canteli, Claudia Casanova, Connor Scott, Eduardo Ibraim, Elena Maskall, Filipa Branco Jaques, Francesco Chiaro, Frédéric Charpentier, Giselle Jardim, Ieva Brazenaite, Inês Zinho Pinnheiro, Izabel Nejur, João dos Santos Martins, José Cirilo Neto, Julian Sanchez, Krissia Oliveira, Leendert Peters, Leo Perene, Lorea Burge, Lucas Damiani, Marcelo de Castro Pereira, Marcelo Evelin, Maria Dias, Mariana Catalina Iris, Mariana do Ó, Nelson Rodrigues, Nicole Gomes, Rebecca Mateus, Rita Vilhena, Romain Beltrão Teule, Silvia Góes, Susana Domingos Gaspar, Tarli Lumby, Thays Rodrigues Peric, Tiago Amate, Victor Lattaque)
co-production Demolition Incorporada, Kunstenfestivaldesarts
co-presented with Transborda, Casa da Dança
artistic collaboration Carolina Mendonça, Elielson Pacheco, Sho Takiguchi
technical coordination Márcio Nonato
production director Regina Veloso
production assistant Gui Fontineles, Humilde Alves
local production Andrei Bessa
ph. by Pedro Ivo Carvalho - Transborda
