The show “A Vida das Bonecas Vivas” will include two presentations at Sesi Campinas

A poetic show full of references, provocations and subjectivities, born from director Dan Nakagawa’s insight into the global live-puppet movement. Inspired by this idea, he created “A Vida das Bonecas Vivas” to deal with great precision “with human existence on the margins of a society that restricts diversity and subjectivity,” as he himself defines it. In a timeless place, the plot is about people needing to exist in a hidden way, with a crew of six dancers in plastic costumes, blending oriental trends from buto (dance theatre) and kabuki (mask theatre) into a contemporary show. There will be two performances at the Teatro do Sesi Campinas, Wednesday 6 and Thursday 7, at 8 pm, and although tickets are free, they must be reserved via Sesi’s website.

The global living doll community – where men don masks, silicone suits and prosthetic breasts to transform themselves into living dolls – emerged as a movement in the 1980s and today still has followers in Germany, the UK and the US. Dan Nakagawa’s first contact with the subject was through the documentary “O Segredo das Bonecas Vivas”. “I was fascinated and fascinated by these middle-aged men and their secret habit of dressing like dolls in latex clothes, specially designed for this movement. They generally stay at home, in their ordinary lives, each in his own relationship with his own avatar” They, With their masks, they transcend what they are, and transcend their existence. This is art: annihilating yourself to discover another personality,” he reveals.

The show features director Helena Ignez, 83, as guest actress (participation recorded on video), Bogdan Zeberdy (Polish, lives in Sweden) in breathtaking provocation, Lukas Vanat as playwright, Anderson Jouvia in choreography that fuses his act with Alf Baros, and Gui Tsuji , Henrik Hadachi, Vivian Petrie, and Adrian Hintze from Campinas. By extrapolating the boundaries between dance, theater, and performance, Dan Nakagawa reveals that he brought to montage “the same deconstruction of the normative view regarding sexuality, sexuality, and artistic expression, and, essentially, in a way of expanding and discussing new forms.” An existence that exceeds the established standards.” He says that the show takes place in an environment that conveys the idea of ​​a dream, and the characters are surrounded by a fun white atmosphere that suggests infinity.

“The costumes reference the plastic clothes of live puppet culture, bringing restrained movement to the bodies and, at the same time, giving them an aesthetic that is sometimes lyrical, sometimes grotesque, sometimes zany,” Dan says of the movements. The gestures of these men in their rubber suits, like a “second skin,” are physically confining, but liberating by empowering a new personality. The director says that he searched for elements from his eastern origins to build the aesthetics of the scenes. I went in search of avenues in the expression and intensity of the buto, in which the dance ‘state’ passes through the necessity of dying in order to be reborn, and I visited kabuki, with its fluid drama of song and dance and expressive make-up, “to freely come up with a more popular and more modern conception, in this hybrid of Dance and theatre, where movements and sounds generate bodily states in the performer,” he says.

Other influences on the show run through psychoanalysis. According to the director, the characters in “A Vida das Bonecas Vivas” meet their shadow, their likeness, based on psychoanalytic concepts such as Sigmund Freud’s “familiar stranger” and Jack’s “the other in the mirror”. Lacan, Return to the Self through the Experience of the Other, by Antonin Artaud. He says he has also used as a reference the works of Greek playwright and choreographer Dimitris Papaioannou, of the dance group Sina 11, and Japanese performer and choreographer Hiroaki Umeda, to put forward perspectives on identity renaissance that transcend the boundaries of society. Paralysis and the roles you play on a daily basis.

Dan Nakagawa, from São Paulo, has always been involved in music, dance, theater and film. “Things were happening and when I saw that I was there creating and doing my work, because for me art is a tool to communicate with the world,” he comments. Headquartered in São Paulo, she keeps working in partnership with international groups, since 2017 she has been developing works in Stockholm (Sweden), narrowing cultural exchanges between her art – provocative and Brazilian with theatre – and Swedish dance.

The 14-year-old’s 80-minute show premiered remotely on YouTube in 2020, due to restrictions imposed by the pandemic. In 2023, the assembly will spread across the São Paulo Sisi units, having already passed through Ribeirao Preto and São José dos Campos.

Live puppet show

When: Wednesday 6/9 and Thursday 7/9 at 8 pm

Venue: Sisi Amoreras Theater – Das Amoreras Street, 450 Parque Italia