One of biggest São Paulo favelas stages street theater productions

The streets and alleyways in the Cidade Nova Heliópolis favela, São Paulo, will set the stage for plays and other spectacles produced by art groups from the city's impoverished communities.

“The Mostra de Teatro de Heliópolis [Heliópolis Theater Exhibition] aims chiefly to promote the theater done by groups in favelas or marginal areas of São Paulo city. The idea is to give those people a stage so they can show their work. The larger goal is to promote the theater from the peripheral areas of the state,” said Daniel Gaggini, production director and one of the minds behind the event.

Apart from the streets of Heliópolis—one of the city's biggest favelas—some of the plays will be performed at night at the headquarters of the Heliópolis Theater Company. “After every spectacle staged at the Heliópolis Company, a round of talks will be held and mediated by a critic or journalist, who will talk a little about the work of this group and the spectacle performed. It's the public's chance to come into contact with their creative process,” Gaggini added.

In a year marked by crisis and the lack of funding, bid offers, and sponsorship, with no funding, bid offers, or sponsors, the event is held as an independent production, financed through a crowdfunding campaign launched by the organizers themselves, which raised $300. “But that only served to give us more strength to mount the exhibition. All groups are coming as volunteers. We're holding an event where artists show their work free of any charge,” he added.

Cidade Nova Heliópolis, located 8km from São Paulo's downtown area, was urbanized in the 90s and is home to over 40 thousand people.

Translated by Fabrício Ferreira