In dark and violent times, how to survive between truths and lies? What is the role of those who make art in a sick world? How are their lives transformed daily, and what artists can or want to confess?

Questions like this worried director Marcelo Varzea and the more than three dozen people working on establishing a creative transversal in the most critical periods of the pandemic between 2020 and 2021, culminating in three online experiments around the pivotal title “(Un)Confessable.”

The long journey refined the research, solidified the formation of the Coletivo Impermanente, and now unfolds in “O que Meu Corpo Nu te Conta?”, a self-defined immersive performance with intimate narratives, the group’s first face-to-face dive – except for the opening of the process at the festival Satyrianas, in the capital of São Paulo, in December 2021. The first season took place last May. “I chose to honor the opportunity to face the public again in an intimate way, betting that the strength of eye to eye totally transforms the experience,” says Varzea.

Arranged on a large board, 15 artists take turns each session and reveal fictional autobiographical stories that gravitate to themes such as sexual harassment, machismo, homophobia, ageism, fatphobia, racism, pedophilia, infertility, and compulsion.

The process of investigation and construction of the scenes, from the personal report, denotes physical and metaphorical scars. “The primary metaphor of undressing jumped over me. Here, the naked bodies and everything that involves the vulnerability of the artists and also of the audience, which is part of the show, fit. It is up to the viewers to make some navigation decisions through these proposed hyperlinks. In this gathering of stories, micropolitics is revealed in each house. The board partially represents society, the macro”, continues the director and creator.

Each performer alternates the occupation of one of the 12 scenic spaces delimited in about 2 sq.m. The audience chooses which niche to follow during the four-minute rounds, walking around the board every time the bell rings.

 Who are they
Marcelo Varzea (1967) is an actor and director from Rio de Janeiro, graduated from Casa das Artes de Laranjeiras (CAL), and has been based in São Paulo since 1991, with works in theater, television, cinema, and streaming. The solo “Silêncio.doc” (2018) marked his debut as a playwright, with a text released by Editora Cobogó. Coletivo Impermanente, in turn, was created from the joining of actors and actresses who already were with Varzea in the three versions of the online work “(Un)Confessáveis” (2020-2021).

Datasheet
Creation, dramaturgy, and direction Marcelo Varzea
Acting and texts Coletivo Impermanente
Casting Agmar Beirigo, Ana Bahia, André Torquatto, Bruno Rods, Camila Castro, Conrado Costa, Dani D’eon, Daniel Tonsig, Eduardo Godoy, Ellen Regina, Flavio Pacato, John Seabra, Lana Rhodes, Letícia Alves, Pamella Machado, Renan Rezende, Stephanie Lourenço, Thiene Okumura, Veronica Nobili e Vini Hideki
Movement direction Erica Rodrigues
Vocal preparation Lara Córdulla
Lighting Vini Hideki
Original music Marcelo Varzea e Flávio Pacato
Music direction Flávio Pacato
Assistant director Talita Tilieri
Theoretical Consultancy Mariela Lamberti
Body preparation Veronica Nobili
Graphic design Bruno Rods
Vídeos e fotos Otto Blodorn e Bruna Massarelli
Press consultancy Renan Rezende e Katia Calsavara
Production Coletivo Impermanente Camila Castro
Production Corpo Rastreado Leo Devitto