“BATUCADA,” MARCELO EVELIN’S PERFORMANCE: A STORY

September 5, 2025 – Casa do Povo, São Paulo, Brazil

Casa do Povo is a wide, industrial building with shades of gray, sand, and wood. Neon signs hang from the ceiling, and a bulletin board announces yoga classes and group psychoanalysis sessions.

We enter the basement: spacious, with columns and acoustics that make everything resonate. We stand in a circle. Heart-shaped balloons float from the ceiling. Performers move among the audience wearing black masks that cover their faces, leaving only eyes and mouths visible. From the nose emerges a small horn. They walk strangely, approach us, look at us, brush past us. The room falls silent; anticipation builds.

Suddenly, the Batucada begins. Marcelo Evelin—the author of the performance—is there, dressed in white, wearing flip-flops and a long beard. Just another spectator. The music starts: drums, metal objects struck with sticks, a ferrous and dominant sound that fills all time and space. The street-style murga moves around the audience, but without paying them much attention.

The group disperses and reunites at moments, guided by the rhythm: an exercise of expansion and contraction. The breathing of sound. I see one performer take off his pants and another unbutton her dark blue denim shirt. I know they will end up naked. And they do. The rhythm continues, intensifies: faster, louder, movements wider and swifter. There is no sequence, no concatenation of events; suddenly, it feels as if they have always been naked. There is only the present.

The lights go out; the Batucada moves to a corner. We all follow. They line up, then break apart to continue dancing. The group movse up and down, shaking their bodies. They do not shout. Some lights intermittently illuminate their movements. Celebration, alertness, effervescence.

Then, they move to the center, forming a diagonal line that divides the space in two. All performers look in the same direction. Instruments change the melody and rhythm spontaneously. The balloons remain on the ceiling, intertwined. They begin to play more slowly. The silence is ambiguous; we do not know what will come next.

But they start again, with even more intensity. Bodies swelling and folding in on themselves; their smell and proximity both unsettling and captivating. The nudity becomes part of my perception. Two audience members cover their ears. Others dance with them, unmasked, rigid, with eyes wide open.

The group moves to a corner; they back up, turning their backs to the audience, pushing us, forcing us to move with them. They gather at the center, throw themselves to the floor, embrace. Possessed creatures, yet not threatening. I recognize fragments of melodies, but never with certainty. The intensity reaches a point of no return; some spectators grow tired, I remain hypnotized. I wonder how it will end, but I cannot anticipate. There is neither projection nor retrospection.

Until the doors open, and slowly, the Batucada leaves the space. They ascend the stairs as the sound fades. I remain behind, waiting impatiently for my turn to exit. I think it is over but I then see them lying face down at the building’s exit, half inside, half spilling into the street.

Naked bodies form a kind of human carpet that we, the spectators, timidly step around so as not to tread on them. No one wants to be disrespectful, yet simply passing by feels irreverent.

Evelin observes, calm. Lights illuminate the bodies that remain still.

This performance was part of the inaugural program of the 36th São Paulo Biennial at Casa do Povo, a project that seeks to open the city’s spaces to artistic experiences combining collective participation, the body, and music. Including Batucada in the Biennial marked Marcelo Evelin’s debut in São Paulo with this work, a proposal that pushes the limits of theater and performance, placing the audience at the very center of the experience.

Performers:
Pedro Martins Karam, Armr'Ore Erormra, Módolordo Lima, Daniela Moraes Biá Torres, Giovanna Monteiro, Kaiala De Oliveira, Marco Xavier, Lívea Castro, Francisco Ferraz, Tatiana Melitello Washiya, Helena Veliago Costa, Tomás Decina, Cléia Plácido, Vinicius Brasileiro, Erivelto Viana, Giselle Jardim, Jhonas Araújo, Flora Dias, Fabrício Boliveira, Tenca Silva, Marina Dubia, Feliz Trovoada, Bibi Dória, Jerônimo Sodré, Bruna Spoladore, Beatriz Solar, Tamara Soriano, João Victor Matheus Cavalcante, Thauanna Cristina, Módolo.

*Cover image: Marcelo Evelin, Batucada, Act 1 (2014_2025) © Levi Fanan. Courtesy of Fundação Bienal de São Paulo.