Instinct

The jury's
conclusion

Instinct will be produced by the GOMPA Project, a Brazilian collective of artists established in 2014. They aim to bring forth Rubek and Brand's ideas on apathy and fanaticism as formulated in Ibsen's plays When We Dead Awaken and Brand and question them in the social context of the present political regime of Brazil. The Ibsen Scope jury was intrigued by the artistic ideas presented and the applicants' visions for the performance. In Instinct, the director Camila Bauer wants to juxtapose two co-habiting universes, an auditive one on voice-over and a visual, performative one onstage. A collage of texts is to be heard, mixing fragments of the Ibsen plays suggested and speeches, talks and discourses recorded from the Brazilian political debates of the latter years. On stage are three monkeys, three creatures free spirited from birth, who now are confined in a caged environment resembling Brazilians domestic life. The imprisoned are forced to either adapt or fight, a struggle against a regime that deprive its inhabitants of their spontaneity and instincts of care, play and fun. Thus, it is through the lens of the primates and through the power of laughter, that the GOMPA Project intends to reach the spectator, making us question matters we otherwise might not be able to access. Director Camila Bauer formulates her thoughts in her application to the Ibsen Scope jury: “If art cannot change reality, at least it can work as a mirror that shines light in our eyes, disturbing and forcing us to change our perspectives to see better. If we can't come up with answers, let's at least shout out the right questions.”

About the project

Fragments of When We Dead Awaken and Brand mixed with the most terrible discourses pronounced by Brazilian leaders. 3 monkeys in a cage playing around, acting on instincts. What behaviors resemble us? Is our ability to reason enough to make us superior to animals?
Rubek and Brand’s thoughts question the boundaries between apathy and fanaticism, highlighting how we go from one extreme to another. Bolsanaroism reveals a silenced Brazil, legitimizing hate speech and intolerance. Meanwhile, some people are trying to wake up. What can they do? The Brazilian people are like caged animals. It is in the apathy of our cages that we are going through the cruelest government in decades.
In INSTINCT, the animals live in a world that looks a lot like ours. Something happens in the outside world making people more and more apathetic, while we see hate speech multiplying. It seems to be part of our young democracy to live under constant threat. Even when we have the key, we don’t know how to unlock our cages.

Camila Bauer and Liane Venturella
Camila Bauer is a theater director and professor at the Drama Department of Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil). She received her PhD in Arts of Spectacle at Université Libre of Bruxelles and University of Seville. She is the artistic director of Projeto GOMPA, a Brazilian group of multi-artists engaged in the creation of performances with an emphasis on combining different artistic languages, looking for political, existential and conceptual aspects of art. She has directed several theatre, dance and opera performances; she has also created contemporary dramaturgy, receiving different awards for her performances and academic research.

In INSTINCT Camila associates with Liane Venturella, who has been working with masks for over 20 years and has created many theatrical performances without the use of speech. Liane is an actress graduated from the Desmond Jones School of Mime and Physical Theater (London) and she studied at the École Philippe Gaulier (London). She has acted in more than 30 theatrical productions and received many acting e direction awards.