Events
Banho de Descarrego: An Anti-Fascist Urban Performance
Can you help wash these ideas away?...
“Banho de Descarrego” is a Brazilian performance that stages the removal of fascist ideologies and practices from the social body through the public washing of painted bodies covered in swastikas. As a political intervention, the action seeks to provoke poetic and critical estrangement in public space, enacting resistance to the far right’s discriminatory, neo-fascist policies in Brazil under President Bolsonaro, in the US under President Trump, and around the globe.
Conceived by artists/professors Marcelo Denny and Marcos Bulhões of the University of São Paulo, this action was performed in the city of Natal, Brazil, in October 2018. The title refers to a ritual bath that washes away negative energies—a practice that is widespread in Brazilian popular culture.
20 Cooper Square, fifth floor
New York, NY 10003
Marcelo Denny is a theatre director, curator, producer, set designer, visual artist, art director, and Professor in the Graduate Program in Performing Arts at the University of São Paulo, where he also co-founded the Laboratório de Práticas Performativas. He is the author of several books and the co-founder of Teatro da Pombagira.
Marcos Bulhões is an artistic director, curator, actor, and Professor at the University of São Paulo, where he teaches in the Graduate Program in Performing Arts and co-directs the Laboratório de Práticas Performativas. He co-founded and co-directs Desvio Coletivo, whose urban intervention “CEGOS” (BLIND) has been performed around the world.
About the Laboratório de Práticas Performativas
Laboratório de Práticas Performativas at the University of São Paulo researches and documents contemporary political performance in Brazil. The group has produced dozens of scholarly works examining performance art pedagogies, the architectures and choralities of the body, urban intervention, feminist and queer performance, and performance and trance, among other themes. In partnership with Desvio Coletivo and Teatro da Pombagira, their practice-based research is developed through courses and workshops locally and internationally.
The event is free and open to the public. A photo ID is required to enter NYU buildings and 20 Cooper Square is a wheelchair accessible venue.