Theatrical Experiments

An interview with Brazilian theatre professor and activist Carina Maria from Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST), the Landless Workers’ Movement

Eduardo Prado Cardoso. 08/10/2025.

This text is an edited English translation of the interview carried out in Portuguese on September 10th, 2025, at the Fondation Maison des sciences del’homme, in Paris. You can watch the video version in Portuguese at the bottom of this page.

Professor Carina Maria Guimarães Moreira is a director, playwright, and lecturer in the Postgraduate Programme in Performing Arts and the Undergraduate Theatre courses at the Federal University of São João del Rei in Brazil. She has been conducting research and creating spaces for continuous dialogue with social movements such as the MST, developing theatrical methodologies of a political nature, and is interested in anti-colonial and decolonial practices through performance as a space for the encounter between politics and aesthetics.

Eduardo: I’d like to begin by thanking you for your kindness in taking the time to talk a bit about your work, not only in theatre but also in activism and “agitation,” as you’ve called it. Just to give some context: we’ve come together here thanks to a project through this network that discusses circular art [the COST action Circul’Arts]. And in your workshop, you and Carlos [dos Santos] spoke a lot about the importance of exchange. So, I’d like you to talk a little about how your theatrical work over the years has developed through this lens of exchange, which is often thought of as something separate? Because even when theatre is done collectively, you create a play and present it to an audience. How do you see this dimension of exchange in your theatrical work?

Carina Maria: Yes, in recent years we’ve been working with social and community movements. And working with these movements presupposes exchange. Because, although we’re a theatre group, we also have a group within the university, the Coletivo Fuzuê. It’s also a centre for studies in political theatre, so it has an academic dimension and belongs to a research group as well.

But when we step outside of academia and meet with social and community movements, we can’t show up with the attitude that we’re there to teach something. In fact, we have much to learn from these communities and movements. So, we’ve come to understand that this is the key word, the key action we can take – even within academia: to recognise its social purpose. What are we producing knowledge for?

This has been our main focus, I think, for the past ten years, since we founded Fuzuê: to understand that research, art, and specifically political theatre only truly happen if there is real exchange.

Eduardo: Exactly. It’s wonderful what you said about not seeing things as separate. Politics, culture – they’re all interconnected. I’d like you, then, to give us a concrete example. Could you share an experiment you’ve developed, where the traditional theatre roles of director, actor, actress – these titles, as it were – were re-imagined or played with?

Carina Maria: Yes. In our work, the texts are all original, developed in the rehearsal room. So, these are processes where I take on a coordinating role, one linked to directing, but it’s much more about being sensitive to the parts and the people involved. The text, the actions, the music – all of it is created collectively, and also in relation to the exchange and lived experiences we have.

Because when we leave the rehearsal room, the university, and enter community or social spaces, the stories we encounter there also feed our creative work. For instance, we don’t work with the idea of a finished theatre play. We work with the idea of a theatrical experiment – something that remains open. As we perform, engage in conversations, and encounter new spaces, the work can be transformed through cooperation. And this cooperation doesn’t come only from those directly involved in the artistic process, but also from the audience and the conditions of the performances themselves.

Eduardo: Of course. And in that context, you mentioned – recovering lived experiences, which I think is such a striking phrase – what have you seen and felt in the experiences of the women you meet? Are they multiple? Do they overlap? Could you share an example?

Carina Maria: Women are extraordinary. The work I’ve done, especially with the MST (Landless Workers’ Movement) has been profoundly significant. Women there have an important place of protagonism and contribution. Through militancy we can build bonds, and these bonds are multiple.

Because we are mothers, many of us are farm workers, educators, artists, teachers. And in this space of struggle and with the belief in a better world, we are always questioning how to move forward. For a long time, women were confined to the role of care, but as an exclusive duty. Later we gained access to the labour market, but in Brazil what often happens is that this entry becomes a double or triple workload: the paid workday, the domestic workday, and for those involved in activism, a third day – the activist struggle.

So, exchanging experiences and reflecting on these limits, and on the self-care practices that we women can cultivate among ourselves, becomes crucial. And this goes across generations: younger women dealing with issues around the body, development, safety; women my age – around fifty – facing menopause, health and mental health concerns; and older women, sometimes struggling with loneliness. All of these issues come into play in community movements, and we create exchanges that go beyond activism or education. There’s another layer of sensitivity. I’ve really come to see the MST as a space of extraordinary women.

Eduardo: You’ve touched on women’s work, which I think is such a relevant issue, and one that art often neglects. Women’s work has always meant double and triple shifts, as you put it. That also makes me reflect on the work of Black women. Within the MST, how do you see this question of work emerging in the experiments you create? Do you sense any changes underway? Specifically, what have you observed about Black women?

Carina Maria: Well, when we talk about the MST, we are indeed talking about a majority Black population. Rural workers in Brazil are largely Black. And I think the movement, through its practices in theatre, education, art, and culture, brings these women a powerful sense of humanity.

It may sound harsh, but many [Black women in the MST], despite being incredibly hard-working, haven’t had the chance to reveal vulnerability. They’ve endured heavy labour and hardship. What the movement fosters – through collectivity – is learning: political learning, but also human learning. That’s crucial, because these women are so overburdened, so accustomed to hardship, that in a way it becomes normalised.

The current experiment we’re working on deals precisely with this idea: the normalisation of violence. It invites us, collectively, to question life, systems of production, education, daily existence. These spaces of questioning humanise us. They reveal both potential and limits. And that’s vital for Black women in particular.

Eduardo: Absolutely. To close, I was going to ask you to point towards the future – but you’ve already done that. We’ve spoken about how academia, and even activism, can sometimes fall into a pessimism that gets us nowhere. But you’ve given an example of how much still needs to be done, and yet how much has already been achieved. Do you have any final thoughts on the importance of supporting the rich work already happening in Brazil and beyond?

Carina Maria: Yes. I’d just like to briefly mention the latest experiment we’re working on. Its title is Toró: Hatred of Nature, or When Crime Happens Like the Rain That Falls. Toró is an Indigenous word for a heavy rain. The phrase “When crime happens like the rain that falls” comes from Brecht, who was writing about the rise of fascism and how violence becomes so pervasive it feels natural, like rain. Our aim is to denaturalise these processes, to understand them as historical.

The piece involves two actresses on stage. We ironically note that “history is made by men,” but then tell it with only women performing. This highlights that history is made by people – not predetermined – and therefore can change. And perhaps women are the ones to lead this change, because the world has long been constructed for men.

We, as women, live in cycles – daily, monthly, across our lives. We don’t wake up with the same energy every day. But the world we live in ignores that. It’s a world of productivity, deadlines, constant demands. So, we question not only direct violence – for example, the violence historically inflicted on rural workers in Brazil – but also the everyday violence of a world that doesn’t stop to breathe or recognise the beauty of something as simple as rain.

Yes, academic critique is essential. But it must lead to practice, and to contact with people in struggle, in resistance, this is fundamental if we are to imagine a new world. We have to build with, not build something and hand it over. We must move past this notion of teaching others. I think that’s it.

Eduardo: Wonderful!

Watch a video of the filmed interview in Portuguese below: