A finalist for the State Governor's Award in 2018, the Mungunzá Container Theater suddenly went from being honored by the government to being targeted by the government. Last Tuesday, the 19th, the theater was violently raided by the Metropolitan Civil Guard, and its performers were forcibly removed from its premises using pepper spray and physical restraint. This is, to say the least, a contradiction: since its founding in 2017, the Mungunzá Theater Company has been an island of welcome, kindness, and cultural excellence in São Paulo's most difficult downtown area.
In 2020, during the pandemic, the Container Theater kept its doors open to homeless people, helping with personal hygiene issues, and also served as a logistics hub for the humanitarian aid organization Doctors Without Borders (which operated at two locations in downtown São Paulo). It hosted activities by activist groups from the Center (related to health and social assistance), became a collection and distribution point for donations, and helped distribute 40 meals (500 per day) to the homeless population at that time.
A year earlier, in 2019, the Container Theater organized the exhibition O Fluxo Expõe – A Arte da Cracolândia (The Flow Exposes – The Art of Cracolândia), featuring works by artists Clayton Dentinho, Ed Peixoto, Fábio Rodrigues, Índio Badarós, Jaick MC, Rogério Roque, Wesley Marciano, and Yóri Felipe Ken. These eight artists worked in a highly vulnerable social environment in Fluxo (fluxo was the name used to designate the area near Luz Station in the capital, which at the time had a large concentration of crack users and homeless people).
The spacious sewing studio in the back of the Mungunzá Container Theater, run by Cia. Mungunzá de Teatro, was bustling with activity this Friday. Built after a R$65 investment, the space (like the entire complex, built with shipping containers, one measuring 12 meters and two measuring six meters) is home to the Coletivo Tem Sentimento (Collective Has Sentiment), which develops an income-generating project with and for women living in that area of downtown São Paulo.
The theater's architecture, therefore, beyond being characterized as Social Housing—a category that must be protected by the State—is not simply a theater group's intervention in an urban area, but rather a case of developing the language of theater itself within the confines of an urbanistic impulse. The Mungunzá Theater Company offered a statement on this relationship. "We ended up presenting new avenues of action. New formats for public policies. Our space directly connects with the city and its downtown residents, whether through architecture or the dynamic we create without divisions," explained actor Marcos Felipe.
According to Agência Brasil, the São Paulo court granted an injunction this Thursday guaranteeing the Mungunzá Container Theater and the Coletivo Tem Sentimento (Tem Sentiment Collective) to remain in the property (which belongs to the São Paulo city government) for the next 180 days. The injunction, issued by Judge Nandra Martins da Silva Machado of the 5th Public Finance Court, prevents eviction actions and raids by the Metropolitan Civil Guard and other agencies, such as the one attempted on Tuesday night. The judge explained that the theater is composed of 15 interconnected shipping container structures, glass walls, acoustic roofing, lighting, and an artistic and cultural collection. Therefore, evicting the property would not be a simple process and would require "technical and logistical planning for its dismantling, transportation, and restructuring."
Another reason cited by the court is that the theater has a confirmed schedule until December of this year, "the interruption of which would cause losses not only for the Container Theater, but for society as a whole and for the countless artists, educators, and audiences directly involved." In a statement published on its official website this Friday morning (22), the city government stated that it intends to revitalize the region and build a social housing building on the land where the Container Theater is located. The municipal administration also alleged that it had already offered three legalized areas to the Mungunzá Container Theater, "which failed to comply with three official requests to leave the illegally occupied municipal land." Also on Thursday, the 21st, Funarte president Maria Marighella said she sent an official letter to Mayor Ricardo Nunes to try to exchange the land targeted by the City Hall project for another from the federal government, if possible, and keep the Container Theater in its area of operation.
