Container Theater
Container Theater

Ignoring a court injunction, on Monday morning, the 22nd, a demolition company entered the buildings adjacent to the Mungunzá Container Theater in Luz (central São Paulo) and began tearing down doors, walls, and upper floors, complying with a municipal government order. The demolition of the annex building, whose wall adjoins the cultural space, sends debris flying throughout the area, endangering the people who work there, including those from Coletivo Tem Sentimento, and rendering its operations unviable.

The Container Theater's operation is guaranteed for the next six months by order of Judge Nandra Martins da Silva Machado of the 5th Public Finance Court, which prevents eviction proceedings. In her ruling, 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, eviction of the property would not be a simple process and would require "technical and logistical planning for its disassembly, transportation, and restructuring."

On August 19th, the São Paulo city government attempted to forcibly evict the theater, using personnel and police resources from the Metropolitan Civil Guard. The effort was thwarted by the actions of actors, technicians, patrons, and local residents. The violent and illegal action (pepper spray and restraints were used on performers) sparked protests across the country, and the Ministry of Culture and Funarte issued statements of outrage, committing to negotiations to end the municipal government's hostilities. On Monday, the demolition company that began demolishing the adjacent building announced that it had been instructed to act by municipal government agencies.

The city government claims that the land where the Container is located is part of a revitalization plan for the region and that it intends to build a social housing building on the site. The municipal administration claimed that it had already offered three legalized sites to the Mungunzá Container Theater, "which failed to comply with three official requests to leave the illegally occupied municipal land." However, the theater has a confirmed schedule until December of this year, "the interruption of which would cause harm not only to the Container Theater, but to society as a whole and to the countless artists, educators, and audiences directly involved," according to the judge.

Container Theater reported to Art! Brazilians which is launching a legal response to the demolition process initiated by the São Paulo City Hall. This is the second such initiative undertaken under Ricardo Nunes' administration: he was also responsible for destroying the Vento Forte Theater and the Angola Cruzeiro do Sul Capoeira School in Parque do Povo in February. To date, he has not undertaken any action to restore the demolished property, despite his Secretary of Culture, Totó Parente, having publicly committed to doing so.

A finalist for the State Governor's Award in 2018, the Mungunzá Container Theater has, since its founding in 2017, been an island of welcome, kindness, and cultural excellence in São Paulo's most challenging 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 in two locations in downtown São Paulo). It hosted activities by downtown activist groups (related to health and social assistance), became a collection and distribution point for donations, and helped distribute 40,000 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 located in the back of the Mungunzá Container Theater, run by Mungunzá Theater Company, was installed after a R$65 investment. Like the entire complex, the space was built using shipping containers, one measuring 12 meters and two measuring six meters. It is also home to the Coletivo Tem Sentimento (Collective Have Sentiment), which develops an income-generating project with and for women living in downtown São Paulo.

The architecture of the theater, in this way, in addition to being characterized as Social Interest Housing, a spectrum that must be protected by the State, does not only mean an intervention by a theater group in an urban region, but has become an exemplary case of the development of the language of theater itself within the conformations of an urbanistic impulse.


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