Container Theater

A Mungunzá Theatre Company, one of the most innovative collectives on the São Paulo scene, was surprised this Wednesday (28) with an eviction order issued by the City of São Paulo. The document, dated May 26, grants only 15 days to completely vacate the Container Theater, a space that has become a cultural and social landmark in the city center.

The city government’s official justification points to the location as a “strategic point for housing.” For the company, however, the decision seems like a disregard for almost a decade of work that has transformed the region.

Created in 2008, the Mungunzá group has been developing ongoing scenic research for 16 years, seeking to align art and life. In 2017, this search resulted in the creation of the Container Theater. More than just a headquarters, it has become a vibrant artistic occupation, recognized for its impactful cultural management in vulnerable areas and for its sustainable and community-based architecture.

Marcos Felipe, actor and producer of Cia. Mungunzá, recalls how the space, which has been in the heart of São Paulo for 9 years, “radically changed the emotional geography of the territory”. He says that the theater was a pioneer in focusing its work on the territory itself, on the surrounding population. A crucial difference, because, although surrounded by other cultural facilities, none of them had, until then, “this promotion with the population of downtown São Paulo itself; they all worked in a dynamic of a population that came from outside”.

The impact is reflected in numbers: over the course of these nine years, Teatro de Contêiner “offered more than 4.000 artistic and social activities, 83% of which were free to the population, and we reached a total of half a million people”. This work has been recognized nationally and internationally, has been honored with awards and has become a reference, guiding public policies replicated in other municipalities.

Given this trajectory, the eviction order comes with even greater weight. “We are deeply shocked by the violence of receiving a court order for eviction for a period of 15 days,” says Marcos Felipe.

The feeling is that the history built there is being ignored: “We thought that the city of São Paulo should regulate, endorse the space and raise this space as an emblem of the city itself and not deactivate and destroy this equipment to build yet another building in a city that only has buildings”. Marcos Felipe points out that over the last few years many buildings have been built in downtown São Paulo and none of them have actually served the vulnerable population: “There is a process of gentrification in downtown São Paulo and the deactivation of the Container Theater to build a building is part of the process of elitization, of bringing people from the middle class to the center and expelling the poorest residents to the outskirts of the city”. 

Regarding alternatives, the city government has mentioned the possibility of other plots of land, but without presenting any concrete proposals. Mungunzá Company questions the logic: “If there are other alternatives for the Container Theater, why can’t these buildings be built on them?”

Now, the company is mobilizing. The way forward is to “get civil society to engage in this fight”, seeking support so that this “public force can curb this extractive drive of the government and the mayor”.


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