Tributary – Ensaio Geral – Act II – Version(s), by Dorothée Munyaneza, and Treino, lutas e conversas, by Boxe Autônomo

On October 16 and 17, Thursday and Friday, the performance Version(s), by Dorothée Munyaneza, will be presented at 7:30 pm, followed by a sparring session — a boxing demonstration performed by athletes from Boxe Autônomo. Before the performance, at 6 pm, the collective will also hold one of its regular training sessions, which the audience is invited to join. Free tickets are available online via Sympla, either to attend the performance or to participate in the training session as well. This event is part of the Tributaries program — initiatives developed by partner institutions as part of the public program of the 36th Bienal de São Paulo, taking place outside the Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion.

Boxing has always been more than punches. In the hands of Dorothée Munyaneza and Boxe Autônomo, it becomes a method of listening, a language for what remains unsaid, a way of being together in tension and care. At Casa do Povo, Act II of Ensaio Geral [Dress Rehearsal], a Tributary of the 36th Bienal de São Paulo, is a shared program that brings into dialogue two distinct yet resonant practices — one emerging from the poetics of the stage, the other from the everyday pedagogy of the ring.

Over two days, boxing becomes a terrain of relation, rupture, and repair — between the outskirts of Marseille and the Bom Retiro neighborhood in central São Paulo; between art and daily practice; between personal history and collective reimagining.

Version(s) is the most recent work by Dorothée Munyaneza, developed in collaboration with Christian Nka, a former boxer from the northern suburbs of Marseille, and Ben LaMar Gay, a musician from Chicago. Part portrait, part invocation, the piece moves between combat and transmission. Munyaneza seeks what history has not recorded: gestures passed on in silence, knowledge carried in muscle memory, the contradictions of masculinity forged under pressure. The fight is not reenacted — it is dismantled, repurposed, cared for.

In Version(s), the boxing ring becomes a stage — but at Casa do Povo, the reverse has already taken place. Since 2017, Boxe Autônomo has turned the art space into an antifascist gym. Born from a desire to free boxing from machismo and institutionalization, Boxe Autônomo grew out of itinerant lessons in occupations and favelas and has since become a living part of Casa do Povo’s architecture — daily sessions blending into the building’s rhythm, echoing its history of radical pedagogy and collective practice. The ring becomes a democratic space: open, porous, and self-managed; a place where bodies can renegotiate their place.

The encounter between Boxe Autônomo and Munyaneza does not seek to merge these practices, but to place them side by side — to see what resonates between them.

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Dorothée Munyaneza is a multidisciplinary artist who uses music, song, text, and movement to engage with rupture as a dynamic force and to create spaces of resonance and hope. Drawing on the diversity of her cultural heritage — her childhood in Rwanda, 14 years in London, her move to Paris, and later to Marseille — her creations weave dialogues with guest collaborators to convey and celebrate the voices of the silenced and to reveal the scars of history. She is an associate artist at Chaillot – Théâtre National de la Danse in Paris, as well as at Maison de la Danse and Biennale de la Danse in Lyon. In 2023, she received the Salavisa European Dance Award for her work.

Boxe Autônomo has been active in occupations and public spaces across São Paulo since 2015, understanding sport as a social right and a platform for cultivating values such as anti-racism, antifascism, and the fight against all forms of discrimination. Drawing from the experience of popular sport, the group offers free boxing training at Casa do Povo, with a focus on the local community of the Bom Retiro neighborhood.

About Ensaio Geral

In many ways, the Teatro de Arte Israelita Brasileiro (TAIB) is a submerged theater. Active from the 1960s until the late 1990s, it was hidden in the basement of Casa do Povo — a clandestine refuge for immigrants and activists, a stronghold of resistance during the Brazilian dictatorship, a center of experimental performance, and a crucible for artistic revolutions of the 1960s and 1970s. Its history is rich in political and popular theater, choral and experimental forms that have always challenged the boundaries between amateur and professional performance. After a flood in 2000, the theater remained silent for years, and its stories stayed submerged.

Ensaio Geral is a performance program within the 36th Bienal de São Paulo, developed and rooted in that very space. The theater is not merely a frame but a proposition — an invitation to question and reimagine what theater can be, rehearsing it on a real scale, hence the program’s name. Ensaio Geral focuses on practices often excluded from canonical theater histories and institutional stages. In this context, reopening TAIB is not just an act of reclaiming space, but also of asking: What is theater, and what can it do? It marks the opening of a theater that is yet to come.

The program is curated by Benjamin Seroussi (artistic director of Casa do Povo) and Daniel Blanga Gubbay (member of the artistic direction of Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Brussels).

Service
Tributary – Ensaio Geral – Act II – Version(s) by Dorothée Munyaneza, and Training, Fights, and Conversations by Boxe Autônomo
36th Bienal de São Paulo – Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity as Practice
October 16–17, 2025
Thu & Fri, training (6 pm), performance (7:30 pm), and sparring (8:45 pm)
Casa do Povo
Rua Três Rios, 252 – Bom Retiro
near Tiradentes metro station
São Paulo, SP
free tickets available online via Sympla
capacity: 100 seats
free admission