Tributary – Ensaio Geral – Act III – Casa de bonecas (live), by Alexandre Paulikevitch and MEXA
On December 12 and 13, Friday and Saturday, the 24-hour performance Casa de bonecas (live) [Dollshouse (live)] by Alexandre Paulikevitch and MEXA will take place. This event is part of Tributaries, programs developed by partners as part of the public programming of the 36th Bienal de São Paulo – Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity as Practice outside the Pavilhão Ciccillo Matarazzo. The event runs from 9 pm on Friday to 9 pm on Saturday at Casa do Povo. No tickets are required. During the uninterrupted 24-hour presentation, the audience may enter and leave freely.
A shoulder that turns, deliberately; a gaze — held, then redirected. The cabaret begins not with a fanfare, but with a slight shift of attention: toward the body, toward its codes, toward its refusal to stay in line. Often considered “not serious enough” for the theater, cabaret has historically become the stage of dissidence, of gender exploration, and of everything that could not be said otherwise. At Casa do Povo, cabaret carries its own lineage — rooted not only in the institution’s history with political theater, but also in diasporic Jewish traditions, in which satire, song, and performance became forms of survival and critique.
It is in this context that the singular encounter between Alexandre Paulikevitch and the group MEXA emerges. The result of a long exchange between the artists, Casa de bonecas (live) is a new, long-duration performance. For the occasion, a temporary house was built inside TAIB. Over 24 hours, the performers must inhabit this space, mirroring the structure of a reality show and exploring the tension between endurance over time and enforced proximity. They receive instructions in the form of theatrical cues that function as challenges. It is the “big brother” that drives the action and leads the performers to repeat tasks and reveal fragments of their lives in order to win the game. Theatrical practices such as crying, memorizing a text, or presenting a musical number blend with everyday occupations, bringing the artistic space closer to the domestic sphere and asking where dissident bodies can feel at home.
The audience may enter and leave the theater freely to follow the events through live projections or direct observation. The set design reveals and conceals, questioning what may or may not be seen. In this uninterrupted cabaret, entertainment is shaped by the collective exhaustion of the performers’ bodies. Bodies turn away or insist on being seen; identities become choreographies — improvised or rehearsed — with the sense that theater must always remain unfinished, porous to desire and to the noise of the present. MEXA and Alexandre reclaim within cabaret — a form born at the margins of institutions, always too exaggerated, too queer, too loud — an opportunity to rehearse another way of being together.
Alexandre Paulikevitch was born and lives in Beirut. He is one of the few men working within the tradition of baladi — often reduced through a colonial gaze to “belly dance” — as a gesture of political resistance. Trained in Theater and Dance at Université Paris VIII and a disciple of iconic dancers of the Arab world, Alexandre dismantles the layers of Orientalism and homophobia that have long attempted to discipline this dance. His work opens space for delicacy as strategy, sensuality as resistance, and ambiguity as truth. He often performs in museums, theaters, and underground parties.
MEXA is an artistic collective active since 2015 in São Paulo, born in the context of shelters and shaped by urgency and State neglect. The group explores the boundaries between reality and fiction, autobiography, documentary, and the theater of the real, creating performances, videos, photographs, and their own scenic forms. Since 2016, they have been residents at Casa do Povo and have presented work in major institutions and festivals. Singing, lip-syncing, and performing their stories, MEXA reinvents personal and collective myths, making art a space of affirmation, invention, and presence.
Act III is supported by Kaserne Basel (Basel, Switzerland) and Goethe-Institut São Paulo.
About Ensaio geral
In many ways, the Teatro de Arte Israelita Brasileiro (TAIB) is a submerged theater. Operating 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 fortress of resistance during the Brazilian dictatorship, a center of experimental performance, and a crucible of artistic revolutions in the 1960s and 70s. Its history is rich in political and popular theater, choral work, and experimental forms that always challenged the limits of performance, between the amateur and the professional. After a flood in 2000, the theater fell silent for years, and its stories remained underwater.
Ensaio geral is a performance program within the 36th Bienal de São Paulo, developed and rooted in this very space. The theater is not just a frame, but a proposition: an invitation to question and reimagine what theater can be, rehearsing it at full scale — hence the name of the program. Ensaio geral focuses on practices often excluded from canonical histories of theater and institutional stages. In this context, reopening TAIB is not only an act of reclaiming the space, but of asking: what is theater, and what can it do? It is the inauguration of a theater still 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 in Brussels).
The program is divided into three acts:
Act I on September 5 and 6 with Marcelo Evelin;
Act II on October 16, 17, and 18 with Dorothée Munyaneza and Boxe Autônomo;
Act III on December 12 and 13 with Alexandre Paulikevitch and MEXA.
Service
Tributary – Ensaio Geral – Act III – Casa de bonecas (live), by Alexandre Paulikevitch and MEXA
36th Bienal de São Paulo – Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity as Practice
Dec 12–13, 2025
Fri–Sat, 9 pm–9 pm
Casa do Povo
Rua Três Rios, 252, Bom Retiro
Near Tiradentes metro station
São Paulo, Brazil
during the uninterrupted 24-hour presentation, audience may enter and leave freely
free admission