Divided into 10 chapters, webseries shows the developments
of the original dramaturgy of the play The Story of Baker, from Cristiane
Zuan Esteves and Beto Matos. A conference piece every day
online is presented with guest participation, who
debate topics researched for editing with the public.
Winner of the Zé Renato Theater Award in the city of São Paulo, the show Baker's Story would arrive on stage in May 2020, but due to the pandemic and the closing of theaters, the assembly had its premiere suspended. To keep the project alive, in this moment of social detachment, the artistic team of the piece opted for the creation of the webseries OS CHAPTERS OF BAKER, that debut September 1, Tuesday, às 17h, in the Zoom video call application. By 3 November, every tuesday, a new chapter happens live, totaling 10 episodes.
In each chapter of OS CHAPTERS OF BAKER Cristiane Zuan Esteves and Beto Matos - responsible for the dramaturgy, performance and direction of the show - present a performance-artistic-documentary report on one of the researched themes for Baker's Story. After the virtual presentation of each chapter, there will be the intervention of a guest and the opening of a conversation with the public, in order to amplify the questions presented, relating them to the social and political moment of Brazil today.
Among the guests highlighted by Denilson Baniwa, one of the most important contemporary artists of today for breaking paradigms and opening paths to the role of indigenous people in the national territory; Jaider Esbell, founder of the Jaider Esbell Gallery of Contemporary Indigenous Art, located in Boa Vista, capital of Roraima, the first in Brazil focused on the production of indigenous peoples; Angelica Ferrarez, historian, Professor, black feminist and researcher of the history and memory of black women and Samba; Marcia Mura, of the Mura Indigenous People, doctor in social history from the University of São Paulo and master in society and culture in the Amazon, by the Federal University of Amazonas; and Marie Ange Bordas, journalist, photographer and educator with art exhibitions that have traveled across five continents; among others.
OS CHAPTERS OF BAKER, that were not foreseen in the initial project, are developments of the original dramaturgy, small complete works in themselves and will not replace the presentation of the show, which should debut as soon as all security protocols are met. For Beto Matos, “The chapters” will serve as a dive into all the research carried out to assemble the piece and also as an introduction to Baker's Story. "It would make perfect sense if the audience could follow the episodes and then see our montage", he says.
The name Baker
Cristiane Zuan Esteves explains that the initial project was born when she found the story of Thomas Baker, English missionary killed and devoured by the Kai Colo during the colonization process of Fiji, fact by which the descendants of the supposed “cannibals”, today converted to Christianity, held an apology ceremony in 2003. “The fact that colonization victims apologized to their invaders impressed me and was very indignant. I decided that one day I would do a job. Years later, I discovered teeth-like calcifications on my knee within a structure called a Baker's Cyst. I felt like a call to get the job done ”, account.
From the name Baker, Baker's Story strolls through the history of colonialism, of capitalism and exploitation, in addition to the various forms of necropolitics and by autobiographical elements. “In research, we found many other Bakers, like Josephine Baker is Baker's bomb not Bikini atol. We find cannibalism as an excuse for the domination and enslavement of indigenous peoples, we find other colonization stories similar to the history suffered by the Kai Colo ”, says Cristiane.
Cristiane, creator of the project, brings autobiographical data to Baker's Story, and questions your own position as a colonizer or colonized. In OS CHAPTERS OF BAKER the artist duo seeks to reflect on the facts that plague the victims of colonization to this day. “We think it is essential at this moment to hear from leaders, artists and activists and think about what we’re experiencing. ” says Beto Matos.
PROGRAMMING
CANNIBAL NO, RESISTANCE ANTHROPOFAGY
September 1st, Tuesday, às 17h
Guest – Denilson Baniwa
The chapter hooks the invention of the name cannibal, who was born from a “mistake” by Cristovão Colombo when calling the Cariba people “cannibals” (men with dog heads and men who eat men) to address simulations and representations with Tupinambá indigenous people in Rouen, in France, and that inspired the text The Cannibals, by Montaigne. The difference between cannibalism and anthropophagy will also be addressed, in addition to Oswald de Andrade's anthropophagy and the ReAnthropophagy claimed by contemporary indigenous artists.
Denilson Baniwa, 36 years, was born in Mariuá, no Rio Negro, Amazonas. His career as an artist begins with the cultural references of his people (Baniwa) already in childhood. In youth, the artist begins his trajectory in the fight for the rights of indigenous peoples and transits through the non-indigenous universe, apprehending references that would strengthen the stage of this resistance. Denilson Baniwa is a man-eating artist, because he appropriates Western languages to decolonize them in his work. The artist in his contemporary trajectory consolidates himself as a reference, breaking paradigms and opening paths to protagonism.
ANTROPOFAGIA - SELF-PRESENTING TO STAY ALIVE
Day 8 September, Tuesday, às 17h
Guest – Jaider Esbell
Spanish laws prohibited the enslavement of indigenous people, unless they were considered “cannibals”. The subterfuges used by the colonizers to continue enslavement produced the images of “savage” and served to dehumanize the original peoples. The contradiction of images produced by the colonizer, such as the amplification of cannibalism by Jean de Lery and the denunciations of Bartolomeu de Las Casas in his book Brief History of the Destruction of the Indies, will serve as themes for the second chapter, which will also address cannibal stereotypes in world literature, as Robson Crusoe and Tarzan, and the unknown history of Macunaíma.
Jaider Esbell, 41 years, lives in Boa Vista, capital of Roraima, where he maintains the Jaider Esbell Gallery of Contemporary Indigenous Art, the first in Brazil focused on the production of indigenous peoples. The artist's production covers several artistic languages and his performance goes through the field of knowledge production on decoloniality, indigenous protagonism and theorization in the academy of a nomenclature that contemplates the thought of the indigenous nations of Brazil. His work is an extension of the grassroots movement where it was previously impossible to go without the arts as a political strategy of self-representation.
FROM COLOMBO TO PANDEMIC CANNIBAL
Day 15 September, Tuesday, às 17h
Guest - Casé Angatu
The claim by indigenous scholar Jack Forbes that Colombo was the first cannibal and the author's comparison between Colombo, the colonizers and capitalism with Wetiko, myth of the algonquinian tradition in which people would become voracious cannibals by experiences of extreme hunger or by contagion through dream, guide the third chapter, that brings reports of the Wetiko epidemic among North American Indians and its connection with the deprivation process triggered by colonization. The long history of indigenous slavery and capitalist logic as a cannibal logic will be addressed. We live in the Wetiko epidemic?
Casé Angatu is indigenous to the Tupinambá Olivença Territory (Ilheus / BA) of Taba Gwarïnï Atã. Professor of the Graduate Program in Teaching and Ethnic-Racial Relations at the Federal University of Southern Bahia (PPGER-UFSB); Professor at Santa Cruz State University (UESC / Ilhéus / BA); PhD from the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of the University of São Paulo; Master from PUC / SP and Historian from UNESP, Casé is author of the book Not Everything Was Italian - São Paulo and Poverty (1890-1915) and co-author of Indians in Brazil: Life, Culture and Death.
FROM THE CROSS TO THE MACHINE GUN
Day 22 September, Tuesday, às 17h
Guest - Laymert Garcia dos Santos
The history of colonization and religion in Fiji. Recent political coups, its relation to the advancement of neo-Pentecostal religions and the apology to the Thomas Baker's family. What analogies can we see with the Brazilian situation?
Laymert Garcia dos Santos is a sociologist, professor (retired) from the State University of Campinas and writes regularly about the relationship between technology and society, as well as contemporary art. Author Politicizing new technologies (Publisher 34) and Fighting with Lautreamont (N-1 Editions), among others, he was an advisor to the CNPC of the Ministry of Culture and director of the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo.
JOSEPHINE BAKER, BANANAS AND RACISM
Day 29 September, Tuesday, às 17h
Guest - Angelica Ferrarez
The fifth chapter addresses the artist Josephine Baker. The chase by the FBI, his activism for human rights and against racism and the appropriation of his image as a symbol of the success of the colonization project by the French, in addition to his stay in Brazil and the fact of calling his adopted children, from all over the world, from various ethnic groups and different religions of the Rainbow Tribe.
Angélica Ferrarez is a historian, black feminist and teacher. PhD in History from the State University of Rio de Janeiro with project Black Women in Post Abolition: memory, language and power in the craft of the flag carrier tia Dodô da Portela, holds a master's degree in Social History of Culture from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro with a theme The black aunts of samba: for the sake of memory, space and heritage and has his research crossed by female gender issues in studies on African and Afro-Brazilian history and culture.
HUMAN ZOO, YESTERDAY AND TODAY
Day 6 October, Tuesday, às 17h
Guest - Eugênio Lima
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The Kanaks are an example of a Human Zoo in the colonial period. The Kanaks, were hired to participate in the Colonial Exhibition in Paris in 1931, but ended up at the Vincennes Zoo, exposed as “cannibals”. A director of the famous Châtelet theater was hired to direct small scenes where the Kanaks, despite speaking French and not practicing anthropophagy for decades, should pretend to be cannibals and that they lived primitively. From that story, the chapter addresses the exposure of human beings in the colonial context, including Brazil, the objectification of the other and the bodies that can be discarded.
Eugênio Lima is a DJ, MC-actor, researcher of afro-diasporic culture, founding member of Núcleo Bartolomeu de Depoimentos and of the Front 3 de Fevereiro and director of the Collective Legitimate Defense. Winner of several theater awards (Shell, Coca-Cola / FEMSA and State Governor) for composing music and soundtracks.
THE COLONIZER'S VIEW - ANDAMAN
Day 13 October, Tuesday, at 3:0 pm (the exceptional schedule, because the guest is in South Africa)
Guest - Marie Ange Bordas
In the Andaman Archipelago, on the small North Sentinel Island, inhabit one of the last isolated peoples on the planet. In 2018, missionary John Chau was killed by the inhabitants of the Island and his body was never found, because it was supposedly "devoured". The seventh chapter addresses how the history of the present inhabitants of Northern Sentinel relates to the history of invasion and colonization of the islands and brings the reports and photos of British colonial chief Maurice Portman, who took shocking photographs of the Andamanese, besides abusing them.
Marie Ange Bordas is an artist, cultural writer and mediator, works on creating art projects, literature and media, emphasizing the crossing of languages and poetics to build collaborative processes and works, affirmative and critical. Between 2000 and 2009, developed the project Offsets, living and creating exhibitions with displaced people in several countries. In this process he also created publications Caderno Videobrasil_Geographies in Movement (Edições Sesc 2013) and Two Kakuma Boys (Pulo do Gato, 2018). Since 2009 develops the Tecendo Saberes project, of creating children's books in traditional Brazilian communities, in which he produced the books Children's manual of the Lower Amazon and Huni Kui children's manual (with Gabriela Romeu, 2015), Caiçara Children's Manual (Peirópolis, 2011) and Stories from Cazumbinha (with Meire Cazumbá, Companhia das Letrinhas, 2010).
THE MASSACRE OF THE WOUNDED KNEE
Day 20 October, Tuesday, às 17h
Guest - David Popygua
Wounded Knee reports and images, the first indigenous massacre to be photographed (The Wounded Knee Massacre took place in 1890, near Wounded Knee Creek in the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, belonging to the Dakota people) will be covered in the chapter, besides the disputes that still happen in the region today. The reduction of indigenous reserves and the invasion of large enterprises and the similarity with Brazil, including in the city of São Paulo.
Karai Popygua (David) is from the Guarani Mbya people, leadership of the Jaraguá Indigenous Land. He is currently President of the State Council of Indigenous Peoples of São Paulo (CEPI-SP) where he works to guarantee collection to the government of the State of São Paulo to make public policies for the indigenous communities of the state. It also works, since 2008, as a teacher at Jekupe Amba Arandu village school.
SERINGAIS - PUTUMAYO STORIES
Day 27 October, Tuesday, às 17h
Guest - Márcia Mura
In the Putumayo River region, more than 30 thousand indigenous Uitotos, Boras, Ocainas and Muinames were killed in slavery by Peru Amazon Company, to collect four thousand tons of rubber. Or chapter, that brings the investigation in England and the propaganda filmography of the Peruvian Company, shows the situation of these peoples today and the exploration of their territory by mining companies and oil companies and how these events find an echo in the history of the Mura people.
Márcia Mura integrates the Mura Indigenous People. PhD in Social History from the University of São Paulo, she has a master's degree in society and culture in the Amazon., by the Federal University of Amazonas and professor of History at the Francisco Desmorest Passos State School in the community of Nazaré, on the banks of the Madeira River, where he practices the decolonization of history and the indigenous affirmation. In 2010 was included in the cultural exchange notice from the Ministry of Culture to present her master's research with women who experienced the rubber plantation space at the international meeting of oral history held in Prague (Republic Tcheco). She is the author of the book Remembered Spaces: Life experiences in rubber plantations in the Amazon.
TO BAKER PUMP
Day 3 November, Tuesday, às 17h
Guest - to define
In the context of the Cold War, the United States explodes the first underwater bomb in Bikini Atoll. Nuclear tests led to the exile of the original inhabitants, the loss of their territory and their livelihood. Today, without territory, are threatened by global warming. How the expulsion of peoples from their territories affects the Earth and Nature?
For script:
OS CHAPTERS OF BAKER
From September 1st to 3 November, Tuesdays, às 17h (exceptionally the presentation of the day 13 October will be at 3 pm), in the Zoom video call application.
Dramaturgy, Performance and Direction - Cristiane Zuan Esteves and Beto Matos. Duration – 60 minutes. Recommended for people over 12 years. Free - registration via Zoom link, posted on Facebook (@ahistoriadebaker) and Instagram (@a_history_of_baker) of Baker's Story.