Ei! Marionetas / Teatro e Marionetas de Mandrágora

Ei! Marionetas - Encontro Internacional de Marionetas de Gondomar 2026

BLIND [ SHOW ]

• Duda Paiva Company < BRAZIL + NETHERLANDS
• M/12 . 1hr 15mins . 3€
• early access for people with visual impairments, with the stage recognition precedes the performance in 30mins
• booking > ticketline.pt/evento/blind-105603


• stroboscopic lighting – this performance contains flashing lights that may cause discomfort to people who are photosensitive or have epilepsy


• I found pain in the light and beauty in the darkness

BLIND

Created in collaboration with Nancy Black of Black Hole Theatre (Melbourne, Australia), and under the guidance of Afro-Brazilian anthropologist Patrick Oliveira, BLIND is an immersive visual theatre experience that combines dance, sound, light and the manipulation of foam sculptures. Inspired by the illness Paiva suffered in childhood — which left him with scars on his skin and temporarily blinded him — the piece is an embodied healing ritual. Through his self-taught “Object Score” technique, the artist rewrites his body, transforming it into a living map of limits, vulnerability and resilience. “Bringing life to things that are not alive is a form of healing and a reminder that we do not own life; we merely care for it.”

what the festival has to say

This was a long-held desire of Ei! Marionetas: to be able to bring the artist Duda Paiva here. We are fully aware—or at least feel—that he is, without a doubt, one of the great artists performing in Europe who blends movement with puppetry. It is a visceral visual art form that explores emotions in a raw, direct, and concrete way, where the puppet’s body merges with the actor’s body and the puppet’s movement transforms into dance in space, occupying the entire stage to capture not only the emotional and sensory moment, but also a deeply reflective one on the “self,” the “other,” and, often, on the darkness and pain that are also inherent in the exploration of puppetry.

These are puppets intended for a more adult audience, and the artists who follow this creative trend engage in a very interesting exploration, focused on sculpture, dramaturgy, and the conceptual development of distinct ideas and narratives that go in different directions but, above all, point toward a contemporary theatrical approach. This approach reveals to the audience a way of engaging with and approaching sculpture theater and object theater, which is, above all, a philosophical concept and a demonstration of the intellectual capacity of many artists to appropriate different techniques so that they can, in a broad sense, engage in dialogue with the audience through their own unique worlds and languages.

Duda Paiva Company

Duda Paiva Company creates performances with dance and puppets. Associative, narrative performances – usually without text – that are performed in theaters, at festivals, indoor and outdoor locations, in the Netherlands and internationally. Performances in which people of different backgrounds, ages, and preferences can identify themselves.

Our home city is Amersfoort. We develop our projects in the Laswerkplaats, and we present our first try-outs in that space. In the city, we work together with cultural organizations and artists.

In the Netherlands but also internationally, it is our ambition to work with dance and puppets in a comprehensive way; as a fully-fledged, theatrical instrument, transcending discipline, not bound by borders or fitting within boxes. Every year our productions cross the border, into the world, on their way to encounters with an as yet unknown audience and unknown makers. For example, with the production ‘Blind’ we managed to make a trip from Melbourne to Wuzhen, from New York to Tokyo.

art

links

• dudapaiva.com
• vimeo.com/dudapaivacompany
• facebook.com/DudaPaivaCompany
• instagram.com/dudapaivacompany
• youtube.com/channel/UC1X1a7Ggqmt0Rqu5N8A0MSQ

download

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