“Caderno Reivindicativo #1” (List of Demands #1) is the first public art intervention by the Sindicato de Espectadores (Spectators’ Union). This group has been meeting weekly since February to discuss what they see and how they view the performing arts. Now, the spectators are moving from the audience to the stage to share the concerns and deep frustrations they feel as members of the public.
What, after all, is a spectator? Someone who observes, someone who waits, someone who judges, or someone who participates simply by being present?
We seek to place the audience at the centre of the theatrical event and to question the divide between those who make and those who watch, between stage and auditorium, between action and passivity.
The spectator is challenged, observed and turned back towards themselves, in a game where watching ceases to be a neutral gesture and becomes a form of choice, interpretation and power.
(…) So that, one day
At the table, while cutting bread
The worker was overcome
By a sudden emotion
When he realised, astonished,
That everything on that table
— Bottle, plate, knife —
Had been made by him
Vinicius de Moraes
Starting from their rights and duties, their frustrations, proposals and demands, the performance questions the place of those who watch and the often hierarchical relationship between stage and audience. The spectator is no longer understood as a passive figure, destined merely to observe, but is recognised as someone who interprets, chooses, makes connections, disagrees and constructs meaning.
Between activity and passivity, between those who look and those who are looked at, we seek another form of shared sensibility: a more horizontal relationship between those who make theatre and those who receive it. A space where established positions can be redistributed and where learning can once again become an act of pleasure, curiosity and freedom.
Rather than teaching the spectator how to see, the performance claims their right to look for themselves, to question, to confront, and to take with them what theatre often cannot bring to an end.
And it was through understanding
That solitary moment
That, like his own creation,
The worker, too, grew.
Vinicius de Moraes
Duration: Approx. 50 minutes
Age rating: 12+
Tickets available here!