Favela Força at ICAF Rotterdam

ICAF (International Community Arts Festival) places the POWER of community arts centre stage. Many people already know about the great things that can be achieved with community art: art made for, by and with people who otherwise have very little to do with art, in places with almost no artistic or cultural infrastructure.

Favela Força is a theatre group that works on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is composed of actors from Vila Cruzeiro, the suburbs of Penha, a community known for its unfortunate history of violence but also as a place of intense creativity. The group has two main aims: enhancing a culture of peace and researching the local culture of the favela. The main idea is that contemporary art needs to move towards the periphery as a research subject and locus of action.

Favela força is directed by Fabiano de Freitas, considered as an inventive creator within the current Brazilian performing arts scene. Besides him the group counts ten actors and actresses (who sing and dance as well), all from Vila Cruzeiro.

The focus of the group's activities is divided between study, creation and performance. The group believes that the artistic approach to the community is based on three premises: (1) we see theatre in itself is a transformational tool; (2) we strive for artistic rigour; (3) we aim to create a high visual and sensory impact using music, dance, text and audiovisual means.

Through the universal language of multidisciplinary theatre, the group seeks to give expression to what is conventionally called "slum culture" to share how we see our lives and our world with the general public. With our work we hope to contribute to a more humanistic community by respectfully, creatively and effectively reflecting daily life there, the individuals who live in it, and how they organize themselves. We hope that our shows reveal other, more poetic dimensions of our community that go well beyond the stigmas and stereotypes with which we regularly appear in the media.