trigger warning: the performance entails explicit images of torture, loud music, stroboscope light.

SIDE A: THE WEB

“Nothing in life is to be feared, only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less”  (Maria Sklodowska-Curie)

A young writer who was born in Brazil and grew up in the Low Lands returns to her country of origin in search of hard facts around her mythical youth heroine, the Sacred Anastácia. What she finds from this new grown-up perspective exceeds her wildest dreams. From her new point of view, Carolina discovers that the image and story of the African Bantu princess worshipped in Brazil for her resistance against the colonial powers, could also be interpreted as a double agents upholding the oppressive system. In side A she wanders between mythical sagas and non-binary images, burnt archives and hidden actors, wondering whether her heroine is still a hero.

SIDE B: THE SPIDER

“The loss of stories sharpens the hunger for them” (Saidiya Hartman)

This whole research has stirred something. Whether Anastácia comes out as a hero or not, or both or none of the above, a new balance must be found in this second part. What are the ingredients necessary to finish an unfinished story? What happens when the young writer follows her example in extremis and gives in to a total speculative fiction evolving her hero, loosening the ties to the factual and freed by her imagination?

90 minutes
in English

>> aftertalk with Quinsy Gario & Carolina Maciel de França on Thursday 20.10

>> workshop with Rodrigo Batista & Carolina Maciel de França on Saturday 22.10

Carolina Maciel de França (1986) is an author, consultant, moderator and maker. She was born in Pernambuco (Brazil), lived in the Netherlands and graduated in Antwerp as a literary translator. Through the intercultural organisation Kif Kif she ended up in the Flemish theatre world. In 2019 she graduated from the cultural leadership programme LinC Lage Landen and started her own multidisciplinary art practice. She wrote several essays (for Etcetera, rekto:verso, Brainwash and Ecopolis, among others), was moderator for dozens of on- and offline conversations and still likes to experiment with writing forms. Since 2020 Carolina has also been a guest lecturer at KASK drama.

booklet_theherosjourneyofanastacia.pdf