Passeio em Cena Festival

Between 1926 and 1937 the Passeio Público gardens hosted the Theater-Casino Beira Mar, a magnificent representative of Brazilian neo colonial architecture, considered the meeting point of modernists, a catwalk for flappers and theater vanguardists, the site of the breakthrough of jazz and charleston, where celebrities such as Procópio Ferreira, Paschoal Carlos Magno and Jaime Costa were often seen.

The building, deemed out of place by then mayor Henrique Dodsworth (1937-1945) was brought down and for 78 years the first public park in the country hosted no plays, until the Passeio em Cena Festival in 2015.

The festival emerged out of the desire to bring together theater and circus performers, thinkers, cultural producers and audience which used the streets as their platform for art-making. The idea was to debate the aesthetical creation and the power of mobilization through theatrical experiences.

PHOTOGRAPHY: Rapha Silva