The Walking Forest – Holland Festival

What if Macbeth ruled modern-day Brazil? After her impressive Chekhov adaptation What if they went to Moscow? at last year’s festival, Christiane Jatahy returns to Amsterdam with The Walking Forest. Inspired by Shakespeare’s Macbeth, she explores the impact of our greedy political and economic power systems on ordinary people. The audience is free to roam around this video and theatre installation screening various documentaries recounting the stories of young Brazilians who were crushed by the system. At the same time, a group of actors record a film – a modernised Macbeth. Breaking down the boundaries between fact and fiction, and between theatre and film, Jatahy brings the tragedy of everyday life to the surface. Programme

Brazilian theatre and filmmaker Christiane Jatahy based her latest show, The Walking Forest (‘A Floresta que anda’), a live cinema and theatre presentation, on Shakespeare's Macbeth. Once again, actress Julia Bernat will play an important role in this performance. As in last year’s two-parter What if they went to Moscow?, Jahaty offers up a mix of live cinema, theatre and documentary.

Jatahy aims to break the constraints imposed by the theatre using a very versatile tool: the camera. Intercutting documentary footage and live video of the actors on stage with the live performance itself, she smashes the unity of time, place and action. Never before in the theatre did anyone switch between moods, scenes, times, spaces and places with such natural ease.

What if they went to Moscow? was Jatahy's contemporary Brazilian interpretation of Chekhov's Three Sisters. The three lead actresses presented an intuitive, modern take on the lives of the three sisters, on stage and on camera. Half the audience watched the performance on stage followed by a second version of the story in another room on a video screen, while the other half watched the video first and the performance next. Jatahy's version was only loosely based on Chekhov's text; she mainly used it as an inspiration to translate Chekhov's 19th-century issues and questions to 21st-century Brazil, in the same way that she transposed Stindberg's Miss Julie to her JULIA in 2011. This adaptation marked her international breakthrough, bringing her several theatre awards and nominations.

In 2012, Jatahy led the Rio Occupation London project, a residency of thirty artists from various disciplines creating new work at the London 2012 Cultural Olympics. As part of this project, Jatahy devised In the Comfort of your Home, which allowed British people to offer their homes to participating artists. The resulting performances were filmed and screened at the Rio Occupation London Festival Finale.

In her new show The Walking Forest, Jatahy explores Shakespeare's Macbeth. Again, she tries to find out what a classic story can contribute to fathoming the problems in our modern world. Macbeth is a story of power and what the lust for power does to us. Returning from the battlefield, the brave general Macbeth encounters three witches who prophesy that he will one day be King of Scotland. From that moment on, Macbeth is consumed with ambition. For the past four hundred years, Macbeth's theme of power has remained an inextricable part of our notion of humanity; from the ways we organise ourselves politically, either in democracies or dictatorships, to the ways we relate to our families, our friends and our lovers. Jatahy interviewed many people about these issues and weaved these recordings into her performance. The audience is challenged to actively reflect on these issues. Where Shakespeare explored power through the character of Macbeth, The Walking Forest pushes its audience in the role of the ruler, confronting them directly with their responsibilities.

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inspired by William Shakespeare, Macbeth cast Julia Bernat creation Christiane Jatahy live direction Christiane Jatahy live camera Paulo Camacho director of photography Paulo Camacho light design Paulo Camacho concept stage design Christiane Jatahy, Marcelo Lipiani art direction Marcelo Lipiani set Marcelo Lipiani sound design Estevão Case music Estevão Case artistic collaboration Julia Bernat, Fernanda Bond, Isabel Teixeira, Stella Rabello, Henrique Mariano costumes Fause Haten video system Julio Parente direction assistant Fernanda Bond artistic dialogue Fernanda Bond stage manager Diogo Magalhães intern assistent Thiago Katona video operator Felipe Norkus sound operator Francisco Slade producer Henrique Mariano tourmanager Henrique Mariano live translator Juliana Neves production Cia Vértice de Teatro, Petrobras coproduction CENTQUATRE-PARIS, Künstlerhaus Mousonturm - Frankfurt am Main, Tempo_Festival Rio de Janeiro, SESC São Paulo

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