Daniel Matos, VÄRA
I feel that the naked body is just like a costume. Of course, in the first two minutes we’ll check it in detail, but then suddenly you stop noticing it. There’s a moment in the piece where I feel that disappears, and there’s just a body there. This drives me really into the intensity of VÄRA. It is about the flesh and our relation with the flesh. So how does our naked body put us through these kinds of challenges and limits? How do we test ourselves? Nakedness appeared in rehearsals, and in propositions – and then we understood that, maybe, this is what makes sense: to just be available.
Gaya de Medeiros, BAqUE
My wish was that a body without clothes was just a body without clothes, that it wasn’t something to shock anyone, to provoke anyone, you know? I never had a problem with nudity, I always found nudity very beautiful. Sometimes I spend more time worrying about what to wear, because what you wear has a series of meanings about who you are or what you are not. When you take your clothes off, there’s a certain performativity that the clothes bring that just isn’t there any more. Only that person, undressed.
Keyla Brasil, Meu Profano Corpo Santo
This naked body is actually not a naked body, it’s a dressed body, dressed in its own skin. I’m dressed in my skin, you know? People shower naked, people do a lot of things naked, and it’s okay. But when that body is not within four walls, especially the travesti* body, it becomes a forbidden body. And this prohibition occurs in all spheres. The travesti body is not accepted within the family, it is not accepted at the university, it is not accepted in the labour market, it is not accepted at friends and family lunches, it is not accepted in affective relationships, it is not accepted anywhere. It is a forbidden body, a body that has to stay in the shadows.
When I say to you, there was a travesti person on that street, what is the image that forms in your mind? It’s a prostitute, a prostitute woman with red lipstick, who is there on the corner selling her body. But, when I put this poetic body, this naked body on the stage, which is a body that causes you catharsis, that causes you a reflection, I am breaking that imaginary. It is the same body, only in a different place, for a different purpose. When I put my naked body on stage, I am just existing, I am saying ‘We, travestis, exist.’ It’s a way to naturalise our presence in the world.
*In Brazilian Portuguese, a travesti is a trans woman, within a specific social context related to exploited, objectified and marginalised bodies.
Xana Novais, How to Kill Naked Women
How To Kill Naked Women is, or at least I would like to think of it as, an honest work, in the sense that it comes from within, from deep inside us. It’s putting all the guts out. Why should I wear clothes for that? I was born naked, I wasn’t born dressed. If it makes sense and adds something to the piece, sure. Otherwise, I’d rather not have it. It’s not just a way for me to be more honest with the work itself, but also to be honest with myself, as my work is very autobiographical. It’s not even about feeling good or feeling bad. I can wear clothes, sure, but in my specific work, this has to make more sense than not wearing it. Once I was asked about gratuitous nudity and I replied with a joke: “for me it’s very gratuitous, yes; now, will it be for the piece? Absolutely not.” I don’t even really know what gratuitous nudity is, because maybe I have a different view of this idea of the nude.
