LETTER FROM SAO PAULO
“For us, it’s not the icing on the cake… but under the cake! » Benjamin Seroussi, 44 years old, vibrant French director of the Casa do povo (“House of the People”), has no shortage of witticisms when it comes to talking about the treasure housed in the basement of his cultural institution, planted in the heart of Sao Paulo. Past the industrial-modernist entrance to the building, a metal door followed by a slew of steps leads down to this holy of holies, called “TAIB”: the Brazilian Israelite Art Theater.
Damp floors, rusty pipes, decrepit absinthe green walls and worn burgundy red armchairs… The places have lost in superb what they have gained in mystery, with the air of sets by directors such as Jim Jarmusch or Leos Carax. Inaugurated in 1960, the TAIB was in its heyday one of the very high places of Paulistano culture, a bastion of Yiddish and protest theater. It has been abandoned for over twenty years…
But things could change very soon. Casa do povo recently launched a major fundraising campaign to reopen its beautiful theater. “It’s about recovering the history of an institution, a community, a neighborhood and a city. The decline of a cultural space is a slow process of forgetting. Its reappropriation marks a moment of rediscovery”enthuses Mr. Seroussi.
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