Rodrigo Batista
wpZimmer resident in 2023
Rodrigo Batista Rodrigo Batista is a Brazilian theater director, actor, and teacher based between The Netherlands and Belgium. He holds two Master’s Degrees, one in Theater Directing at the University of São Paulo (2015) and another at DAS Theatre Amsterdam (2019), adding a Bachelor’s Degree as a Theater Director at the University of São Paulo (2009). Since 2007 Rodrigo has offered theater research departing from philosophy, politics, cinema, and dance, having won several prizes and fundings in Brazil and supported by institutions in The Netherlands, and Belgium. Rodrigo has presented works in Brazil, Colombia, México, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, the Czech Republic, and Bulgaria, and worked as a teacher at Antwerp Conservatorium (2022-present), DAS Theater Amsterdam (2022), KASK (2022), Fábricas de Cultura (2013-2016), and Projeto Vocacional (2011-2014).
Rodrigo’s ambition is to create theatre performances that function as unapologetic aesthetic statements addressed to geopolitical contexts. He achieves this through intense body/mind research made from impulses of iconoclasm, humor, indigestion, mutilation, blood, and explicitness. His goal is to create a palpable sense of political urgency and action in his audience, through theater pieces that were intertwined with large concepts such as the relationship between art and power, tragedy, Latin-American politics, strikes/insurrection, political explicitness, poverty pornography, gore-capitalism, propaganda, anti-colonialism as an event of violence, the operations and consequences behind the North-American Alt-Right Movement, among others.
projects
KIDNAPPED: A Training Ground for the Brutality that is Coming
KIDNAPPED: A Training Ground for the Brutality that is Coming Hello, I am Shelley Duvall. Welcome to tonight’s tale show. Imagine, if you will, a theater in the heart of Europe. And inside this theater, there are two clowns, Terror and Compassion, who arrive from far, far, far away… They do not bring balloons or candy. Instead, they kidnap a bunch of children to teach them that our world is in captivity. Because in this tale, the planet has been stolen, the territories are systematically robbed, the language is kidnapped, and even bodies and desires are looted and bottled. But hey, don’t give up hope! Because the clowns laugh, they weep, they are haunted by déjà-vus, conjuring ghosts of history, dictators, bankers, philosophers, who march across the stage showing us how the fuck we got here. They whisper about fascism, about climate change, about our lives turned into a casino. And the children… oh, the children! They grow too fast in this captivity. Some escape, some vanish, some fall silent forever. Until, at last, the survivors sit among the ruins, listening to the final planetary journal: an Earth where the dead outnumber the living, a stage designed not for us, but for them, the corpses who inherit the Planet. So, sit close and welcome to tonight’s tale show. It’s called: KIDNAPPED: A Training Ground for the Brutality that is Coming.
Trigger Warning: this performance kidnaps you. The scene contains climate anxiety, fascism, contemporary corpses, critical speech, colonial and capitalist ruins, and ongoing violence. The audience may be exposed to participation, loud sounds, strong imagery, and political discomfort.
Read the riveting review by journalist Wouter Hillaert for PZAZZ about the Belgian premiere in Brussels https://www.pzazz.theater/nl/recensies/performance/de-eigen-parochie-terug-naar-school
If you want to know more about the process of making this performance: https://e-tcetera.be/kidnapped-rodrigo-batista-mariana-senne/
Playlist 2025
October 3
October 4
November 6
November 7
November 19
November 20
Premiere at De Brakke Grond
Premiere at De Brakke Grond
Beursschouwburg
Beursschouwburg
Monty
Monty
> More dates to be confirmed
ABOUT RODRIGO BATISTA
Rodrigo Batista is a Brazilian theater director and teacher based in Belgium, known for politically charged performances composed of intense physical research practices, geopolitical commentary, and acidic criticism. With 15 years of foundation in studies about biopolitics, tragedy, economic crises, propaganda, and anti-colonial themes, his recent work explores theater as an unapologetic aesthetic response to the crises of contemporary capitalism and colonial ruins. The last work was made in the frame of Rodrigo’s Master’s Degree at DAS Theater Amsterdam. “The Furious Rodrigo Batista (Side A) + The B-side + Bonus Track” is a theater piece divided into three parts and presented at several venues and festivals across Europe and Brazil.
ABOUT MARIANA SENNE
Mariana Senne, born in São Paulo, Brazil, is a Berlin-based theatre maker and performer whose current work explores intercultural theatrical practices and develops new forms of staging, with a focus on feminist topics. As a performer, she works with collectives and directors, especially from the independent scene, including Claudia Bosse/Theater Combinat (Berlin/Vienna), Andcompany&Co (Berlin), Swoosh Lieu (Frankfurt), Luise Meier/Chistian Filips (Berlin), SchmiM/Adamczak (Berlin), Joachim Robbrecht & De Warme Winkel Groupe (Amsterdam), Jan Brokof (Berlin), Friendly Fire (Leipzig) and Karin Beier (Hamburg). She graduated from the Master’s Program Das Theatre Amsterdam, where she developed her last project “I love you but I need to kill you now”, in June 2021. She was awarded by the Recherche Stipendium – Fonds Darstellende Künste, and was able to develop further her punk&carnival aesthetics. She likes to work with connections between personal experiences and larger socio-political structures, using the body as the first engine.
You’ll find the images in high resolution here
credits
Concept by:
Rodrigo Batista in collaboration with Mariana Senne
Direction:
Rodrigo Batista
Performance by:
Mariana Senne and Rodrigo Batista
Dramaturgy by:
Luiz Pimentel, Rodrigo Batista and Mariana Senne
Text by:
Luiz Pimentel quoting @trenzinhodaalegria, A Fadinha do Brasil, Augusto Pinochet, Bertolt Brecht, Charles Strouse, Dave Grohl, Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, Donald Rockefeller, Harold Arlen, Kurt Cobain, Margaret Thatcher, Mark Fisher, Michael Jackson, Milton Friedman, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Rodrigo Batista, Shelley Duvall, Steve Jobs, William Shakespeare, Yip Harburg, and more…
Vídeo by:
Kathleen Kunath
Soundtrack by:
Cainã Vidor
Technician and light operator:
Jurgen Fonteijn
Outside eye:
Lotte Vrancken
Special effects by :
Renan Ramiro
Production by:
WP Zimmer
Co-Production by:
Beursschouwburg, workspacebrussels, Kunstwerkplaats, Monty, and detheatermaker
With the support of:
de Brakke Grond, Campo, detheatermaker
Research funded by:
Flanders State of the Art (Beurs), Mestizo Arts Platform and detheatermaker
images by:
Victoriano Moreno and Elodie Vreeburg
Aknowledgements:
Aline Olmos, Annabel Reid, Benne Dousselaere, Campo, Caroline Lee-Jeong, Daniel Córdova, De Brakke Grond, Flávia Pinheiro, Jan Brokof, Joachim Robbrecht, Juliano Bonamigo, Katja Dreyer, KVS, Luise Meyer, Mestizo Arts Platform-WIPCOOP, Peter Coppens, Proximamente Festival, Silvia Rigon, Tom Oliver, Vlaamse Gemeenschap (research beurs), Worm Rotterdam, Zé de Paiva, the children Samí and Antônio, and to all our mothers.