LIVE PERFORMANCE – Camila Rhodi

Is there love in Berlin? Partcipatory Lecture Performance

“When we love we can make our hearts speak.” #bellhooks

Based on bell hooks’ book All About Love, Is There Love in Berlin? is a participatory lecture performance that delves into the complexities of love and friendships in the city, particularly focusing on the immigrant population. Through this lecture, Camila invites the audience to reflect on love, humanity, and the universal need to be part of a community, exploring these themes through personal discussions.

After collecting love stories from local residents and historical narratives from the city, documented through audio recordings, photos, videos, and writings, the artist created a multimedia collage that forms the structure of the lecture performance. In total, it lasts 90 minutes, with a 20-minute pause. During the pause, the audience can also participate by sharing their own stories and thoughts, responding to a questionnaire inspired by the themes explored during the research process.

Did you ever have a story of love in Berlin? If yes, did you suffer from the racism of your partner? Or had you ever been racist with your partner?
Do you have friends in Berlin that you love?
Is there love in Berlin?

The project began in 2017 as part of the B-Tour Festival, curated by Yael Sherril. The premiere was so well-attended that it led to an additional presentation at the festival. Later that year, the project was also invited to be featured at the Amerika-Gedenkbibliothek as part of the “Aktion Offener Sonntag” program, curated by Sonntagsbureau.

Once again, the space was filled with an engaged audience.

Moments from the lecture-performance can be viewed here:

Berlin, 2017

A wonderful event, wholeheartedly thought and beautifully presented. You can feel the words coming out of Camila’s heart, and right into your own. Sehr zu empfehlen!! M. Haten Hamdy

2017 B-Tour Festival, Berlin, Germany, curated by Yael Sherril.

2017 Amerika Gedenk-bibliothek, part of the program 'Aktion offener Sonntag`, curated by Sonntagsbureau.

At the Amerika-Gedenkbibliothek in Berlin, as part of Sonntagsbureau, 2017

Is There Love in Berlin? consistently drew large audiences. Here is the link to the Facebook event and the 2K people who attended:
https://www.facebook.com/events/152207042083792/

The most amazing stories of a daughter

THE MOST AMAZING STORIES OF A DAUGHTER

a live performance about sugar, addiction, absence and maternal love.

While I sniff lines of sugar, the audience joins an intimate dialogue in a kitchen exchanging stories about junk food, sugar, sex, addictions, absences and maternal love.

It is a 20 micro Theater piece about a 6, 7 years girl waiting her mother come back home after work. She is addicted to TV and sugar. Her dream is to have a cooking tv program with a semi naked male assistant, like her mother who is an assistant of a famous TV program in Brazil.

This micro Theater piece discuss the relation between the affection and sugar. The social and parental relation and also the domination throughout food and sugar in a question of feelings which is also related with capitalism.

with Yunus Ersoy.

Link performance:

* This project receives funding from the Projektförderung of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna

Venues

2019: FACT Budapest, Budapest, Hungary. With Yunus Ersoy

2018 : Gallerie 23, Gießen, Germany. For Theatermaschine. With Yunus Ersoy.

2017: Atelierhaus der Akademie der Bildende Künste Vienna, Vienna, Austria

2016: RAW MATTERS at Schikaneder, Vienna, Austria

REVIEWS

‘…everybody squeeze in the space and take place in a long table, or wherever they could find a place to stand. A young lady in black dress is welcoming us to her kitchen.

She is Camila at the age of 5 or perhaps 6. She’s Brazilian and her parents were good friends… After school she goes home and cook herself a meal her mother prepared before. She watches a lot of TV:

– one might not have money, but one always have TV… at least one –

When she gets bored visits her neighbor.

The audience listen to her good mood told story, laughing in a nervous confusion… is it really amusing?

A smart way to process food, to process childhood.’ Lala Nomada, performance artist.

Free Kisses

Live Performance

What have to do an affective work with solidarity, social networks and forms of community? Are interpersonal contacts egalitarian, free, collaborative and non-hierarchical?

On this performance installation, Camila Rhodi stays between 30 minutes and one hour standing behind a showcase, waiting for ‘costumers’ who wants to have free kisses of her.

November 28, 2016 at MAIZ, Linz, Austria

The Ethical Slut

Multimedia Performance, a pocket karaoke concert.

The performance is based on stories of physical and psychological violence towards women from all over the world. The artist takes the audience on a journey starting from the slum music from Brazil passing by some feminist, and queer pop songs.

The public display of intimate life details, fighting for the female sexuality deconstructing patriarchal structures of power and oppression, using the aesthetics of the ‘personal is political’ to the artistic practice as a method for empowerment.

–> this video is an edited documentation with also some comments in order to understand better how the Ethical Slut multimedia performance works:

(The whole performance takes around 30 minutes)

*Thanks to Beatriz Provasi, Flávia Naves, Mirabella Dziruni, Miss G (Giorgia Conceição), Samantha Rennó, Rodrigo Garcia Alves and Felix Speiser.

VENUES

2017: Chouftouhonna Feminist Festival. Tunis, Tunisia.

2016: Mash-up! – Multigender /Multiworld. Ballhaus Naunynstrasse. Berlin, Germany

Collaborative Works

2020: The Book of S of I : Creatures born from Hopelessness

Another world, post-apocalypse. Feverish nightmares turning into utopian dreams. Bodies aligned in pleasure, summoning the ghosts of the past and the future. Give yourself into the world of The Book of S of I – a queer feminist sci-fi Saga about the desire to belong, about the power of mutual care, of bodily pleasures, and the yearning for tenderness.

The Book of S of I. Chapter One: Creatures born from Hopelessness is the first part of the trilogy.

The premiere of the film on June 13th. 2020 on the homepage of the Haus der Kulturen der Welt as part of the New Alphabet School # 4 Caring symposium
hkw.de

The film was created with the support of the M.1 Arthur Boskamp Foundation and the sponsorship award.

A Film by Malu Blume

2019: Beyound Vision

What happens when our vision cedes and we cannot experience our surrounding the way we did before? Are the remaining senses sharpened? Does reality blur?
Beyond Vision is a binaural one-to-one performance on Tempelhofer Feld. Blindfolded and wearing headphones, let yourself be guided by the hands of an invisible companion. Together you embark on a journey into the unknown. You will find yourself in dreamlike situations and discover the invisible and the intangible. The experience leads you gently and safely through your inner images, different feelings and states of being. It is an invitation to let yourself fall into uncertainty, to trust, to give in, to be touched, and yet be entirely with yourself.

Commissioned by B_Tour
in the context of Tracks in a Box.

Guidance: Shelley Etkin, Camila Rhodi
Voices: Shelley Etkin, Charlotte Happe
Thanks to Klara Pfeiffer

Photos © Joana Dias
Tempelhofer Feld, Berlin, 2019

https://ilonamarti.com/Beyond-Vision

2018: Logistics of Loneliness in collaboration with Marja Christians. Rough Proposals, Mousonturm, Frankfurt

2016 : Walking with Ghosts in collaboration with Ghost Cinema

In the 1920’s, Filmstadt Weißensee, the now almost forgotten area in northern Berlin was once the city’s cultural hotspot. Stars like Marlene Dietrich and Fritz Lang were there, at Calagariplatz and on the Gustav-Adolf Straße, which at that time was lined with bright lights and 20 cinema houses. Among the finest and most popular of these was the former silent-movie theater Delphi. Direct on Caligariplatz, this relic rests like a hidden jewel, unrecognizable from the outside, and practically unknown to most Berliners. The theater miraculously survived WWII, and remained closed during GDR times. In fact, the theater has remained closed to the general public since the war, and remains so today. This building was one of the first cinemas of its size in the world, and the original interior of this former 870 seat theater remains intact. It is one of the best remaining examples of the glamour and flair of this important cultural era- the heyday of German silent film.

Directed by Paola Barreto
Videoperformance ( audiovisual editing + live projections/ mapping ) : Moana Mayall

Parangotela performance: Camila Rhodi

2015: “Fluids” – a 2015 reinvention of Allan Kaprow’s happening from 1967. Artist Alexandra Pirici

kaprowinberlin.smb.museum/en/

This version of Kaprow’s “Fluids” operates a change of material: from ice-blocks to the assemblage of the human body. The new work attempts to re-address and re-position itself in relation to some of the issues the original work tackled with – the medium of sculpture, the concept of monument, temporality, participation, production of collectivity – while also considering the human body as medium and the materiality of “immaterial” performative works and their economy at a time of a (second) “performative turn” in the visual arts. It also attempts a more abstract way of being in common – the participants building themselves into a 9 meters long, 3 meters wide structure instead of building an exterior object, thus reflecting on the effects of today’s immaterial labour (in affluent societies) as opposed to the former dynamics of the industrial age and the factory floor.
The living, sounding sculpture “melted” away from 12 to 8 p.m. in Potsdamer platz.

curated by Lisa Marei Schmidt and Udo Kittelmann production: Hannes Frey
participants: Ferre Naima, Valerie Renay, Zuzanna Ratajczyk, Paul Walker, Jozefiens Beckers, Reza Mirabi, Juan Gabriel Harcha, Julia Illmer, Josephine Findeisein, Marc Carrera, Annekatrin Kiesel, Amit Goldenberg, Miriam Kongstad, Maria Ferrara, Iam Campigotto, Helen Follert, Kathrin Knopfle, Jasmin Ihrac, Gregori Homa, Katarzyna Guzowska, Jolika Poulopoulou, Darcy Wallace, Julia Jadkowski, Ana Mrdjanov, Leonie Nadler, Jana Kruger, Carina Erdmann, Sura Hertzberg, Ralph Klein, Annette Zander, Alice Heyward, Yuca Meubrink, Viviana Druga, Rene Ricarda Vollhardt, Edith Buttingsrud Pedersen, Carlos Kong, Emily Ranford, Thomas Mielmann, Tobias Kluge, Corinne Schlichting, Lenine Guevara, Martha Hincapié Charry, Andrei Barza, Rachell Clark, Tatiana Heide, Laura von Raffay, David Loscher, Neele Ruckdeschel, Sven Hermans, Frida Yngvesson, Hanna Nordqvist, Giulia Heder, Sarah Bouars, Maddy White, Miha Jensterle, Rebekka Böhme, Pedro Vieira da Costa Filho, Juliane Dames, Jessica Kammerer, Paul Riemann, Eva Rozalia Tankó, Judica Albrecht, Lola Lustosa, Camila Rhodi, Dmitriy Povernov, Benjamin Egger, Uwe Zimmermann, Sarah Berger, Marie Zwinzscher, Sophie Camille Brunner, Anton Rose

commissioned by Nationalgalerie – Berlin in the frame of Stadt/Bild, Berlin Art Week

2015: ‘I am not a feminist but’ in collaboration with Makiko Yamamoto for Liquid Architecture . Melbourne . Austrália

This work was produced in collaboration with Japanese artist Makiko Yamamoto. Rhodi co-developed a performance piece to accompany Yamamoto’s 12 minute audio piece filled with the single sentence, ‘I’m not a feminist but…’. Yamamoto reads the sentence out loud with different distortions in speed, tone, and volume. Together both artists made the video performance.

2013 No Parking

Solo site specific performance about home for the master project of Jasmin Assade at Freie Universität Berlin.

2012

U-bahn Antigone in collaboration with Yaell Sherill

Live Performance for steinum knitwear for Berlin Fashion Week, Berlin, Germany

Do you wanna talk about it?

Live Performance

Do U Wanna Talk About It? – Live Performance It is an intimate and deeply personal performance. Set in a private room, one member of the audience enters alone, taking a seat directly across from the artist. In this secluded space, the spectator is invited to gaze into the profound depths of the artist’s past experiences.

This autobiographical performance confronts the difficult subject of childhood sexual abuse, with the artist courageously sharing her own history of trauma. The encounter is intensely private, designed for just one spectator at a time, and lasts for a brief but powerful four minutes.

Do U Wanna Talk About It? challenges the boundaries between performer and audience, creating a moment of profound connection and reflection on the impact of trauma.

vídeo em português

https://vimeo.com/105574661

VENUES

Bärenzwinger Kommunalle Gallerie . Berlin . 2024

One Billion Rising – Tanz Quartier . Vienna . Austria . 2016 (video)

Unruly Bodies – gender norms resistance . Sophia Conference – Brussels . 2015

Kunstahaus Rhenania – Cologn. Germany . 2015

100˚Grade Festival – Sophiensaelle and Hebbel am Uffer – Berlin. 2014

Month of Performance Berlin . PIC_Pieces in Chain. Altes Finanzamt 2013

Musterzimmer. Berlin. 2013

Do u wanna talk about it blog 100˚Berlin

Take me

As an autobiographical portrait, ‘Take Me’ delves into personal history, cultural influences, and loneliness. The table, along with the vivid colors of selected objects, focused lighting, mechanical voiceover, and deliberate movements, creates an aesthetic distance between the artist and the audience. The performance consists of both intentional and spontaneous writings, punctuated by silences and evocative, often poignant images of the body.

For this live performance, a table and chair are set up. During the act, I blindfold myself and proceed to peel and cut a grapefruit with a sharpened knife. Through this, I reveal my deepest fears, many of which are tied to experiences of physical and psychological violence. As a performance artist, I often position my own body, voice, and thoughts in a vulnerable state, willingly exposing myself to others. While I acknowledge that this establishes a distinct relationship between the artist and the spectator, it also serves as a representation of the biography of the female body. This includes aspects such as economic control, cultural implications of the female form, its representation, sexualization, and objectification.

Documentation of the performance at Sophiensaele for the 100˚Grad Festival, Berlin:

Take Me was performed in the following venues (selected):

Vienna Parallel 2019. Vienna . Austria

Sommerloch 2015. Wuppertal . Germany

Entretempo Kitchen Gallery 2015 . Berlin . Germany

Expat Markt 2014. English Theater in Berlin. Germany

100˚ Grad Festival 2013. Sophiensaele – Hebbel am Uffer. Berlin. Germany.

Month of Performance . 2013. Berlin. Germany .

Musterzimmer. 2013. Berlin.Germany.

HB Lab . 2012 Home Base Berlin . Berlin. Germany.

Since 2019, the artist has been performing ‘Take Me’ featuring this dress made in collaboration with artist Catherina Renaux Hering.

Ice

‘In 2011, performance artist Camila Rhodi had an accident while driving her beetle Volkswagen in Santa Teresa, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Rhodi unexpectedly veered off the paved road to discover her breaks were malfunctioning. Despite her areligious background, Rhodi instinctively began to pray. This is the video documentation of Camilla Rhodi’s performance piece that recreates the near-death, automotive experience—only performed once in 2011 in Rio de Janeiro. The video shows Rhodi disrobing and slowly entering a bathtub filled with ice for the duration of 15 minutes and 47 seconds. Almost her entire body is submerged in the ice with the exception of her head, abdomen and feet—the exposed skin serves as a reminder to the viewer of her naked body’s subjection to the harsh temperatures of the ice. The extreme conditions of the tub are designed to emulate the feelings of peril and danger of the car, as well as a prolonged elapsing of time: in the ice cold bath every passing minute is perceived to be a passing hour. The second most noteworthy embellishment to the piece is the recording of traditional catholic prayers, recorded in Rhodi’s native tongue, Portuguese. Although Camila did not pray specifically to the traditional Catholic perception of God and the holy trinity, the piece draws sources from Catholics, the most dominant religion of Brazil. In addition to audible prayers, Rhodi positions candles at the head and foot of the tub, creating the sensation of being in the interior of a church, surrounded by votive candles.’

by Julia Jarrett

B.A. Columbia University ’15

The video installation was exhibited:

Altes Finanzamt taking part in Month of Performance. Berlin 2013

Musterzimmer at the solo exhibition. Berlin 2013.

Documentation of the exhibition :

The Owner of the Orange Beetle

The Owner of the Orange Beetle, a performance-installation inside an Orange Volkswagen Beetle.

“The Owner of the Orange Beetle” is an autofictional performance-installation based on the memories of the artist Camila Rhodi. Set in the streets of Rio de Janeiro, each day Rhodi takes visitors to different locations to share significant stories from her life alongside her “beloved” Orange Beetle. The theft of the Beetle served as a hook for the artist to address existential themes, such as the decisions we make in life, the values we assign to each moment, beauty, and death.

The performance occurs in three moments:

The first moment is only for the three passengers of the Beetle. It begins when the Beetle travels through the streets. Each day features a different route of streets, stories, events, and a soundtrack consisting of the same music from the cassette tapes Camila used to listen to in her daily life inside her Beetle.

The second moment takes place in the foyer of the venue. It starts shortly after the passengers are dropped off at Oi Futuro when Rhodi departs again and remains inside the vehicle with the cameras on, transmitting everything that happens in real-time to the foyer of the venue. There, where the audience is, a video jam session takes place projected on a triptych of screens, showing a collage of Beetle images along with the recorded images from inside the Beetle during that day’s ride and the live transmission of the artist inside the vehicle somewhere in the city. Meanwhile, Siri composes experimental music live as well.

In the third moment, the audience is greeted by the actress Flávia Espírito Santo, who delivers a nonsense text as if she were a supposed guide of the supposed “Beetle Museum”, where replicas of stolen objects are displayed. At some point, Camila arrives at the venue to continue recounting her memories from the theft of the Beetle. This time, with the use of mapping on her body, her friends projected on the triptych of screens, and the reading of the also biographical letter that Jô Bilac wrote to Camila to discuss loss, the artist concludes the performance.

resume:

1˚ act (50 min): the audience was invited to get inside the car to go around the streets of Rio de Janeiro.

2˚ act (1 hour): jam session conducted by Ricardo Siri and Ricky Seabra, at the same broadcasting Camila live performing inside the car in some parts of the city.

3˚ act (40 min): video installations, video mappings, live music, and Camila performing. Directed by Fabio Ferreira. Playwright: Jô Bilac and Camila Rhodi.

It was integrated with other medias, but still with a director. On this piece I was talking about losses. Based on the jacking of my orange beetle, on this performance I took people on different points of the city to tell them about existential facts of a life, the pain and the beauty of it.

It premiered on April 8, 2011, at Oi Futuro Flamengo and had a two-month run from Friday to Sunday.

A Dona do Fusca Laranja é uma performance-instalação autoficcional baseada nas memórias da artista Camila Rhodi. Ambientada nas ruas da cidade do Rio de Janeiro, a cada dia Rhodi conduz os visitantes por diferentes pontos, compartilhando histórias marcantes de sua vida ao lado de seu “amado” Fusca Laranja. O roubo do Fusca serviu de gancho para a artista abordar temas existenciais, tais como as decisões que tomamos na vida, os valores que atribuímos a cada momento, a beleza e a morte.

A performance ocorre em três momentos:

O primeiro momento destina-se apenas aos três passageiros do Fusca. Ele se inicia quando o veículo circula pelas ruas. A cada dia, um roteiro diferente de ruas, histórias, eventos e trilha sonora é apresentado. Esta última consiste no uso das próprias músicas contidas nas fitas cassetes que Camila costumava ouvir no seu dia a dia dentro do seu Fusquinha.

O segundo momento ocorre no foyer do espaço. Ele se inicia logo após os passageiros serem deixados no Oi Futuro, quando Rhodi parte novamente e permanece dentro do veículo, com as câmeras ligadas, transmitindo em tempo real tudo o que acontece para o foyer do espaço. Lá, onde o público se encontra, ocorre uma jam session de vídeo projetada em um tríptico de telas, exibindo uma colagem de imagens de fuscas juntamente com as imagens gravadas no interior do Fusca durante o passeio daquele mesmo dia e a transmissão ao vivo da artista dentro do veículo em algum lugar da cidade. Paralelamente, Siri compõe suas músicas experimentais também ao vivo.

No terceiro momento, o público é recebido pela atriz Flávia Espírito Santo, que apresenta um texto nonsense como se fosse uma suposta guia do suposto “Museu do Fusca”, onde réplicas de objetos roubados são expostas. Em algum momento, Camila chega ao espaço para continuar a contar suas lembranças a partir do roubo do Fusca. Desta vez, com o uso de mapping em seu corpo, seus amigos são projetados no tríptico de telas e a leitura da carta também biográfica que Jô Bilac escreveu para Camila para discutir sobre perda, a artista finaliza a performance.

foto-fusca-de-ricardo-beliel

A estréia ocorreu em 8 de abril de 2011 no Oi Futuro Flamengo e teve uma temporada de dois meses, de sexta a domingo.

Rio de Janeiro 2010.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnMqFdbpHxM

A Filha da Chacrete

In 2008 it was the year of my first autobiographical play, A Filha da Chacrete ( The Rockett’s Daugther). From improvisations based on objects and memories, first experiences of life, happiness, traumas, dreams and reflexions.

Through a scenic confession that takes place on the stage, A Filha da Chacrete invites the audience to reflect on their own lives and relationships with the past and consequently with the present. I worked based in my own experiences and stories I’ve heard from my mother. Since I was born, the pain of birth, going through the discovers of childhood until the adult life, the pain and the happiness of being alive.

The name of the play was due to my mom really being a “Chacrete” – dancer and assistant in a famous TV show from a well-known presenter in Brazil. And my father was a photonovel gallant. I’d like with this piece to remove the glamour of that situation and laugh about the stories, simple stories, that were like everyone else’s – sometimes good, sometimes not.

During the time the play was shown, it was possible to notice a deep involvement of the audience during the performances. To the extent that I exposed my own biography, I provoked them in their own memories.

Director and text: Fernando Maatz

Text consultation: Camila Vidal

Performance: Camila Rhodi

Costume Designer: Bruno Perlatto

Light Design: Anderson Ratto

Scenography & Photos: Renato Marques

Production: Camila Rhodi

Pictures of the solo show.

The monologue was presented in the following Theaters:

Premier at Teatro Municipal Ziembinski, Tijuca, Rio de Janeiro. August 2008.

Absence

It was 2004 in the Theater School Martins Penna, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Everything started with a play named Absence. I thought of creating a scene on my own absences – my mother and my father.

In it I played a cassette tape with the sound of me and my mother talking. I was just 3 and the conversation was at the same time funny and sad to me. After this I opened some letters that I exchanged with my father since I learned how to write.

In the presence of an audience I discovered that simple things of our daily lives can be an explosion of emotions in the audience.

I sticked a photo in a transparent plastic round surface that was put between me and the audience. The photo portrayed my parents with me in their arms when I was just a baby.

At that time a recording started to play, people could hear a child talking to a woman. It was me, with only 3 years old, and my mother:

– Camila, do you like John?
– Love him!
– Camila, do you like Mary?
-Love her!
– What about James?

(Time)

– I do …

The recording was at a time funny for the tone of rejection from the child and dramatic for the emotion of a small child talking to her mother – in that case, it had such importance for the fact that the voice was mine, I was talking to my mother who had died some years later after that recording.
Meanwhile, I sat on my knees and listened to the recording, with a wistful expression, amused me and thrilling at the same time. My expressions were not artificial, the movements were not crystallized, there were no other instrument beyond my behavioral possibilities. And every day that I did heard the voice of my mother in the performance, they were very strong moments I’d experienced in front of an audience. I had just heard this recording two or three times in my whole life before this performance. For me, it was always difficult to face that pain.
When the part of the tape finished, I was sitting next to an opened little box and began to read the letters that were in there. Those were letters written by my father for his mother, for me and my letters for him, since I learnt how to write. In those letters people could see the different times of my life, since I was a child, with my mother, after her death, until my father’s death.

In all the presentations I followed the same steps, so I wouldn’t get lost in my emotions.

There was a script of the scene, which I created, but without rehearsal. I was free for the moment. I would provide the rhythm of speech and movement. Listen the conversation, it was the voice of my mother with me, a moment that it would never come back. In my hands, there were photocopies of letters I received from my father one day, moments of my life, still learning how to write.

With such memories, I return to my story, my life, reaching a truly emotional state, without representation.