We’ve covered Brazil and its naturism sporadically over the years, mostly through the eyes of Pookes, Trine and guest contributor Natalia.

I’m delighted to say that Natalia still uses Second Life, and I’ve been able to hook up with her via IM in recent weeks and asked if she’d like to let us know about the state of play for Brazilian naturists right now.

She didn’t come back with anything related to naturism per se, but has provided a very interesting account of a theatrical group in Brazil who perform much of their productions nude, and often features ‘audience participation’ with the audience freely stripping off to join in the performances. Over to Natalia…

Teatro Oficina is a theatre group based in Sao Paolo, Brazil, a city I moved to from my home city of Recife around a year ago. Recife is a couple of hours drive south of one of Brazil’s famous Tambaba naturist beach (both are on the Atlantic coastline), and Tambaba is where I became naturist some years ago for the first time.

Scenes from Tambaba beach

I so enjoyed the feeling of freedom that I then began to take holidays near Tambaba, and use the beach daily. Sometimes, after work finished on Friday, we would drive up to spend the weekends at Tambaba.

I was sad when I moved to Sao Paolo because my home in Recife, my family there and my naturist paradise are now 3000kms, or about 3 hours flying time, away. Yes, there is naturist beaches a little closer to my new home, but nothing as beautiful as Tambaba, and still a long drive away (further than Recife to Tambaba).

It seemed as if there was no social nudity available to me in Sao Paolo, until I discovered Teatro Oficina! I know I am not comparing exact naked experiences. But naked, we all feel a sense of freedoms and it is good for my soul to experience it on the beach or at home or anywhere else.

Let me tell you a little about the theatre group as much as I can tell.

Their theatre is a long, narrow building that is very ‘industrial’ in appearance. Not a typical theatre. Much of the performance takes place on a long ‘stage’ (the wooden strip you can see in the photo above : Ella) with the audience sat at the side of that.

One of their productions, Macumba Antropófaga, essentially tells the story of interaction between the indigenous peoples of Brazil and European invaders. This provides a pretext for nudity amongst many of the actors. 

Teatro Oficina have a Twitter account where you can find links to their performances.

Please note : Teatro Oficina performances are long….this one from a few days ago last six hours!

The audience are encouraged to strip and join in, which is exactly what I did when I attended a performance several weeks ago. It was an exhausting but thrilling experience. As Teatro Oficina streams their performances I shall have to see if I can find myself and post photos.

Natalia

Ella adds…As Natalia points out, this is not a ‘naturist’ post, but rather the normalisation of nudity in society as acceptable and welcome. I do have some reservations about Teatro Oficina, though, and while I’m posting it for the reasons just outlined, there’s elements of it that make it strictly non-naturist. 1. Sex is simulated during the performance, so it’s definitely not ‘genuine naturism’ as I would understand it. I will let that pass on the basis that Brazil was very much under the yoke of the Portuguese Empire in the past and sex, as simulated in the performance, would certainly accurately reflect the mass rape (or willing intercourse) between Portuguese invaders and the indigenous people. In that respect, simulated sex is part of the story of the rape, literally and figuratively, of Brazil. 2. I’ve seen masturbation and ejaculation, on stage, by male performers. Integral to the story? Unlikely, but I’m not someone who would ‘read’ the performance as it being a representation of something else. 3. Sex has allegedly been more than simulated onstage, with one actress reportedly becoming pregnant as a result of her ‘performance’. So this is on really, really thin ground as far as ‘naturism’ is, for us. Shifting sands beneath our feet, to be quite honest. On the other hand, I do recognise its artistic point, and the encouragement to get the audience to undress and join in, thus crossing what they call a ‘tabu’, is an interesting way of creating or encouraging naturist activity…of a sort. One would hope that the audience who’ve never been naked in public before could progress to naturist beaches and thus ‘grow’ Brazilian naturism. On the other hand, one hopes they don’t go away with the idea that being naked in public (i.e. on a naturist beach) isn’t closely associated with simulated or real sex or public masturbation.