In February 2006, as Brazil prepares itself for Carnival, the Barbican launches a major, three-month festival entitled Tropicália (13 February – 22 May), celebrating a revolutionary movement in Brazilian culture. Tropicália took its name from an installation created by Brazilian artist, Hélio Oiticica in 1967 and subsequently became the title of one of the most celebrated albums in Brazilian music history, featuring Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa and Os Mutantes.

Tropicália Events:

16 February - 21 May — Exhibition (Visual Art), Barbican Art Gallery

22 February - 17 May — Tropicália ‘Experience’ (Talks, Workshops, Tours)

3 & 4 March — AfroReggae (Music), Barbican Theatre

21 April - 22 May — Music Festival, Barbican Hall + Freestages

21 April - 22 May — Film Series, Barbican Cinema

24 - 28 April — Deborah Colker (Dance), Barbican Theatre

The Tropicália movement was a passionate and intelligently articulated response to military dictatorship and the ultimate counter-cultural statement - a true revolution that re-defined Brazilian arts and re-shaped Brazilian identity. It was to be a brief explosion of cultural transformation and upheaval, spanning a period of no more than five years, from 1967 to 1972. Some would say that it ended only a year after it began, with Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil’s arrest in December 1968. What is clear is that Tropicália changed Brazil forever.

Although the original movement was crushed by an authoritarian regime, the influence and irrepressible spirit of Tropicália continued to spread. As is often said of 1968 (‘the year that never ended’) Tropicália is arguably the movement that never ended. While musical experimenters from David Bowie and David Byrne to Beck and, most recently, The Bees cite the eclectic music of Tropicália as an influence (in 2001 The Bees had a hit with an Os Mutantes’ ‘A Minha Menina’), the groundbreaking nature of the visual art has only recently begun to be fully appreciated. Ironically, Gilberto Gil, one of the prime architects of Tropicália and one-time thorn in the side of the then military regime, is now Minister Of Culture in the government of President Lula. In the joyously anarchic spirit of Tropicália, Gil juggles his music career and politics with some style, regularly getting his guitar out and singing songs in the middle of government meetings. The time to celebrate, to investigate and to reappraise the events and the lasting legacy of Tropicália has well and truly arrived.

“Stop, listen, walk, see. It costs you nothing. It just costs you your life”
Gilberto Gil

It is entirely fitting that Europe’s largest multi-arts centre celebrates this multi-faceted movement that, in so many ways, was a precursor to today’s arts scene, where boundaries between music, art, film and theatre are routinely blurred. Appropriately, for a movement that famously invaded and inhabited the gaps, Tropicália will inhabit just about every space in the Barbican: Barbican Art Gallery (16th February – 21st May) will take on the appearance of a vibrant, sensorial favela, with over 250 exhibits featuring contemporary artists influenced by the movement, and key works from the era, including the installation that gave the movement its very name, Hélio Oiticica’s ‘Tropicália’; Barbican Theatre will jump to the beat of the favelas with AfroReggae’s (3rd and 4th March) explosive mix of music and dance, straight out of Rio De Janeiro; Barbican Cinema screens a series of films about Tropicália, rarely seen classics of the Tropicália-influenced Cinema Novo era and examples of contemporary Brazilian film; In various spaces around the centre, throughout the festival, Barbican Education presents a comprehensive series of talks, workshops and family events revealing the many aspects of this most participative of movements.

“Why not?”
Caetano Veloso

Tropicália culminates with a major music festival (21st April - 23rd May), which will include five to six headline concerts in the Barbican Hall, featuring some of the original heroes of Tropicália, together with an international line-up of contemporary musicians inspired by the movement that seems as relevant now as it was forty years ago.

Further Information:
Emerging in Brazil in 1967, against a backdrop of international turmoil (Civil Rights marches and anti-Vietnam protests in the United States, as well as riots in Paris) and domestic unrest, which saw demonstrations against the oppressive military regime, Tropicália was born out a desire to forge a new Brazilian identity out of the synthesis of dominant foreign culture, traditional culture and Modernism.

The movement took its name from an installation called Tropicália, by Hélio Oiticia (a recreation of a favela shack) at the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro in 1967. Liking its reworking of the clichés of Brazilian identity (complete with live parrots) musician Caetano Veloso co-opted the name for the album ‘Tropicália - ou Panis et Circenses’ that featured Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa and Os Mutantes. - without doubt, the most celebrated album in Brazilian music history.

Drawing inspiration from the Modernist movement of the 1920s, Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil consciously cannibalised Brazilian history, absorbing many and varied musical influences to create a new musical form. They took elements as varied as Psychedelia, LSD, The Beatles, Brazilian folk music, Stockhausen, the Aztecs, outer space and consumerism and ‘devoured’ them, only to regurgitate them again in a uniquely Brazilian form.

Truly global in their perspective, the chaos and anti-authoritarianism that seemed to be sweeping the world was beautifully recreated in the music of Tropicália.

If such eclecticism and magpie-like sampling of their own and other cultures sound familiar, the values of the visual artists, Hélio Oiticica Lygia Clark, Antonio Dias and Lygia Pape seem just as contemporary. Cross-arts, interactivity, improvisatory, participatory, sensorial, accessibility, collage and Non-Art were some of the terms being coined and practised in 1968 in Brazil. It is little surprise then that the movement continues to influence and inform today.

This unique series of performances, concerts, films and workshops (it is by far the largest celebration of the movement ever staged anywhere in the world) will offer a timely opportunity for artists, critics and audiences to experience, engage with and, quite possibly, re-define the cultural vibrations we know as Tropicália.

“Experience the experimental”
Helio Oiticica

Graham Sheffield, Artistic Director of the Barbican states “With events taking place in just about every corner of the building, the ambitious three-month long Tropicália festival allows the Barbican to demonstrate its true potential. Indeed, many of the values of Tropicália chime with the aims of the Barbican: Challenging. Provocative. Proactive. Restless. Iconoclastic. Participatory. Multi - arts. Words and ideas that came out of this most prescient of movements in 1967, inform out ambition as an international arts centre in 2006”.

Tropicália: A Revolution In Brazilian Culture (Visual Art)
16th February – 21st May, Barbican Art Gallery
The Tropicália exhibition in Barbican Art Gallery (16th February – 21st May) is the first exhibition to chart the explosion of creative energy that encompasses this cohesive cultural moment. It centres on the exhibition ‘New Brazilian Objectivity’, held at the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro, in which Oiticica’s groundbreaking ‘Tropicália’ was a centrepiece. This momentous exhibition presents the work of key exponents of the movement such as Lygia Clark, Antonio Dias and Lygia Pape but also features many new artists including Assume Vivid Astro Focus inspired by this Sixties revolution. The Tropicália exhibition will recapture the relaxed vibe of the era with chill-out tents, participatory works and a wide range of absorbing, informative and creative events.

The originality of the Tropicalists was to associate resistance and protest to aesthetics, melting form and content into one and at the same time creating new colours, rhythms and proportions. Like the Brazilian modernists of the 1920’s the Tropicalists wanted to devour all foreign cultural influences and regurgitate them in the Brazilian way. Tropicália thrived on ideas, dialogue and the energy of the streets and includes Hélio Oiticica’s walk-in environment that plays on the clichés of Brazilian tropicalism, with plants, parrots, sand and pebbles. Visitors should be prepared to take their shoes and socks off and interact.

Tropicália: A Revolution in Brazilian Culture is co-organised by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York; and GabineteCultura, Sào Paulo, Brazil.

“You need to know about swimming pools, margarine, gasoline”
Caetano Veloso

AfroReggae featuring Estelle and Ty (Music/Dance)
Friday 3rd and Saturday 4th March, ‘From The Favela To The World’, Barbican Theatre
Formed in 1993 in the wake of a brutal police massacre in the favelas of Rio De Janeiro, AfroReggae perform a potent mix of music (fusing reggae, hip hop, samba, carioca funk, and axé) and dance. The flagship of cultural collective Grupo Cultural AfroReggae, the group’s aim is to provide young people with an alternative to violence and gun crime through music, dance and performance. A band born out of chaos, AfroReggae is now one of Brazil’s most exciting live acts.

For its London performances AfroReggae joins forces with UK urban music stars Estelle and Ty (who have recently been working with the group in Rio) for an explosive evening of singing, rap, drumming and dance. AfroReggae comes to the Barbican as part of an international tour, which includes opening the Rolling Stones concert on Copacabana Beach.

Tropicália: Music Festival
21st April – 23rd May, Barbican Hall, Barbican Freestage, Barbican Clubstage
While the musical element of Tropicália launches in March with AfroReggae, the Barbican builds up to a finale with a major music festival that celebrates the impact made by the album
‘Tropicália’ – an album that sounds as fresh today as it did in 1967.

With 5-6 headline concerts in the Barbican Hall, free pre and post show performances on the Freestage and Clubstage, audiences will get a once in a lifetime opportunity to see some of the major musical legends of the Tropicália movement, together with an international line-up of guest artists. Please note that artists are still to be confirmed. In conjunction with the music season, the exhibition in the Barbican Art Gallery will also show new works by musicians such as Moreno Veloso and Arto Lindsay.

“Tropicália is whatever is necessary”
Torquato Neto

Companhia de Dança Deborah Colker (Dance)
Tuesday 25th – Saturday 29th April, ‘Knot’, Barbican Theatre
Deborah Colker, the Olivier Award-winning Brazilian choreographer, returns to the Barbican following previous successful runs during BITE:03, BITE:02 and BITE:00. This time, her company of 16 energetic dancers perform its newest piece, Knot, exploring the theme of desire. In the first part, inspired by bondage and knots, the dancers move amongst a tangle of 120 suspended ropes. Their bodies become intertwined, one moment imprisoned, the next freed. In the second part, inspired by Colker’s impressions of the red light district in Amsterdam, the ropes are replaced by a red, transparent glass box, in and out of which the dancers fluidly move. Knot is a visually spectacular piece, calling for physical dexterity and precision from the dancers to create a sensual performance looking at domination, submission and the ties that bind.

The ‘Tropicália Experience’ (Talks, Workshops, Tours)
Wednesday 22nd February – Wednesday 17th May
Barbican Education has put together an extensive and varied series of talks, workshops and tours that run throughout the duration of the festival – focussing on different aspects of Tropicália. Wednesday Evening Gallery Talks will take place from 22nd February onwards and include Tropicália: Disorder and Progress; From The Favela To The World: In Conversation with AfroReggae; The Architecture Of Lino Bo Bardi; When Was Tropicália?; The Legacy of Tropicália and more.

Every weekend throughout the exhibition The Tropicália Experience will encourage visitors to interact, try on and dance with some of the exhibits including Lygia Pape’s multi-sensory masks and Hélio Oiticica’s amazing coloured capes. While Experience the Experimental will encourage children to see the exhibition, try on the costumes and then make their own, there will be chance to join London’s leading Samba dancers and drummers on Saturday and Sunday afternoons throughout the festival.

Tropicália Film Series
21st April – 21rst May, Barbican Cinema
Barbican Film will programme an extensive series of films exploring how the Tropicália movement transformed cinema in Brazil and became one of the catalysts for the world-renowned Cinema Novo movement. In association with Brazilian Contemporary Arts, this series offers a very rare opportunity to see some of the classics from the Cinema Novo period. The film season will also include a separate strand of music and dance documentaries, featuring archive performances by legendary and contemporary Brazilian singers and musicians, to complement the music programme in Barbican Hall.

Finally, the third film element is a showcase of new Brazilian cinema, featuring the latest and most popular productions, both in Brazil and at international film festivals during 2005-06.
See www.barbican.org.uk/film for further details.

And as if that wasn’t enough, the folks at Soul Jazz are putting out a compilation called Tropicália