“Antigone in the Amazon”: We occupy the Transamazonica!
Rehearsals on Antigone in the Amazon are nearing their first climax: Coming Monday, 17 April 2023, the largest massacre perpetrated by the Brazilian military police against the Brasilian Landless Movement (MST) in 1996 will be re-enacted at the scene of the crime: the occupied Transamazonica near Marabá in the Brazilian State of Pará.
The mythical Transamazonica Highway, which not only cuts through the rainforest but also destroys indigenous societies, will be paralyzed for a whole day by MST and Milo Rau’s team and used as a political stage for resistance.
Hundreds of activists, including the survivors of the massacre, who also form the choir for the theatre production Antigone in the Amazon will participate in the restaging of the horrible massacre. “So that what happened is never forgotten,” as a spokeswoman of MST announced.
Meanwhile, the filming of a central part of Antigone in the Amazon is taking place: the dark prophecy of the seer Tiresias about the coming downfall of capitalist society and the necessitiy of resistance. The role of Tiresias is performed by world-famous indigenous philosopher and activist Ailton Krenak, author of Ideas to postpone the end of the world.