Breath of the Forest
The Dutch Wind Ensemble, Duda Paiva Company, Outra Margem, and the Kamayurá people from the Brazilian Amazon join artistic forces in Breath of the Forest: an urgent theatrical performance that combines music, dance, foam sculptures and Indigenous knowledge in an artistic dialogue about nature, ecology, colonial history and different ways of understanding the world.
Turning the stage into a space for dialogue
The production brings together groups with distinct artistic traditions, worldviews, and ways of working. These differences are at the core of the creative process, as choreographer Duda Paiva explains: “The production uses the image of the mirror—a colonial object once used to seduce and deceive Indigenous peoples—as a central metaphor. In our performance, the mirror is turned towards the audience. Rather than looking at the Indigenous other, we are invited to confront our own reflection, our own assumptions, and our own responsibilities.”
The musical foundation of Breath of the Forest consists of Bachianas Brasileiras and Floresta do Amazonas by Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, and by the Kamayurá’s tradition. Villa-Lobos conducted extensive research into natural sounds and the music of Indigenous peoples from the Amazon region, which he incorporated into his compositions.The performance recognizes indigenous peoples as bearers of knowledge that is indispensable to our survival, rooted in the wisdom of the Amazon Rainforest.
“The essence of the story is to look at the world from a perspective in which we are all nature,” says dramaturg and artistic researcher Andreia Duarte of Outra Margem. “Animals, the forest and the mountains belong to the world and are fundamental to the balance of all the diversity of life, including humanity.”
Duarte has worked directly with Indigenous peoples for 25 years and, as an artist, curator and researcher. Within Breath of the Forest, Outra Margem plays an advisory and mediating role, helping to ensure that the collaboration becomes a dialogue in which the indigenous knowledge, perspectives and participation are central.
More than just a live experience
This exchange also extends beyond the stage. In addition to remunerating the Kamayurá for copyright and image rights, this project serves as a platform to support fundraising for a larger project that contributes to strengthening and passing on traditional knowledge. This includes teaching music and traditional instruments, particularly flutes, and creating materials that preserve Kamayurá stories, ancestral memories and aspects of their cosmology.
Three Kamayurá artists will represent their people in the show, arriving for rehearsals and performances in late October.
View the interview with Andreia Duarte here.
Performance dates
14 November 2026 Tilburg
18 November 2026 Nijmegen
19 November 2026 Haarlem
20 November 2026 Helmond
22 November 2026 Dordrecht
27 November 2026 Enschede
28 November 2026 Drachten
29 November 2026 Amsterdam
3 December 2026 Groningen
3 March 2027 Cuijk
4 March 2027 Utrecht
6 March 2027 Leiden
9 March 2027 Den Bosch
11 March 2027 Ede
12 March 2027 Amersfoort
About the Netherlands Blazers Ensemble
The Nederlands Blazers Ensemble (NBE) is a group of musical adventurers constantly exploring the boundaries of music and performance. Through unexpected collaborations with musicians from diverse cultures and other artistic disciplines, the NBE creates innovative programmes that surprise, move and challenge audiences. Social engagement and talent development are at the heart of its work, bringing live music to new audiences while inspiring and supporting the next generation of musicians.
About Duda Paiva Company
Duda Paiva Company creates poetic, groundbreaking, and dynamic theater using foam sculptures according to Duda Paiva’s Object Score method. From their home base in Amersfoort, Duda Paiva Company creates associative worlds through a unique blend of dance and object theater in which body and sculpture merge. Their productions depict urgent themes in a magical reality where people, material, and meaning are constantly transforming. With their universal physical language, Duda Paiva Company seeks encounter, inspiration, and artistic exchange worldwide, reaching a large and diverse audience.
About Outra Margem
Outra Margem is an art and thought platform that develops aesthetic-political actions focused on social justice and confronting colonial legacies. Its projects are developed in partnership with Indigenous creators, thinkers, and activists, valuing their ways of doing and thinking as forms of knowledge fundamental to the existence and ecology of all beings and the planet. The platform also establishes partnerships with artists and intellectuals whose work emerges from different epistemologies and perspectives of the Global South. It develops curatorial projects for festivals and exhibitions, reflective and educational initiatives, performances and dramaturgies, publications of articles and books, large-scale mural projects, and other actions in Brazil and internationally.
Biography of the Kamayurá
The Kamayurá are a Tupi-speaking indigenous people who inhabit the Upper Xingu region in Mato Grosso, Brazil. Their culture constitutes one of Brazil’s most important indigenous cultural heritages, bringing together knowledge transmitted orally through narratives, rituals, music, the arts, and intergenerational interaction—all as part of a single system of knowledge. This knowledge shapes community life, preserves the memory of ancestors, and expresses unique ways of understanding the world, on an equal footing with all forms of life. Jean, Juan, and Eva Kamayurá are descendants of very important families within the community—the sons and daughter of the custodians of this ancestral musical knowledge.
CREDITS
Artistic
Direction: Brandt Attema, Duda Paiva
Dramaturgy and Consultant on Indigenous Peoples: Andreia Duarte
Music Kamayura: Yamuni Kamayura, Wakuyukuma Kamayura, Mawalaya Kamayurá and the Kamayurá People
Music NBE: Bas Duister, Malika Maminova, Sinan Arat, Louis van der Mespel, Willem van Merwijk, Janneke Groesz, Bart de Kater, Thomas Dulfer , Ron Schaaper, Brandt Attema, Astrid Haring
Performance: Sophie Prins, Kathrin Gramelsberger, Tim Štimac, Evelina Roze
Sculptures: Andre Mello, Beril Gülderer
Costume design: Evita Rigert
Light design: Mark Verhoef
Set design: Hiromitsu Konishi
Technics: Mark Verhoef, Harmen van 't Loo, Jelle Pijnenborg, Joost Janssen, Maurits Mulder
Videography: Ward Veenstra
Flute’s Bag: Enrique Casas
Organisation
Production: Meta Koopmans, Merel van Marken Lichtenbelt, Júlia Junqueira
Marketing: Djamila Fontaine Ngongo, Hedwig van der Zwaal, Romy Roomans, Jorien Serraris
Business management: Elena van Slogteren, Barbara Groeneveld
Press support: Museum of Indigenous Cultures of São Paulo
This production is made possible by the Kamayurá People, Brazilian Embassy The Hague, Guimarães Rosa Institute, Performing Arts Fund NL, Stichting Gunstige Wind
Special Thanks
FUNAI – National Foundation for Indigenous Peoples (Brazil): João Henrique Galvão, Bruno Antunes de Cerqueira, Otávio Moura Carvalho, Ministry of Indigenous Peoples.
Produced by: Nederlands Blazers Ensemble (NBE), Duda Paiva Company, Outra Margem, and the Kamayurá people.
