Rio’s Definitiva Cia. de Teatro premieres Elipse at Teatro Dulcina, laying bare the human machinery behind every show. April 8–30.
What truly holds theater together? That question drives Elipse, the new production by Definitiva Cia. de Teatro — a Rio de Janeiro-based collective marking 18 years of work in 2026. The show runs April 8 through 30 at Teatro Dulcina, a Funarte venue in downtown Rio, with performances every Wednesday and Thursday at 7 PM. Brazilian Sign Language interpretation is available at all sessions.
A bare stage as dramaturgy
Written and performed by Livs, directed by Jefferson Almeida, the solo show confronts the stage in its rawest form: wooden floors, electric rigging, unfocused spotlights, a lighting board, cables, dust, and silence. The control booth sits center stage. Everything springs from the visible act of labor.
By assembling and dismantling scenes in front of the audience, Elipse reveals not just the final product but the journey behind it — decisions, mistakes, hesitations, and adjustments. What theater typically hides — the rehearsal, the doubt, the technical cue, the risk — becomes the dramatic material itself.
A political gesture and a love letter to theater
The show draws on the ideas of performer, actress, researcher, and professor Eleonora Fabião about the body and scenic presence. For director Jefferson Almeida, the work carries clear political weight.
It is also a political gesture: by shining a light on the workers of the stage — technicians, operators, stagehands, producers, and box office staff — the show reveals the human machinery that sustains the so-called magic.
Jefferson Almeida, director
The ellipse — a shape evoking orbit, displacement, and omission — organizes the work on three simultaneous levels: the show orbits theater to speak about it; it suppresses certainties to expose processes; and it shifts the audience’s gaze from the product to the labor. Poetry emerges from technical accumulation.
18 years of research and artistic language
Elipse continues the company’s Acting Exercises research strand, launched in 2021 and focused on the actor’s presence and play as creative tools. That investigation previously produced Princípio da Incerteza and O Susto, both premiered in 2023.
Founded in 2008 at UniRio’s Center for Letters and Arts, Definitiva Cia. runs two parallel research lines: Scene–Music — which yielded works such as Calabar, A hora da estrela, and Bendegó — and the Acting Exercises series. Over 18 years, the group has also produced audiovisual projects, artistic residencies, and creative workshops.
Weaving personal memories, classic references, live lighting cues, and metatheatrical interruptions, Elipse traces a layered path. As performer and lighting designer Livs puts it:
It is an ancestral, collective, precarious, and insistent art form. In the end, what the audience sees is not just a play, but the outline of all the forces that made it exist.
Livs, creator and performer
The project is supported by the Brazilian Federal Government, the Ministry of Culture, the State Government of Rio de Janeiro, and the State Secretariat of Culture and Creative Economy through the Aldir Blanc National Policy, with backing from Funarte.
Event Info
- Show: Elipse
- Dates: April 8–30, 2026
- Schedule: Wednesdays and Thursdays at 7 PM
- Venue: Teatro Dulcina — Funarte
- Address: R. Alcindo Guanabara, 17 — Centro, Rio de Janeiro
- Tickets: BRL 20 (full price) / BRL 10 (half price)
- Age rating: 14+
- Running time: 55 min
- Capacity: 30 seats
- Accessibility: Brazilian Sign Language interpretation
- Tickets online: https://www.sympla.com.br/evento/elipse/3363867
