Synopsis:
Azira’I is a biographical play that looks at Zahy Tentehar’s relationship with her mother, Azira’i, the first female Shaman from the Cana Brava reserve (MA), who held the rank of Supreme Shaman of the Tentehar peoples, which is only for people with extremely developed medicinal and spiritual knowledge. The relationship between mother and daughter takes place in a necessarily conflicting context, in an extremely patriarchal northeastern interior and in a culture torn between preserving its ancestral values and absorbing the dynamics and ills of a globalized civilization system. At the same time as Zahy is the daughter chosen by her mother to inherit the gifts of shamanism and communication with the Mairas, it is also in her that Azira’i unloads the frustrations of existing in a colonial and oppressive environment.
"I want to live and I want the world to live too. Not just to live, but to exist." Zahy Tentehar
Location:
Chicago Shakespeare Theater
800 E Grand Ave. Chicago, 60601
Genre: Biographical Musical Solo Show
Conception and Written by: Zahy Tentehar and Duda Rios
Directed by: Denise Stuntz and Duda Rios
Cast: Zahy Tentehar
Running: 90 min.
Age: 12+
Language: Alternates scenes in Portuguese and Ze’eng eté with English subtitles