Yael Bartana

Mir Zaynen Dor! (We Are Here!), 2024, was commissioned by the Jewish-Brazilian art space Casa do Povo and filmed in the summer of 2023. At Casa do Povo, Yael Bartana brought together two distinct groups focused on music and dance—Jewish and Maroon—that share histories of oppression and diaspora but have had few interactions: Coral Tradição and Ilú Obá De Min. Coral Tradição, formed by Jewish immigrants and their families, preserves the Yiddish language and its songs as a way of remembering and fostering community. Ilú Obá De Min, an Afro-Brazilian street music ensemble, draws its repertoire from Maroon communities—descendants of people who escaped slavery through flight or active resistance. Bartana united members of both groups in a music video filmed at the Teatro de Arte Israelita Brasileiro, a legendary theater established in 1960 in the basement of Casa do Povo. This theater, once a hub for the experimental art scene in São Paulo during the 1960s and 1970s, has since fallen into a state of ruin. In the video, the distinct styles of singing and dancing from these two groups complement each other, inviting us to imagine new collective identities. These new identities merge different histories of persecution, blur individual identities and roles, and evoke solidarity and future possibilities. This work is primarily based on the relationship between the sung word and the collective choreography of a choir, between past and present, between memory and “pre-enactment.” Mir Zaynen Dor! is an invitation to imagine new collective bodies beyond fixed identity labels—a true exercise in possible and hopeful alliances aimed at constituting part of the community of the future, where the power of song and dance regains its primordial value.