Encantarias by Carlo Alexandre Teixeira

ENCANTARIAS completes a trilogy that began with Tekó Porã (2020), followed by História de Plantas (2021), celebrating the ancestral knowledge of indigenous peoples and their ecosystems. The name of the work refers to the great variety of myths and traditions of Brazil's caboclo and indigenous peoples.


The album is a musical piece about culture in permanent symbiosis with Brazil's biological diversity, bringing this universe closer to capoeiristas and the general public.


In short, we celebrate the ‘enchanted beings’ of Brazil. In the Brazilian popular imagination, they are, for example, the spirit of the jaguar and the great snake, the warrior Indians, disembodied shamans, the caboclas Mayra, Jacira, Jupira, Iracema, Jurema, the pink dolphin, the bumba-boi and many other beings from Brazilian mythology. It is believed that they exist in the waters and forests, have never had a concrete existence, and have always lived in enchantment.

These spiritual beings remind human beings to respect the forests and hinterlands, the rivers and mangroves, the canyons and plateaus, the trees, the ponds, the streams, and all the animals. They protect the ecosystems on which our survival depends.


When these magical entities are enchanted to take part in Amerindian and Afro-Brazilian festivals and ceremonies, such as the Fulni-ô Toré, the Bumba-Meu-Boi, the Catimbó, the Pajelança, the Maracatu, the Umbanda, the Jurema or the Pankararu peoples and their magical entities of the drylands, they are looking after the planet. This is how the people of the forest and their enchanted beings work to protect our planet.


By placing the Amazon rainforest at the centre of our artistic reflections, we are bringing the concept of global centrality to the Amazon biomes. As if the heart of the planet started beating from its largest green area - a political and artistic strategy to nourish the world with ideas and knowledge from the forests - drawing attention to what is happening in the most important part of this body, inverting global values and perspectives. The forest is the centre!

I was born in Rio de Janeiro, I started in capoeira when I was 16 years old. My artistic and creative training goes mainly through this art form. From there I learned music, film and theatre. Since 1996 I have been going back and forth from Brazil to the United Kingdom, and recently to Mexico, where I currently live. I worked in slums in Rio, theatre in London and productions in Asia and Scotland.

Instagram