About the Collection

The care in safeguarding this material has always been based on a clear understanding of the importance of such documents for the formation of knowledge and to promote memory and cultural history in general, and especially the history of Brazilian street theater, which remains largely unknown to this day. A history that has been made precisely as, since the late 1990s, several researchers have focused on the documents of the numerous street theater groups in Brazil, and driven by similar concerns, they structure their collections and publish works. Regarding the history of Tá na Rua, these issues become doubly important, as it is one of the pioneering street theater groups in the more recent/contemporary context.

However, maintaining this collection has not been easy for the group. Many incidents, over more than forty years of work, due to events generally related to the lack of structure to maintain this collection – from termite attacks to the wear and tear of written materials and printed photos caused by dust, improper temperature of the environment, and the often inadequate handling – have led to the loss of part of this material.

The collection belongs to the group and has always been organized and cared for by the actors. For a long time, it remained without any cataloging or other specific technical treatment. There was only a primary organization, roughly separating this documentation according to the specificity of its subjects (work notes, projects, interviews, photos).

In 2005, through the Projeto Memória Tá Na Rua, sponsored by Petrobras, a comprehensive cleaning and organization of the existing material was carried out, along with the publication of the book Tá na Rua – teatro sem arquitetura, dramaturgia sem literatura, ator sem papel, organized by Licko Turle and Jussara Trindade (2008). During this period, the collection was located in the space that housed the administrative headquarters of the group – a space kindly provided to the group by Inacem/current FUNARTE, since 1990, located in the Glauce Rocha Theater building, at Av. Rio Branco 179, 5th floor. In 2019, due to the need for renovations at this location, the entire collection was transferred to the Casa do Tá na Rua, the group’s headquarters, a place that does not offer the necessary conditions for the permanence of such a collection, which caused some damage to the cleaning and general organization previously done, as well as to some specific documents.

In 2024, with the approval of the Projeto Tá na Rua tem História, approved by the “Programa FUNARTE RETOMADA 2023 – TEATRO”, work on cleaning, identifying, and organizing the existing documents began once again, with the aim of preserving, conserving, structuring, and disseminating the production and memory of the Tá na Rua theater group over its more than 40 years of work. We also currently have the Institutional Support of the Cinemateca do MAM in the process of digitizing the audiovisual collection.

Still through the “Tá na Rua tem História/Programa FUNARTE RETOMADA 2023 – TEATRO” project, the creation of the group’s website was proposed, as a way to make this entire documentary collection public, making it available to researchers, students, artists, and anyone interested in the history of Brazilian theater. A virtual space that functions not only as a documentary archive but also as a kind of virtual museum, which in its framework brings the possibility of spreading this artistic collection and democratizing access to this documentation, even globally, as we believe that the information it contains deserves and needs to be more widely accessed and known.

Thus, the safeguarding of this material is materialized, maintaining its integrity, protecting this memory, and at the same time allowing its use in a broader and more careful way.