CADELA FORÇA TRILOGY, Chapter I:
The Bride and the Goodnight Cinderella
Carolina Bianchi Y Cara de Cavalo
Schedule
Thursday, October 23, 2025
Friday, October 24, 2025
Saturday, October 25, 2025
US Premiere
In Brazilian Portuguese with English surtitles
Duration: 150 minutes (no intermission)
In the first chapter of the Cadela Força Trilogy, Brazilian director and writer Carolina Bianchi stages a shocking and vulnerable exploration of art and narratives of sexual violence that haunt women across history. Blending theater and performance art, she constructs a layered, destabilizing tapestry of stories, images, movement, and figures drawn from both contemporary and art-historical sources.
The catalyst is a real event: the rape and murder of a performance artist whose work explored faith in human kindness. From there, Bianchi assembles a fractured mythology of femicide, where memory blurs and trauma generates new meaning. Created with the collective Cara de Cavalo, The Bride and the Goodnight Cinderella is a journey into the abyss, a hole in the desert, a spiked glass of “Goodnight Cinderella.” What happens after?
“[A] landmark in the history of the Avignon Festival” — Joëlle Gayot, Le Monde
Co-presented with Powerhouse: International
Recommended for ages 18+. This performance contains intermittent loud music, strobe lights, haze, nudity and sexual assault. Certain emotionally intense and/or graphic scenes may offend spectators.
Venue
Carolina Bianchi
Carolina Bianchi is a Brazilian playwright, performer, and director of the São Paulo-based collective Cara de Cavalo (The Face of the Horse). Her work fuses literary and cinematic language, musical sampling, and physical risk to confront gender, sexual violence, and the legacies of art history. Her trilogy Cadela Força (Strength Bitch)—including the most recent installment, The Brotherhood, which premiered at Kunstenfestivaldesarts (2025)—has established her as a singular voice in experimental performance. Other major works include O Tremor Magnífico (The Magnificent Tremor) and Lobo (Wolf). In 2023, she premiered The Bride and Goodnight Cinderella at the Avignon Festival, followed by performances at GREC Barcelona, Kampnagel Hamburg, HAU Berlin, and Glasgow Festival. In 2024, she presented a reading-performance inspired by Chantal Akerman at Kunstenfestivaldesarts in Brussels. She lives in Amsterdam. Carolina Bianchi was awarded the Silver Lion by Biennale di Danza di Venezia 2025.
Billing Credits
Conception, text and direction: Carolina Bianchi
Translation into English and revision: Larissa Ballarotti, Luisa Dalgalarrondo, Joana Ferraz, Marina Matheus
Dramaturgist and partnership in continuous research process: Carolina Mendonça
Cast: Bruta, Carolina Bianchi, Chico Lima, Fernanda Libman, Joana Ferraz, José Artur, Larissa Ballarotti, Marina Matheus and Rafael Limongelli
Technical direction, Sound design and Original music: Miguel Caldas
Set design, Art and Graphic design: Luisa Callegari
Light design: Jo Rios
Videos and Screenings: Montserrat Fonseca Llach
Karaoke video: Thany Sanches
Costumes: Tomás Decina, Luisa Callegari, Carolina Bianchi
Art Assistant and General artistic collaboration: Tomás Decina
Collaboration in body and voice training: Pat Fudyda, Yantó
Dialogue on theory and dramaturgy: Silvia Bottiroli
Photos: Christophe Raynaud de Lage
Production and Stage support: AnaCris Medina
Production assistant: Zuzanna Kubiak
Production direction, Tour manager and Communication: Carla Estefan
International relations, Production and Diffusion: Metro Gestão Cultural (Brasil)Production Credits
A Production by: Metro Gestão Cultural (Brasil), Carolina Bianchi Y Cara de Cavalo
In Coproduction with: Festival d’Avignon, KVS Brussels, Maillon, Théâtre de Strasbourg – Scène européenne, Frascati Amsterdam.
Residency to finish the play and set construction: La FabricA du Festival d’Avignon
Residencies: Frascati Theater, DAS Theatre (Amsterdam), Festival Proximamente/KVS (Brussels), Festival 21 Voltz/Central Elétrica (Porto), Pride Festival (Belgrade), Greta Galpão (São Paulo) e Espaço Desterro (Rio de Janeiro).
With the Support of: Theater Der Welt, The Ammodo Foundation, DAS Theatre Master Program, 3 Package Deal of the AFK – Amsterdam Fonds voor de Kunst, Kaaitheater.
International relations, Production and Diffusion: Metro Gestão Cultural (Brasil)
*World Premiere July 6th,2023, at the Festival d’AvignonAbout Powerhouse: International
This fall, artists from around the world converge at Powerhouse Arts to do what this moment demands: imagine what’s possible, provoke change, and spark collective joy. In a city built on bold expression and constant reinvention, artists and audiences move with each other’s stories, rhythms, and forms to begin something new.
Support for Crossing The Line
and The Wescustogo Foundation
L’Alliance New York’s programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the Support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
Header Image: The Bride and Goodnight Cinderella © Christophe Raynaud de Lage
Carolina Bianchi headshot: © Bea Borgers
{acf_additional_info_event_event_expanded_info_heading}
{acf_additional_info_event_event_expanded_intro}
