286 The narrative of Mocidade Independente was fragmented and multi-layered, as was that of the Abertura, which Motta pointed out as his “greatest inspiration”212. There was neither a host nor a set design specially conceived for the program. There was, though, a meeting place where guest musicians and artists, friends and observers spent the entire afternoon. This place was called Pauliceia Desvairada, a nightclub owned by Motta and by Ricardo Amaral. The Asdrúbal Trouxe o Trombone213, a comedy theatre company from Rio de Janeiro, was among the Mocidade’s most frequent guests. In their first appearance in the show, a comedy sketch was rendered wherein Motta issued a call for “young actors, musicians, singers, […] at least six people, consisiting of four young men and two young women”, that is, precisely the group’s line-up, to participate in “a new television show”. The Asdrúbal heard the call and got on a bus to São Paulo to present themselves as candidates. From thereon, they conducted interviews in the streets and interacted with the program’s production crew214 and its guests. The group’s arrival was narrated as a sort of metalanguage of the television process (which included the recruitment of talent). Its presence 212
Cf. Veja, 1982, p. 118. The Asdrúbal Trouxe o Trombone theatre group was formed in 1974 in Rio de Janeiro, with a language marked by “the desconstruction of dramaturgy, unaffected, natural style of interpretation and collective creation”. Its initial members were Regina Casé, Luiz Fernando Guimarães, Patrícia Travassos, Evandro Mesquita, Perfeito Fortuna, Nina de Pádua and Gilda Guilhon. Cf. Enciclopédia Itaú. Available at: <http:// goo.gl/zilFqB> Accessed: 13/7/2015. 214 In one of the episodes, the Asdrúbal conducted a street survey based on the question: “Have you got the money?”. While the group interviewed passers-by, Patrícia Travassos caught sight of Tadeu Jungle and said “check out theTVDO, folks!”. In the editing stage, the frase “Message to the Asdrúbal / Regulation /Time / is up / t v d o” was introduced by broadcast teletext. 213
strengthened the humorous note and the interdisciplinarity sought by the Mocidade, in announcing a new creative generation. Aware of a new scene and of its relation to the past of the Brazilian and international cultures, Motta and TVDO not only mixed artists of different origins but also made use of an extensive archive of images — ranging from Hollywood film to the first music videos — which were then edited into one great remix. At the end of the shows, a text preceded the closing credits: “the names shown on the screen should head to the viaduto do chá [a viaduct in downtown São Paulo] on Sunday to get a kiss from tvdo: norma bengell, oswald de andrade, alemão videoteca, artists of the concrete movement, boca, cascão, torquato neto, caetano veloso & gretchen, amado from the audio, serginho number 9 shirt from the são paulo football club (spfc), nelson motta and lulu santos, pinto — the assistant camera technician.”
It was a sentence that ended with a comma and brought together a variety of people, from the diva of the Cinema Novo to the television’s operator, all in lower-case letters. After the owner of TV Bandeirantes, João Saad, cancelled the Mocidade, TVDO sought for new ways to find viable options for its work to remain independent from the large television networks215. In 1982, the members joined together with the investor Eduardo Abramovic and opened 215 “We tried this. We tried to make institutional videos for commercial companies. We tried making documentaries about the visual arts. We tried to institucionalize ourselves. We did not succeed.” Cf. JUNGLE,Tadeu, op. cit., p. 213.