Nina Vogel – Brazil
Nina Vogel is a multilingual, multidisciplinary Brazilian artist, performer, researcher, and educator.
From the intimacy of miniature works, designed for a single audience member, to large concert halls where she performs as a soloist alongside symphony orchestras, her artistic practice draws on her experience as a director, puppeteer, actress, opera singer, and costume designer for visual theater and contemporary puppet and object theater.
Her work has been presented in more than 20 countries across five continents and has received numerous awards.
Artistic Approach
The Costume as a Character
Nina Vogel’s creations are based on a unique artistic methodology, in which the costume becomes an active agent in the creative process. Her work explores the relationships between the body, costume, object, space, and transformation. Each of her performances involves the meticulous design of entirely self-contained poetic worlds, crafted to foster an intense connection with young audiences.
Stemming from a tradition that developed in Brazil in the 1980s, the Lambe Lambe (as in ConCordis) is a portable puppet theater designed to perform a short piece—in the style of a pop-up show—with sound and lighting for a single child. In contrast, “Peter and the Wolf,” which she created for the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra, can be performed in a large hall, accompanied by a chamber orchestra or a small symphonic ensemble. Her costume incorporates all the characters from the story and represents the garden in which they move about.
Values That Transcend Borders
Nina Vogel supplemented her training as a classical musician (piano, voice), which she received in Brazil, with a DESS in Puppetry Arts at UQAM (Montreal) and a Bachelor’s degree in Theater from São Paulo. She can perform in Portuguese, French, English, Spanish, German, Italian, Korean, and Japanese. In 2024, in collaboration with Japanese artist Taichiro Omura, she created a one-act opera-fable, *Uirapuru Tori*, commissioned by the Washi Meets Art Festival (Kōchi). Her shows are designed for touring and require minimal technical and logistical resources.
Beyond simply adapting to the economic constraints specific to the performing arts in the Global South, her goal is to put into practice a commitment to simplicity and making art accessible to all audiences. This ecological and inclusive dimension is particularly evident in the development of Lambé Lambé, which she teaches around the world. Designed primarily using waste and recycled materials, this form of popular theater can be performed on the street. It is particularly conducive to the emergence and professional development of independent artists in contexts where support for the performing arts is limited, as well as to engaging audiences who are not typically exposed to the performing arts.
Collaborations international awards
At the invitation of ASSITEJ Senegal, Nina Vogel recently led a workshop for 11 artists from West Africa as part of the regional program “Vogue Africaine.”
Selected for the RARE Performances program at the 2023 Prague Quadrennial, she has also been invited to artist residencies, workshops, conferences, and international exchanges in Japan, Taiwan, Canada, the United States, Norway, and Sweden, among other places. She has been invited as an artist by institutions such as Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo, DePaul University in Chicago, Stockholm University, Aalto University, and Uniarts Helsinki, where she has led workshops and given lectures on her practice and research.
In 2023, she received the AVIAMA Mobility Award for the research and development of WE-ME, an innovative exploration of puppetry performed entirely while holding one’s breath, in which she performs underwater alongside sculptures and animated forms. The project extends her research into new territory of artistic innovation and is being developed with a view to producing a short film. The award was supported by representatives from five member cities of AVIAMA International: Plzeň (Czech Republic), Minami Awaji (Japan), the borough of Outremont (Quebec, Canada), Tolosa (Spain), and Tournefeuille (France).
In 2020, Nina received the Outstanding Work Award at the Chuncheon International Puppet Film Festival in South Korea for her adaptation of *ConCordis – the Heart* into a stop-motion animated short film. In 2021, she received two scholarships from the O’Neill Theater Center in the United States to participate in its National Puppetry Conference: the Lisa Simon Scholarship, which honors a female director in the field of puppetry, and the Founders Award Scholarship.
Nina Vogel has also served as a cultural ambassador for Brazil, representing the country at major international events in the fields of puppetry and the performing arts. She was elected Independent Councilor at the UNIMA International World Congress in 2021 and invited to join its Professional Training Commission. In 2022, she represented Brazil at the AVIAMA and UNIMA International World Congresses in South Korea.
Share
