With nearly a year of social distancing due to Covid-19, the artistic community is still trying to find ways to reinvent their work during this period. In this time of social uncertainty, many artists have withdrawn, but that was definitely not the case for Brazilian Ana Moioli (Co-Artistic Director), who is an actress, producer, director, and writer based in New York.
Her acting career has spanned the globe, from Brazil to Russia and the United States, and she recently produced and starred in CherryBomb – a TV series set to be released on Amazon Prime in 2021.
Like many of us, she faced challenges, the biggest of which was contracting the virus and spending months alone in her apartment in New York, as well as saying goodbye to very important people in her life.
“I was very lucky, not only because my symptoms were mild, but also because I have a community of very dear people around me, even if that ‘around’ is the Zoom screen.”
The actress views the pandemic as an opportunity for change and learning to deal with the unexpected. “My theater company, Et Alia, constantly serves as a guiding light, regardless of the circumstances, as we are a very dedicated team and a source of mutual support. Since the beginning of the pandemic, we haven’t skipped any of our weekly Zoom meetings, which forced me to keep my creativity active and discover new artistic solutions to the new global obstacles,” she shares.
Instead of halting, Ana and her theater company developed two online projects, This Is Me Eating and Shift The Space, which allowed them to engage an audience beyond New York.
“As we are all international women, online platforms brought us the advantage of being able to attract people from our own countries. This Is Me Eating, for example, attracted participants from various parts of the world, several of whom were from Brazil. I participated in other online theater projects, such as the Happy Hour Online from Group.br (the only Brazilian theater company in NY) reading texts by Clarice Lispector, and the 24-hour festival from Here We Go, where I first worked as an actress and then as a director. When Covid numbers were more controlled in New York, I was able to participate in sets that followed safety protocols. The comedy series, CherryBomb, in which I worked as an actress and producer, was my main project, and it will be released on Amazon Prime this year, 2021,” she celebrates.
However, even with these two projects, the pandemic gave her a lot of free time, which she used to invest in her interests beyond theater, such as her side career as a chess teacher for children. “I work for the school Chess At Three. There I teach chess through storytelling. This school is simply fantastic, and the classes are extremely fun and theatrical. During the pandemic, I took advantage of this opportunity and built a career as a virtual chess teacher, as all classes became online.”
To conclude, Ana says her expectations for the future are that everyone gets vaccinated as soon as possible, although she knows the process will not be quick and simple. Even so, she continues to pursue new projects for this year 2021, one of which is the short film Til Morning, written by her great friend and roommate Luísa Galatti (also Brazilian), co-produced by her and another friend and roommate Giorgia Valenti (both also members of Et Alia), and co-directed by her and Ryan Cairns, one of the directors of CherryBomb.
More information about actress Ana Moioli and her projects can be found on the website www.anamoioli.com