São Paulo – The performance by Monica and Friends at the Brazilian Festival will be the first time in the Arab world for the characters. Created by Brazilian cartoonist and entrepreneur Mauricio de Sousa, Monica, Jimmy Five, Smudge, Maggy and Chuck Billy will perform in a fifteen-minutes presentation at the opening of the festival, to be held from February 22 to 25 at Yas Mall, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. On the other days, they will be at the shopping mall.
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According to Mauro Sousa, son of the characters’ creator and director of the Ao Vivo Department of the Mauricio de Sousa Produções – responsible for the concerts and for the Parque da Mônica –, the participation at the Brazilian Festival is part of the plans for the internationalization of the characters, who are widely-recognized by Brazilian audiences. The event is the result of a partnership between the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce and Yas Mall.
“We are very excited and happy with this opportunity, which suits perfectly with our current moment. We can say that it is a teaser for the Arabs,” said Mauro Sousa to ANBA. “We want to make people curious, asking themselves: ‘Who is this group?’. We will introduce Monica and Friends in the local culture and we are planning to return other times,” he explained.
The presentations will be in Portuguese and, according to the director, should be more engaging to the Brazilians living in the UAE. However, he believes that a seed will be planted in the mall’s general crowd, since the characters will be roaming around Yas Mall to play with the children visiting the place.
The Arab world is one of the targets of Mauricio de Sousa Produções, and not only regarding the concert and presentation sectors, but also in the publishing area, with books, magazines and other medium. There are plans, in the future, to translate the material to Arabic.
“We have some productions in the digital platform in which there isn’t lines. These, they are already ready to reach audiences of other languages,” he said.
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Recently, the Monica and Friends characters toured Miami, Orlando and Boston, US, to where they will return this year. In Japan, the group will perform for the third time in 2018. The cable channel Cartoon Network airs the group’s animations in other Latin America countries.
Monica and Friends is one of the typical Brazilian presentations scheduled for the Brazilian Festival. The event will promote Brazilian companies in kiosks at the mall’s main square – registrations for exhibitors are still open. The idea is to present Brazilian culture and products to the Abu Dhabi audience.
The event will also offer the audience capoeira rings and a performance of the samba school Unidos da Vila Maria, from São Paulo, plus an autograph session with Brazilian skater Bob Burnquist.
Quick info
Brazilian Festival
February 22 to 25, 2018
Where: Yas Mall, Abu Dhabi
Free admission
Registrations for Brazilian companies interested in exhibiting at http://goo.gl/4Ny4P
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
