Talented singer-songwriter from Curitiba, Bruna Pena, dives into an engaging and sensual fusion of electronic, pop and indie elements on her latest release, titled “Get Me In The Wind”. The track is a reflection on the duality between the ephemeral and the lasting, and solidifies one of the striking characteristics of the artist’s work: portraying the sensations of a generation in search of connections, both with the world around them and with their inner world. The single arrives accompanied by a lyric video, adding a visual dimension to the musical experience.
This new music adds to a career that began in 2009 with the bands Janela Oval and Hot Beigal Shop, and which also included incursions as a screenwriter and director at Salted Films. Since 2022, Bruna has revealed a series of novelties that combine her three artistic aspects in an unprecedented way – musical, lyrical and visual.
Bruna Pena is ready to present her most intense, visceral and sincere songs to the public, with the mixing and mastering of Vivian Kuczynski. The new tracks are now available for streaming through the Dorsal Musik platform.
Tell us about the creative and unique atmosphere you sought to create during your performance at Arena Sessions, at Arena da Baixada stadium.
The mirrors were a great idea that Vinicius de Lima, the director of photography, brought us. It would solve several “production issues” in addition to translating a visual aesthetic of “enchantment” that I was looking for for the scene, with the beams of light between the mirrors, and the dispersion of light in various colors, it would also fill the stage more than it seemed empty with just me and Henrique Friadeira.
When the problem arose “the team can leak on the mirrors, how do we solve it?” the answer was already on the tip of the tongue. We didn’t solve it, because it’s not a problem. We want to show the team and this “production choreography”. We want to show the enchantment, but also the process, to show that it takes a lot of people and a lot of work to become an artist. Instead of hiding, we sat down to show more.
I understand that artistic works, especially when talking about a Brazilian reality of the cultural industry, are born out of a difficulty between planning and producing. That’s why I’m very interested that part of this process, which escapes that “suspension of reality” that we always try to create in video clips, concerts and films, overflows in the final work. Putting the team – the technique – on stage in some way, using elements of cinematographic everyday life, such as tripods, sharing some mistakes in the process, not using makeup at a given moment, remind the spectator that what he is seeing is a construction made by many people. We want to remember that whoever is there on stage is a person who needs many other people and technologies to create that mystical aura that the stage brings. Kind of a dream, but without losing your foot on the ground.
How did the presence of mirrors and special lighting contribute to the aesthetics and visual experience of your presentation?
They brought an enchantment to the session, brought more dimensions and movement with the light beam designs. At the same time, because they were on tripods and we also used the filming and sound equipment as a backdrop, tension was created. This tension challenges the suspension of reality, of this enchantment. And when, in the mirror’s reflections, the team also leaks into the scene, once again we break this enchantment. The industrialist, real life, versus the enchantment, fantasy. To leave that provocation to the spectator, that pull.
How do you see the Arena Sounds project and its ability to transcend the conventional view of a football stadium, allowing artists to create unique atmospheres?
I think it’s super important that football teams are predisposed to act as cultural agents and promoters of new artists in their cities. Whether for the team itself, opening new market niches for space, the stadium, which is idle for several hours. Whether it’s the responsibility of cohabiting and sharing the same place, the same space, and encouraging other forms of expression – and life – from that same place.
In addition to your career as a singer and songwriter, you are also a screenwriter and director. How do these skills intertwine in your artwork?
One sum absurdly in the other. Screenwriting brought me a type of writing, which is very visual and sound. I practiced a lot using word-pictures or how to convey visualities through words. Something that seems but is not very obvious. A type of text that any extra word can interfere a lot, so we are always looking for precision. It brought me a lot of the way I write my songs. And directing brings me an ability to transform words into images and sounds, but also to work with people, to understand and create atmospheres. I take that to what I’ve been working on and who I’ve been working with. My creative process is also crazy, because of this interweaving. “Tu Dum” is a great example of how these things intertwine in practice. Me first, I imagined a stop motion of a drawing of a heart being crumpled and uncrumpled in rhythm with a heartbeat. And because of that, the “Tu Dum” came to mind, that onomatopoeia of the pulsar. Then came a melody… I thought about the sound, a sentence and in that sentence there was a word that brought an image and I was designing a video clip and music at the same time.
Her first songs and music videos, released last year, have been described as intense, visceral and heartfelt, moving between pop and indie. How would you describe the essence and message behind these creations?
I think the songs were born out of a conversation with my lyrical self. A very honest conversation, which reveals many of my contradictions and desires. They were born in flashes, almost spurts, very intense with inspiration, which I had never had in any previous creative process. They did not start from a specific sound or musical genre. They were my most internalized, digested and resignified references that were being spit out at all costs. A mixture of what I liked most about life and I didn’t even know exactly, because it was a liking more with the body more than with the mind.
Upon receiving feedback from the project’s creator and curator, Marcel Bely, about the idea of mirrors reflecting your image, how did you react and how does this dialogue with the theme of your songs?
When Marcel Bely, the creator and curator of the project, commented to me that he found the idea of placing the mirrors with my reflections facing me incredible, as if I couldn’t escape from myself, I was immensely happy. I hadn’t thought about it in that sense, which also dialogues with other concepts I’ve been working on in the songs. The idea of this dialogue between me and my lyrical self, in this case, my lyrical selves.
How important is it to you to generate meaning and impact people through your music? What motivates you most in this creative process?
Generating meaning and impacting people is already the importance in itself for me. Achieving this is a dream. From this, think what to do with this impact and these meanings. What is the consequence of what I am creating in this world. I’m always thinking about it. How to create ways to encourage people to get to know each other better and have a little distrust of their consumption choices, their habits, what they are hiding from themselves… I don’t want to create recipes or give answers, but I want to bring up doubts that make those who listen follow the most honest answer with their truth, with themselves. Eye to eye.
Where can audiences find the complete material from your Arena Sessions performance? Also, what clips are available on your YouTube channel and on Club Athletico Paranaense?
The public can see two songs on my YouTube channel and on the Athletico Paranaense club channel. The full version is available from TV Furação, which is the streaming channel of Clube Atheltico Paranaense.
How has this participation in Arena Sessions contributed to your artistic career and what are your expectations regarding the results of this experience?
The feeling of hearing my music playing in a place as big and symbolic as a stadium is surreal. So first it helps to strengthen my imagination with this experience. Not to mention the visibility that this material brings, many different people have access to the songs, and the credibility of having produced a production like this.
Finally, what do you want to convey to the fans and admirers who followed your performance at the Arena da Baixada stadium and are supporting your musical career?
I really am immensely happy and grateful that a work so sincere and that touches me so deeply can touch other people too, can leave other people enchanted. For me the most important thing in this life is to connect with other people. It’s letting yourself be moved and transformed by exchanging with other human beings. That connection that – no matter if 5 seconds or 5 songs – makes visceral revolutions.
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