Brazilian choreographer and performer Maruan Sipert has been roaming Seoul for days, observing street cleaners, traffic, weathered walls and construction sites. For the Lisbon-based artist, these are not simply scenes from his first trip to Korea. They are choreography. The dancer brings these encounters back to the Brazilian Embassy where he is currently working to shape a new performance and installation for the 16th Gwangju Biennale, scheduled to open on Sept. 5. While Brazilian artists have been invited to the exhibit before, this year marks a milestone: Brazil will have its own national pavilion for the first time. “My interest is the discourse of the cities,” he said as to the source of his artistic inspiration. Seoul’s scale, relentless pace and workplace pressures have become central to his reading of the city, he said, where people seem perpetually in motion and urban life can feel both rhythmic and constraining. Sipert is one of nine Brazilian artists taking part in the pavilion. The Brazilian Embassy in Seoul has offered them space to prepare their works, opening the studi