Brazilian Black Theatre: A Political Theatre Against Racism

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-51
Author(s):  
Christine Douxami
Keyword(s):  
Racial Discrimination ◽  
Political Movement ◽  
Political Theatre ◽  
Brazilian Society ◽  
Discrimination Characteristic ◽  
Theatre Companies ◽  
Black Theatre ◽  
Experimental Theatre ◽  
The Way

Black Brazilian theatre constitutes a political and artistic response to the racial discrimination characteristic of Brazilian society. As early as 1944, young members of the recently created black political movement saw theatre as a potential weapon to transform Brazilian society and created the Teatro Experimental do Negro (Black Experimental Theatre). This activist theatre continues to this day to pave the way for other black theatre companies.

scholarly journals POLÍTICAS DE IDENTIDADE: POSIÇÕES ANTROPOLÓGICAS DIANTE DOS DIREITOS QUILOMBOLAS E DAS COTAS RACIAIS / IDENTITY POLITICS: ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON QUILOMBOLAS’ RIGHTS AND RACIAL QUOTAS

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (50) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Hofbauer
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Racial Discrimination ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Public Universities ◽  
Brazilian Society ◽  
The Way

Propostas para implementar políticas focadas que pretendem combater os efeitos da discriminação racial no Brasil têm provocado muita polêmica na sociedade brasileira. Neste debate, os posicionamentos e as contribuições de antropólogos brasileiros, tanto para a defesa quanto para o questionamento destas políticas de identidade, ganharam destaque. Este artigo propõe-se a analisá-las ao exemplo de dois casos emblemáticos: o dos direitos, garantidos pela Constituição, aos remanescentes de comunidades dos quilombos e o da implementação de cotas raciais em universidades públicas. Especial atenção é dada à maneira como conceitos paradigmáticos do pensamento antropológico – raça, cultura, identidade (etnicidade) – são acionados nas respectivas linhas de argumentação. ABSTRACTProposals to implement targeted policies aimed at combatting the effects of racial discrimination in Brazil have provoked great controversy in Brazilian society. In this debate, perspectives and contributions of Brazilian anthropologists, both in defense and questioning these identity politics, have been widely commented upon. This article proposes to analyze these policies using examples of two representative cases: the rights guaranteed by the Constitution to the remnants of maroon communities (quilombos) and the implementation of racial quotas in public universities. Special attention was given to the way in which paradigmatic concepts in anthropological thought – race, cultural, identity (ethnicity) – are mobilized in these respective lines of argument.

scholarly journals Navigating New Approaches for Grassroot Community Theatre in a (Post-)Covid World

2021 ◽  
pp. 163
Author(s):  
Kerrie Reading
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Cultural Shift ◽  
Community Theatre ◽  
New Approaches ◽  
Theatre Companies ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Way ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

The cultural revolution of 1968 paved the way for many artists to reconsider how and where theatre was made. Community theatre gained currency and one company who became prominent during this cultural shift was Welfare State, later Welfare State International. They were one of the theatre companies who focused not only on a community theatre aesthetic but a grassroot one. I examine the radicality of community theatre and consider the efficacy of the historical approaches to engaging with communities in a (Post-)Covid world. I acknowledge and explore the shifting understanding of communities and assert that a deeper engagement is needed to foster collectivity (Tannahill 2016; Fişek 2019; Weston 2020; Bartley 2021). To reconsider the role that theatre may play in the future, I focus on a grassroot approach to community-led work and posit that location will be a key component to how theatre is made as we emerge from a pandemic.

Between Publics and Privates

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 150-165
Author(s):  
Vivian Solana
Keyword(s):  
State Building ◽  
Female Empowerment ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Dominant Model ◽  
Political Movement ◽  
Production Of Space ◽  
National Organization ◽  
Revolutionary Nationalism ◽  
The Way

Abstract This article discusses the hypervisibility of the Sahrawi munaḍila (female militant) within dominant representations of a Sahrawi revolutionary nationalism. Drawing connections between nation-state building processes, the production of space, and gendered subjectivities, it destabilizes assumptions of institutions as devoid of political movement and shows how the spaces of the National Organization of Sahrawi Women allow women to inhabit the position of loyal critic toward their movement's dominant model of female empowerment. These positions reveal transformations to the way in which space is inhabited intragenerationally, and they reflect the regeneration of a Sahrawi female militancy under the conditions of a protracted struggle for decolonization.

The Arts Council Touring Franchise and English Political Theatre after 1986

2000 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 379-387 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Brown ◽  
Robert Brannen ◽  
Douglas Brown
Keyword(s):  
Positive Influence ◽  
Political Theatre ◽  
Senior Lecturer ◽  
Cultural Management ◽  
The Arts ◽  
University College ◽  
Assistant Director ◽  
Experimental Theatre

The pressures of Thatcherism on theatre funding in the 'eighties were severe, but the early harshness was tempered by several factors. One was the positive influence of the Cork Report, particularly on touring and experimental theatre. Another, the authors believe, was a careful strategy of reallocation of funding to support creativity in English theatre, notably through the touring franchise scheme. Here, they analyze in detail the ways in which the English Arts Council operated the scheme in an attempt to revitalize aspects of English theatre from 1986 onwards, trace the change in the values of ‘political’ theatre over that period, and critically examine some received ideas in the light of the available evidence. Ian Brown is Dean of Arts and Professor of Theatre at Queen Margaret University College, Edinburgh, Rob Brannen is a Senior Lecturer in Drama at De Montfort University, Bedford. Douglas Brown is Assistant Director, Scottish Centre for Cultural Management and Policy, at Queen Margaret University College, Edinburgh.

scholarly journals How Theatre Develops Democracy

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-96
Author(s):  
Eva-Liisa Linder
Keyword(s):  
Energy Crisis ◽  
Theatre History ◽  
Political Movement ◽  
Political Theatre ◽  
German Enlightenment ◽  
Political Events ◽  
Theatre Company ◽  
European Theatre ◽  
Sensitive Issues

Twenty years after regaining its independence, Estonia is proud of its economic record, but faces challenges concerning the development of democracy. Into this situation, a small theatre company, Theatre NO99, led by stage director Tiit Ojasoo, has recently introduced a new style of postdramatic political theatre that raises questions about capitalism, civil society, racism, nationalism, the energy crisis and other sensitive issues. Furthermore, the company’s European tours and collaborations with German and British companies have brought European debates to the Estonian stage. Recently, however, NO99 came up with two unparalleled and overtly political ‘one time actions’. In 2010, Unified Estonia, a fictitious political movement, exposed the populism of the leading parties and drew 7200 people to its ‘convention’, thus making it one of the largest theatre events in modern European theatre history. Two years later, NO99 staged a ‘first reading’ of a semi-documentary play about a funding scandal that engulfed the prime minister’s party, thereby contributing to provoke a series of civic and political events. This case study looks at how the theatre company has introduced itself as a morally sensitive institution (in the spirit of the German Enlightenment) and helped spark debates about national and democratic values in Estonia.

scholarly journals Norwegian Political Theatre in the 1970s: Breaking Away from the “Ibsen Tradition”

2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 50
Author(s):  
Anna Watson
Keyword(s):  
Deep Sea ◽  
Living Room ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Political Theatre ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
The Social ◽  
Experimental Theatre ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Made In

The dominant theatre aesthetic in Norwegian theatre has been, and remains at large to be, psychological-realism and the bourgeois “living room drama”. In a Norwegian context this tradition is best represented by Henrik Ibsen’s dramas, staged at Nationaltheatret and Den Nasjonale Scene. However, throughout the 20th century there have been several attempts to break with the “Ibsen tradition”, especially among left-wing political and socially engaged theatre-makers and playwrights such as Gunvor Sartz, Olav Daalgard, and Nordahl Grieg in the 1930s, and Jens Bjørneboe and Odin Teatret in the 1960s. I argue that the clearest and most decisive break with Realism and the Aristotelian dramaturgy, in a Norwegian political theatre context, was made in the late 1970s, instigated by the independent theatre groups Perleporten Teatergruppe and Tramteatret. Their break did not only constitute an aesthetic and dramaturgical break, but also a break in organizational terms by breaking the hierarchy of the institutional theatre ‘machine’. Perleporten Teatergruppe and Tramteatret aimed at making a political, progressive theatre both in form and content. Perleporten and Tramteatret were both inspired by contemporaneous political and experimental theatre in Europe and Scandinavia as well as by the historical avant-garde experiments, and, for Tramteatret’s part, the workers' theatre movement from the 1920s and 30s in their search for a theatre that could express the social and political climate of the day. In this article, I will place Tramteatret and Perleporten Teatergruppe’s debut performances Deep Sea Thriller (1977) and Knoll og Tott (1975) within a historiographical and cultural-political context.

Epic Performances from the Middle Ages into the Twenty-First Century

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Creative Industries ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Theatre Companies ◽  
Performance Traditions ◽  
Experimental Theatre ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Creative Artists ◽  
The Middle Ages

Graeco-Roman epic poetry was the staple of the early operatic repertoire and it continues to provide a rich storehouse of themes for contemporary creative artists working in divergent traditions. Since Tim Supple and Simon Reade’s stage adaptation of Ted Hughes’s Tales from Ovid for the RSC (1999), versions of Greek and Roman epics have routinely provided raw material for the performance repertoire both within major cultural institutions and from emergent, experimental theatre companies. The chapters in this volume range widely across time (the Middle Ages to the present), place (Europe, Asia, and the Americas), and genres (lyric, film, dance, opera) in their searches for ‘epic’ content and form in diverse performance arenas. The anxieties about the ability to write epic in the early modern world in some way explain, together with the precedent of Greek tragedy’s reworking of epic material, this migration to the theatre. Yet equally, with this migration, epic encountered the barriers imposed by neoclassicists, who sought to restrict serious theatre to a narrowly defined reality that precluded epic’s broad sweeps across time and place. In many instances in recent years, the fact that the Homeric epics were composed orally makes reinvention not only legitimate but also deeply appropriate. With specialists from Classics, Music, English, Modern Languages, Dance, Theatre and Performance Studies, and from the creative industries, this volume is the first systematic attempt to chart the afterlife of epic in modern performance traditions.

Debating Democracy

2020 ◽  
pp. 162-198
Author(s):  
Martin Conway
Keyword(s):  
Past History ◽  
Historical Writing ◽  
Political Movement ◽  
Christian Democracy ◽  
The Future ◽  
Political Traditions ◽  
Democracy Building ◽  
The Way

This chapter details how the Socialist and Christian Democratic movements competed and collaborated in the process of democracy-building. Much of the historical writing about both Christian Democracy and Socialism in the post-1945 era has had a somewhat teleological (and occasionally self-congratulatory) character, dominated by self-contained narratives of the path that each political movement followed into democracy, and the ways that these movements in turn enriched the content of that democracy. This approach reflects the way in which these accounts have often been written from within their respective political traditions, with the consequence that they have been primarily concerned with reconstructing the trajectories of their political traditions, rather than the democracy that they made together. In contrast, the chapter explores the understandings of democracy advanced by Socialists and Christian Democrats through the prisms of their past history, their ideological declarations, and—perhaps most importantly—their programmes for the future construction of democracy. These threefold claims regarding past, present, and future could at times be convergent and complementary, especially when directed against Communism, but they were more frequently dialectical as Socialists and Christian Democrats defined their positions against each other, and thereby advanced their claims to ownership of democracy.

The ‘Art‘ of Political Theatre-Making for Educational Contexts

1995 ◽  
Vol 11 (43) ◽  
pp. 277-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas Whybrow
Keyword(s):  
Political Efficacy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Youth Work ◽  
Political Theatre ◽  
Theatre Companies ◽  
Theatre In Education

In NTQ 39 (August 1994) Nicolas Whybrow provided an analysis of ideological changes which have recently occurred in the organization and running of schools and youth clubs. He went on to discuss the ways in which theatre in education (TIE) and theatre in youth work – commonly grouped under the title of Young People's Theatre (YPT) – were being affected by these changes. Here, in the second of two articles, he shifts his perspective towards the standpoint of theatre companies themselves, with a view to locating where the political efficacy of their practices might lie. Nicolas Whybrow is a lecturer at the Workshop Theatre, School of English, Leeds University.

scholarly journals Challenging Parties and Anti-Fascism in the Name of Democracy: The Fronte dell'Uomo Qualunque and its Impact on Italy's Republic

2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
PEPIJN CORDUWENER
Keyword(s):  
Political Ideology ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Movement ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Second World ◽  
The Way

AbstractThis article studies the political ideology of the Italian political movement Fronte dell'Uomo Qualunque in the light of the problems of party democracy in Italy. The movement existed only for a few years in the aftermath of the Second World War, but the impact of its ideology on post-war Italy was large. The article argues that the party's ideology should be studied beyond the anti-fascist–fascist divide and that it provides a window onto the contestation of party politics in republican Italy. It contextualises the movement in the political transition from fascism to republic and highlights key elements of the Front's ideology. The article then proceeds to demonstrate how the movement distinguished itself from the parties of the Italian resistance and advocated a radical break with the way in which the relationship between the Italian state and citizens had been practiced through subsequent regimes. The way in which the movement aimed to highlight the alleged similarities between the fascist and republican political order, and its own claim to democratic legitimacy, constitute a distinct political tradition which resurfaced in the political crisis of the 1990s.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document