The invisual knowledge of plasticity: for a pedagogy of excess

Abstract

This study reflects on the teaching of visualities in theater based on a pedagogical experience with Anchieta de Carvalho, a blind student. His presence challenges hegemonic visual paradigms in the arts, evincing the potential of blindness as a creative and critical force. This study questions the centrality of vision in theater pedagogy, proposing the concept of plasticity as a sensitive, multisensory, and inclusive alternative to visuality. It understands plasticity as a corporeal, tactile, and situational form of knowledge that manifests itself in the relationship between body, space, and spectator. This study critiques the institutional rigidity of traditional definitions of visual arts and defends a pedagogy of excess toward the sensorial. The relationship between the teaching of scenography and Anchieta de Carvalho embodies this expanded plasticity as methodology. This study proposes a blind look, involving perception beyond vision. Ultimately, it defends inclusive and excessive pedagogies as an aesthetic and epistemological potential.