Revista Aspas
type: channel
description: Journal of Graduate Program in Performing Arts - University of São Paulo
publisher: Universidade de São Paulo. Escola de Comunicações e Artes
language: en
publication name: Revista Aspas
issn: 2238-3999
copyright: Whenever publishing material referring to the article published in the aSPAs Journal, the authors commits to mentioning such publication as follows: “This article was originally published by aSPAs Journal volume (insert the volume), number (insert the number) in the year (insert the year) and can be accessed in: http://revistas.usp.br/aspas"
items: Trans[cena]: registrar para vislumbrarmos o que sempre esteve
items: Isto é um homem de verdade (2024), Homem Mato (2025), Mato Mastec (2025), Testostileno (2025)
items: The sea-body writing as a queer form of drift in the performing arts
items: Can a monster be translated? Visual dialogues on the more-than-human
items: Trávicas: travesti bodies, greek tragedy, and a classic-devouring travecamethodology
items: The collective force of travestis termites: conversation with Anastasia María Benavente
items: Gender choreographies and subversive practices: notes on non-binarity and dance improvisation
items: We do not sugarcoat the pill, we contaminate spaces: a dialogue with Dance With Me, by Élle de Bernardini
items: One character, two actors: the construction of the Fanon character from travesti ontology in the show Black Skin, white masks
items: Aberracirco: trans freak dramaturgies in the construction of (im)possible worlds
items: The name as passage: queering language in performance
items: As artes da cena e os movimentos abolicionistas: pedagogias libertárias e espaços de imaginação política
items: O fim da fúria – um Pantera Negra na prisão promove um acerto de contas: a história de Russell Maroon Shoatz
items: Capengá! Uma ginga intrusa
items: Cultura DEF e acessibilidade nas artes da cena
items: Arte em tempos ruidosos: diálogos entre as artes da cena e a democracia
items: Trans-themonization: creating in mutation, caring in permanence
items: Aesthetics of the oppressed and pedagogy of liberation: theater as resistance in the socio-educational system
items: The construction of an abolitionist poetics via attack as language: the work of CiA dXs TeRrOrIsTaS with trans and travesti women who are survivors of prison
items: Performance Negrotério: 25 Years of Carandiru Massacre
items: Escalating the Prison Walls: A Case Study of There are Women Waiting: The Tragedy of Medea Jackson
items: Between walls and acts: the mapping of brazilian dramaturgies to fracture the carceral system
items: Musical act-spectacle Inútil Canto e Inútil Pranto pelos Anjos Caídos: the State’s genocidal politics, mass incarceration, and social movements on stage
items: Sketches in the silence: murmurs of mothers deprived of liberty in Pernambuco
items: When bad things happen to good programs
items: Libertarian pedagogies in incarceration: is it possible to educate for freedom in spaces of deprivation of liberty?
items: PwD Playpen: reflections on the inclusion paradox in cultural initiatives
items: Broken mirrors and stages of resistance: scenic art, subjectivity, and the critique of the penal system based on O Espelho by Machado de Assis
items: Routes of a drifting boat: the ethics of care in the performance of pain
items: The invisual knowledge of plasticity: for a pedagogy of excess

Trans[cena]: registrar para vislumbrarmos o que sempre esteve
type: item
subject: Editorial
  topic: section
creator: Oliver Olívia
creator: Morgana Manfrin
creator: Douglas Ricci Rosa
rights: Copyright (c) 2026
date: 2026-08-14
publication date: 2026-08-14
starting page: 1
ending page: 8
doi: 10.11606/issn.2238-3999.v16i1p1-8

Isto é um homem de verdade (2024), Homem Mato (2025), Mato Mastec (2025), Testostileno (2025)
type: item
subject: Forma Livre (Free Form)
  topic: section
creator: Bruno Sol da Silva Ferreira
rights: Copyright (c) 2026
date: 2026-08-14
publication date: 2026-08-14
starting page: 179
ending page: 181
doi: 10.11606/issn.2238-3999.v16i1p179-181

The sea-body writing as a queer form of drift in the performing arts
type: item
description: The intricacies of research in the performing arts raise questions about traditional ways of doing things in academia; in turn transvestites, lesbians, butchs, trans, non‑binary and all of queer people bring questions to the ways of create and researching performing arts. This text, which was part of my undergraduate thesis in Theatre Education, makes some of these questions present in an unsettled and estranged writing. What can my queer body say about doing research in the performing arts? Possibly nothing. However, there is what can be invented by us.
subject: Forma Livre (Free Form)
  topic: section
subject: Transviated epistemologies
  topic: keywords
subject: Performative writing
  topic: keywords
subject: Transvestigender studies
  topic: keywords
creator: Luna Ferreira da Silva
rights: Copyright (c) 2026
date: 2026-08-14
publication date: 2026-08-14
starting page: 166
ending page: 178
doi: 10.11606/issn.2238-3999.v16i1p166-178

Can a monster be translated? Visual dialogues on the more-than-human
type: item
description: Can a monster be translated? This question marks the beginning of this brief essay, not in the hope of answering it, but rather of imagining it. By claiming her right to be a monster, sudaka trans poet Susy Shock seems to question an ideal of humanity promulgated by humanism and the ideals of evolutionary anthropology, which establishes the figure of the Human as the pinnacle of civilization. Translating a monster, then, would not be possible. While human language strives for totality – translating everything – can monstrous, or more-than-human, languages be translatable?
subject: Artigos (Articles)
  topic: section
subject: Evolutionism
  topic: keywords
subject: Language
  topic: keywords
subject: Monstrosity
  topic: keywords
subject: Poetry
  topic: keywords
creator: Bruno Latini Pfeil
creator: Cello Latini Pfeil
rights: Copyright (c) 2026
date: 2026-08-14
publication date: 2026-08-14
starting page: 9
ending page: 25
doi: 10.11606/issn.2238-3999.v16i1p9-25

Trávicas: travesti bodies, greek tragedy, and a classic-devouring travecamethodology
type: item
description: This article seeks to trace, document, traverse, and elaborate the creative process behind the performance Volúpia II. Three travesti actresses lead the piece, moving through different figures from Greek mythology in order to recount the story of Helen of Troy. The performance places tragic Greek language in tension with the travesti and Latin bodies of the actresses. What possible unfoldings emerge from this encounter? Is a decolonial approach to a language that has become hegemonic possible? Can new meanings be found in myth when it is enunciated through corporealities unthreaded from the dominant strands of history?
subject: Artigos (Articles)
  topic: section
subject: Greek Tragedy
  topic: keywords
subject: Travecamethodology
  topic: keywords
subject: Transgender Epistemologies
  topic: keywords
subject: Mythology
  topic: keywords
subject: Helen of Troy
  topic: keywords
creator: Lia Helena Moreira Marcolino
creator: Ayanna Xavier
creator: Allura Haillan
rights: Copyright (c) 2026
date: 2026-08-14
publication date: 2026-08-14
starting page: 87
ending page: 105
doi: 10.11606/issn.2238-3999.v16i1p87-105

The collective force of travestis termites: conversation with Anastasia María Benavente
type: item
description: A cross-border conversation between two travestis about survival strategies and future-building. As travesti termites, the tactic is to act from within. From language to archives. Like spiders, we weave new networks, invent codes and languages, build collective memories and affective alliances. Our strength lies in collective action as the only possible future.
subject: Artigos (Articles)
  topic: section
subject: Archive
  topic: keywords
subject: Memory
  topic: keywords
subject: Performance
  topic: keywords
subject: Travesti
  topic: keywords
creator: Joanna Leoni
creator: Anastasia María Benavente Esquivel
rights: Copyright (c) 2026
date: 2026-08-14
publication date: 2026-08-14
starting page: 148
ending page: 165
doi: 10.11606/issn.2238-3999.v16i1p148-165

Gender choreographies and subversive practices: notes on non-binarity and dance improvisation
type: item
description: This article approaches cisnormativity through the concept of choreography, understood as a logic for organizing bodies and subjectivities. Drawing on Judith Butler’s contributions to gender performativity and articulating them with contemporary discussions in the field of dance, it proposes understanding cisnormativity as a choreographic social regime that produces intelligible genders through normative reiteration. Grounded in the epistemology of Practice as Research and bringing together experiences of dance improvisation and lived non-binarity, the article approaches improvisation and non-binarity as practices that subvert this order. Finally, it argues that the notion of choreography can materially describe the normative processes through which gender is produced, highlighting the analytical potential of dance practices for understanding the contemporary constitution of subjectivities.
subject: Artigos (Articles)
  topic: section
subject: Cisnormativity
  topic: keywords
subject: Dance improvisation
  topic: keywords
subject: Non-binarity
  topic: keywords
subject: Performativity
  topic: keywords
creator: Fetú Nicioli Cerioni
rights: Copyright (c) 2026
date: 2026-08-14
publication date: 2026-08-14
starting page: 54
ending page: 68
doi: 10.11606/issn.2238-3999.v16i1p54-68

We do not sugarcoat the pill, we contaminate spaces: a dialogue with Dance With Me, by Élle de Bernardini
type: item
description: This essay engages with the performance Dance With Me, by Élle de Bernardini, through the notion of “mechanisms of acceptance and rejection” formulated by the artist herself. By examining how the work negotiates its insertion into artistic institutions, I argue that the performance operates as a multiple agent, critically mobilizing strategies of passability and whiteness, as well as dynamics of transplay, in order to tension the conditions of institutional hospitality. In doing so, the work intervenes in the distribution of the sensible, not only through a redistribution of identities, but also through a redistribution of violence. This article forms part of a broader research project on artistic practices by Brazilian trans* individuals since the 2010s, that disrupt norms of spatiality and contaminate institutional spaces.
subject: Artigos (Articles)
  topic: section
subject: Performance-art
  topic: keywords
subject: Trans*
  topic: keywords
subject: Interdisciplinarity
  topic: keywords
subject: Spatiality
  topic: keywords
creator: Le E. Becker Savastano
rights: Copyright (c) 2026
date: 2026-08-14
publication date: 2026-08-14
starting page: 126
ending page: 147
doi: 10.11606/issn.2238-3999.v16i1p126-147

One character, two actors: the construction of the Fanon character from travesti ontology in the show Black Skin, white masks
type: item
description: This article examines the performativity of the Black and/or racialized Travesti body – marked by the phenomenon of anti-Blackness – to develop a contemporary racial-political perspective for analyzing and understanding the racial dynamics of the current world. Drawing on autoethnography as a method of both academic and artistic research, the object of analysis is my experience creating the character Fanon in the theatrical production Black Skin, white masks (2019) – based on Frantz Fanon’s book of the same name, and directed by Onisajé. Thus, this article presents a study centered on an artistic-political investigation through the lens of travestilidade (a specific Latin American identity category involving gender dissidence) to understand the movements of racialized, gender-dissident individuals within the arts field. It also aims to generate new discourses regarding performance practices in which trans and Travesti bodies are mobilized to create alternative, unconventional aesthetic experiences in the performing arts.
subject: Artigos (Articles)
  topic: section
subject: Travestility
  topic: keywords
subject: Anti-blackness
  topic: keywords
subject: Performativity
  topic: keywords
subject: Staging
  topic: keywords
subject: Black performance
  topic: keywords
creator: Matheuzza dos Santos Xavier
rights: Copyright (c) 2026
date: 2026-08-14
publication date: 2026-08-14
starting page: 106
ending page: 125
doi: 10.11606/issn.2238-3999.v16i1p106-125

Aberracirco: trans freak dramaturgies in the construction of (im)possible worlds
type: item
description: Is it possible to construct alternative imaginaries without being crushed by the historical, economic, and social ballast of colonization? Grounded in this question, I discuss the dramaturgical productions of Brazilian trans circus artists through what I have termed aberracirco – that is, contemporary freak circus practices. Specifically, I analyze Cabaret Delirium, a variety stage show conceived by Lua Marques, a non-binary artist, and performed in Desterro between 2025 and 2026. In dialogue with Jota Mombaça, Donna Haraway, Isadora Ravena, Lucas Dilacerda and Frantz Fanon, I examine how these aberrant fabulations challenge notions of humanity, civilization, and the limits of the possible.
subject: Artigos (Articles)
  topic: section
subject: Freak circus
  topic: keywords
subject: Trans dramaturgies
  topic: keywords
subject: Aberrant fabulations
  topic: keywords
subject: Aberracirco
  topic: keywords
creator: Juno Nedel Mendes de Aguiar
rights: Copyright (c) 2026
date: 2026-08-14
publication date: 2026-08-14
starting page: 39
ending page: 53
doi: 10.11606/issn.2238-3999.v16i1p39-53

The name as passage: queering language in performance
type: item
description: This article investigates the practice of queering language as an aesthetic and political operation in contemporary performance. Starting from the notion of naming as a historical technology of separation and hierarchization, it proposes a shift toward the idea of traversal, where signifier and signified no longer coincide in a stable way. Through a theoretical-practical approach that articulates conceptual reflection and artistic experimentation, it analyzes tactics such as improvisation, repetition, and détournement. It argues that performance can operate as a laboratory of semantic instability, in which the body tensions and reinscribes regimes of intelligibility.
subject: Artigos (Articles)
  topic: section
subject: Queering language
  topic: keywords
subject: Improvisation
  topic: keywords
subject: Naming
  topic: keywords
subject: Performativity
  topic: keywords
subject: Regimes of power
  topic: keywords
creator: Alice Pacheco Nogueira
rights: Copyright (c) 2026
date: 2026-08-14
publication date: 2026-08-14
starting page: 69
ending page: 86
doi: 10.11606/issn.2238-3999.v16i1p69-86

As artes da cena e os movimentos abolicionistas: pedagogias libertárias e espaços de imaginação política
type: item
subject: Editorial
  topic: section
creator: Nailanita Prette
creator: Murilo Gaulês
creator: Ashley Lucas
creator: Vicente Concíio
creator: Walidah Imarisha
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Nailanita Prette, Murilo Gaulês, Ashley Lucas, Vicente Concíio, Walidah Imarisha https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-12-23
publication date: 2025-12-23
starting page: 1
ending page: 12
doi: 10.11606/issn.2238-3999.v15i2p1-12

O fim da fúria – um Pantera Negra na prisão promove um acerto de contas: a história de Russell Maroon Shoatz
type: item
description: Em 2014, na Pensilvânia, Estados Unidos (EUA), Russell Maroon Shoatz foi transferido de seu confinamento na solitária, após 22 anos consecutivos, para se juntar à população carcerária geral. Isto é 21 anos e 50 semanas a mais do que a duração da pena que os Estados Unidos consideram como tortura. Tendo passado tanto tempo em um espaço pequeno, ele contraiu problemas para caminhar e não podia subir as escadas para acessar a cantina. Ele se sentiu impactado pelas outras pessoas, de cuja presença ele sentiu uma desesperada falta por todos aqueles anos. Conhecido por seus apoiadores dentro e fora da prisão como um líder da liberdade negra, ele agora encontrava dificuldades físicas para ficar de pé. O fato de ele estar vivo era mais do que muitos, que o consideravam um assassino de policiais, queriam: acreditavam que sua punição deveria ter sido a morte.
subject: Artigos (Articles)
  topic: section
subject: Russell Maroon Shoatz
  topic: keywords
creator: Ashley Lucas
creator: Nícolas de Cordova Dorvalino
creator: Murilo Gaulês
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Ashley Lucas; Nícolas de Cordova Dorvalino https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-12-23
publication date: 2025-12-23
starting page: 13
ending page: 68
doi: 10.11606/issn.2238-3999.v15i2p13-68

Capengá! Uma ginga intrusa
type: item
description: This essay proposes a poetic-theoretical reflection based on life experience and the aesthetic, political, and epistemological potency of the word capenga (something close to lame, limping, or crooked). Taking artistic practice as its research methodology, this study aims to scrutinize and expand the meanings of the word, making it a field of creation that produces Contemporary Dance — a dance that stumbles, falters, and disconcerts and that confronts the notion of compulsory able-bodiness that prevails within Contemporary Dance. An experiment in capenga writing. An account of how the ordinary can transform itself into a language investigation. An attempt to translate the affection one has for a word.
subject: Artigos (Articles)
  topic: section
subject: contemporary dance
  topic: keywords
subject: performance
  topic: keywords
subject: poetics
  topic: keywords
subject: intruder body
  topic: keywords
subject: crip art
  topic: keywords
subject: crip culture
  topic: keywords
subject: crip theory
  topic: keywords
subject: compulsory bipedalism
  topic: keywords
creator: Estela Lapponi
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Estela Lapponi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-12-16
publication date: 2025-12-16
starting page: 10
ending page: 25
doi: 10.11606/issn.2238-3999.v15i1p10-25

Cultura DEF e acessibilidade nas artes da cena
type: item
subject: Editorial
  topic: section
creator: Amanda Justamante Handel Schmitz
creator: Anna Theresa Kühl
creator: Carlos Alberto Ferreira da Silva
creator: Cintia Alves
creator: João Paulo de Oliveira Lima
creator: Luiza Marcato Camargo de Sousa
creator: Marcia Berselli
creator: Marie Araújo Auip
creator: Rosa Adelina Sampaio Oliveira
creator: Thais Ponzoni dos Santos
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Amanda Justamante Handel Schmitz, Anna Theresa Kühl, Carlos Alberto Ferreira da Silva, Cintia Alves, João Paulo de Oliveira Lima, Luiza Marcato Camargo de Sousa, Marcia Berselli, Marie Araújo Auip, Rosa Adelina Sampaio Oliveira, Thais Ponzoni dos Santos https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-12-16
publication date: 2025-12-16
starting page: 1
ending page: 9
doi: 10.11606/issn.2238-3999.v15i1p1-9

Arte em tempos ruidosos: diálogos entre as artes da cena e a democracia
type: item
subject: Editorial
  topic: section
creator: Adriana Perrella Matos
creator: Douglas Ricci Rosa
creator: Maíra do Nascimento
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Adriana Perrella Matos, Douglas Ricci Rosa, Maíra do Nascimento https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2024-11-07
publication date: 2024-11-07
starting page: 1
ending page: 6
doi: 10.11606/issn.2238-3999.v14i2p1-6

Trans-themonization: creating in mutation, caring in permanence
type: item
description: This article posits trans-themonization as a creation method that both alters the creative process and sustains a space of care for trans bodies in Amazonian performance. Using autoethnography, practice-as-research, and public documentation, I outline procedures (agreements, timing, shared authorship, language and mediation protocols) that reorganize rehearsal, (un)dressing, curatorship, and circulation. A dedicated section proposes decentralization criteria (territory, circulation, governance) to evidence vanguard without folklorization, with methodological rigor and ethical commitment.
subject: Artigos (Articles)
  topic: section
subject: Trans-themonization
  topic: keywords
subject: Transgender studies
  topic: keywords
subject: Performing arts
  topic: keywords
subject: Amazonian scene
  topic: keywords
subject: Practice as research
  topic: keywords
creator: Juliano Bentes Nascimento
rights: Copyright (c) 2026
date: 2026-08-14
publication date: 2026-08-14
starting page: 26
ending page: 38
doi: 10.11606/issn.2238-3999.v16i1p26-38

Aesthetics of the oppressed and pedagogy of liberation: theater as resistance in the socio-educational system
type: item
description: This experience report describes a theatrical intervention with adolescents serving socio-educational measures in a closed regime, focusing on suicide prevention and a critique of punitive systems. The project was grounded in Augusto Boal’s Theater of the Oppressed and Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, combining aesthetic and pedagogical practices rooted in libertarian thought. By staging The Wizard of Oz, generative themes were explored to foster symbolic expressions of suffering, critical reflection, and the valorization of marginalized knowledge. The methodology included weekly meetings with dialogue circles, performances, and collective scene analysis, encouraging youth protagonism and political imagination. This experience positions theater as an abolitionist tool and a form of resistance to incarceration logics.
subject: Artigos (Articles)
  topic: section
subject: abolitionist practices
  topic: keywords
subject: aesthetic justice
  topic: keywords
subject: political art
  topic: keywords
subject: youth in conflict with the law
  topic: keywords
creator: Guadalupe Rodrigues Braga
creator: Janaína Bastos dos Santos
creator: Adriana de Souza Medeiros Batista
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Guadalupe Rodrigues Braga, Janaína Bastos dos Santos, Adriana de Souza Medeiros Batista https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-12-23
publication date: 2025-12-23
starting page: 158
ending page: 181
doi: 10.11606/issn.2238-3999.v15i2p158-181

The construction of an abolitionist poetics via attack as language: the work of CiA dXs TeRrOrIsTaS with trans and travesti women who are survivors of prison
type: item
description: This study was developed from Master’s research in Performing Arts called Theater and Prison: the Public Dimension of the Work of CiA dXs TeRrOrIsTaS, carried out at the School of Music and Performing Arts at the Federal University of Goiás. It aims to reflect, based on Angela Davis’ abolitionist thought and American philosopher Judith Butler’ notion of precariousness, on what characterizes a penal abolitionist company in Brazil in the 21st century, and how the artistic creations of CiA dXs TeRrOrIsTaS embody abolitionist practices, especially in restaging the play Anjos de Cara Suja: o sol é ou deveria ser para todas.
subject: Artigos (Articles)
  topic: section
subject: penal abolitionism
  topic: keywords
subject: community relations
  topic: keywords
subject: abolitionist poetics
  topic: keywords
subject: political body
  topic: keywords
creator: Thaisa Schmaedecke
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Thaisa Schmaedecke https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-12-23
publication date: 2025-12-23
starting page: 247
ending page: 258
doi: 10.11606/issn.2238-3999.v15i2p247-258

Performance Negrotério: 25 Years of Carandiru Massacre
type: item
description: This study aims to analyze how performance experience can activate traumatic memories of the episode known as the Carandiru Massacre (1992), which resulted in the death of at least 111 incarcerated men. For this, we draw on Achille Mbembe’s concept of necropolitics and Diana Taylor’s discussion on the transmission of traumatic memory through performance. We then analyze Negrotério: 25th Anniversary of the Carandiru Massacre (2017), created by the Coletiva Preta Performance collective.
subject: Artigos (Articles)
  topic: section
subject: Carandiru
  topic: keywords
subject: necropolitics
  topic: keywords
subject: performance
  topic: keywords
subject: social trauma
  topic: keywords
creator: Rodrigo Severo dos Santos
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Rodrigo Severo dos Santos https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-12-23
publication date: 2025-12-23
starting page: 198
ending page: 218
doi: 10.11606/issn.2238-3999.v15i2p198-218

Escalating the Prison Walls: A Case Study of There are Women Waiting: The Tragedy of Medea Jackson
type: item
description: Developed by independent research, sparked by a chance encounter with the work of American performer Rhodessa Jones, this essay aims to undertake a case study of the play There Are Women Waiting: The Tragedy of Medea Jackson, presented by the American theater collective The Medea Project: Theater for Incarcerated Women in 1992 under the direction of Rhodessa Jones. The performance was the first in a series of theatrical works created by the collective of amateur artists, all young Black women who, at the time, were serving sentences at the San Francisco County Jail in California. By examining the roots and founding process of The Medea Project, we will explore how this particular performance touches on crucial themes for considering the intersections between art and socio-historical reality, theater as a privileged locus of utopian counterpoint to social mechanisms of surveillance and punishment, and counter-hegemonic theater as a space for critical reflection and positioning on issues of freedom, race, and class.
subject: Artigos (Articles)
  topic: section
subject: abolitionist theatre
  topic: keywords
subject: black theatre
  topic: keywords
subject: american drama
  topic: keywords
creator: Patricia Freitas dos Santos
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Patricia Freitas dos Santos https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-12-23
publication date: 2025-12-23
starting page: 103
ending page: 123
doi: 10.11606/issn.2238-3999.v15i2p103-123

Between walls and acts: the mapping of brazilian dramaturgies to fracture the carceral system
type: item
description: This study examines the intersections of theater and incarceration to find ways to fracture the walls of the carceral regime via art by analyzing four Brazilian dramaturgies. It also proposes using theater as a liberating practice, drawing on Walidah Imarisha’s concept of visionary fiction. It investigates, via a bibliographic analysis, the use of the word as a potent weapon that shatters the system of (in)justice and finds new possibilities of worlds.
subject: Artigos (Articles)
  topic: section
subject: prison
  topic: keywords
subject: prison abolitionism
  topic: keywords
subject: theatre
  topic: keywords
subject: visionary fiction
  topic: keywords
creator: Pietra Bonet
creator: Ianna Nogueira
creator: Caroline Vetori
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Pietra Bonet, Ianna Nogueira, Caroline Vetori https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-12-23
publication date: 2025-12-23
starting page: 235
ending page: 246
doi: 10.11606/issn.2238-3999.v15i2p235-246

Musical act-spectacle Inútil Canto e Inútil Pranto pelos Anjos Caídos: the State’s genocidal politics, mass incarceration, and social movements on stage
type: item
description: This study aims to explore the themes and dynamics of the creative process behind the theatrical production Inútil Canto e Inútil Pranto pelos Anjos Caídos, directed by Rogério Tarifa, which premiered in 2017 at the Teatro Laboratório of USP. It draws connections with epic theater, Bertolt Brecht’s didactic plays, and Cecilia Almeida Salles’ the proposal of the creative process on a web. Its central theme addresses the prison system and the genocidal policies of the State, directly linked to mass incarceration and the extermination of the Brazilian Black and marginalized populations. The production was carried out at a School of Dramatic Arts with graduating students from Class 66 and featured the active collaboration and participation from members of the social movement Mães em Luto da Zona Leste and the group Mulheres Livres, born from the Voz Própria Project, led by singer and professor Carmina Juarez — a project involving over 200 incarcerated women from the Capital Women’s Penitentiary. This study also seeks to show how the Performing Arts can strengthen actions, discussions, and radical transformations that support individuals who are or have been involved with the criminal justice system and those who have lost loved ones to State violence.
subject: Artigos (Articles)
  topic: section
subject: mass incarceration
  topic: keywords
subject: prison system
  topic: keywords
subject: creative process
  topic: keywords
subject: chorus
  topic: keywords
subject: social movement
  topic: keywords
creator: Walmick de Holanda
creator: Raquel Parras
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Raquel Parras, Walmick de Holanda https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-12-23
publication date: 2025-12-23
starting page: 219
ending page: 234
doi: 10.11606/issn.2238-3999.v15i2p219-234

Sketches in the silence: murmurs of mothers deprived of liberty in Pernambuco
type: item
description: This study explores the experience of theater in the Recife Women’s Penal Colony as a pedagogical approach to emancipate the pains of motherhood in prison. Based on semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and document analysis, it describes a case study: the staging of the play Vozes de mães privadas de liberdade. It shows that theater fissures the prison structure, although it requires investment to expand its non-reformist and transformative potential in the Pernambuco prison system.
subject: Artigos (Articles)
  topic: section
subject: female incarceration
  topic: keywords
subject: motherhood in prison
  topic: keywords
subject: theater in prisons
  topic: keywords
creator: Allayni Suene de Medeiros Vasconcelos Pires
creator: Raquel de Aragão Uchôa Fernandes
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Allayni Suene de Medeiros Vasconcelos Pires, Raquel de Aragão Uchôa Fernandes https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-12-23
publication date: 2025-12-23
starting page: 182
ending page: 197
doi: 10.11606/issn.2238-3999.v15i2p182-197

When bad things happen to good programs
type: item
description: Scholarly examination of carceral arts programming is both limited and selective. Academic research tends to focus on prison-based theater programs, music workshops, and creative writing courses, which are widely embraced and easily implemented. However, carceral arts programmers often face challenges within a correctional culture that is ambivalent toward their work. This study focusses on these programmers and their programs to understand why effective carceral programs, both in Canada and abroad, are not always able to do good.
subject: Artigos (Articles)
  topic: section
subject: arts-based programming
  topic: keywords
subject: arts education
  topic: keywords
subject: community arts
  topic: keywords
subject: prison arts
  topic: keywords
subject: restorative justice
  topic: keywords
creator: Aimee Copping
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Aimee Copping https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-12-23
publication date: 2025-12-23
starting page: 124
ending page: 157
doi: 10.11606/issn.2238-3999.v15i2p124-157

Libertarian pedagogies in incarceration: is it possible to educate for freedom in spaces of deprivation of liberty?
type: item
description: This study analyzes the limits and possibilities of implementing libertarian pedagogical practices in liberty deprivation contexts. Based on a systematic literature review, it investigates how educational and cultural practices within the Brazilian prison system function as strategies of resistance and mechanisms of control. The findings show that emancipatory education in prisons follows its articulation with abolitionist perspectives and the dismantling of the structures that sustain the punitive rationale.
subject: Artigos (Articles)
  topic: section
subject: abolitionism
  topic: keywords
subject: cultural practices
  topic: keywords
subject: social control
  topic: keywords
subject: social justice
  topic: keywords
subject: symbolic resistance
  topic: keywords
creator: Tiago Negrão de Andrade
creator: Maria Cristina Gobbi
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Tiago Negrão de Andrade, Maria Cristina Gobbi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-12-23
publication date: 2025-12-23
starting page: 87
ending page: 102
doi: 10.11606/issn.2238-3999.v15i2p87-102

PwD Playpen: reflections on the inclusion paradox in cultural initiatives
type: item
description: This study explores the paradoxical nature of inclusive practices for disabled individuals within the public initiatives and internal institutional policies governing cultural institutions. Accessibility in this field is often confined to segregated and stereotyped spaces, which we ironically call “Cercadinho PCD” (“PwD Playpen”). The history of disability shows exclusion and dominant societal norms that reinforce stereotypes, hindering full participation in various social contexts. Cultural accessibility asks for the deconstruction of normative narratives and the validation and celebration of the experiences and contributions of disabled people in the arts, fostering a critical understanding of inclusion models.
subject: Artigos (Articles)
  topic: section
subject: PwD playpen
  topic: keywords
subject: cultural accessibility
  topic: keywords
subject: ableism
  topic: keywords
subject: inclusion
  topic: keywords
subject: disability
  topic: keywords
creator: Claudio Rubino
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Claudio Rubino https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-12-16
publication date: 2025-12-16
starting page: 139
ending page: 154
doi: 10.11606/issn.2238-3999.v15i1p139-154

Broken mirrors and stages of resistance: scenic art, subjectivity, and the critique of the penal system based on O Espelho by Machado de Assis
type: item
description: This study explores the intricate relationship between identity, the penal system, and the transformative potential of scenic arts, drawing from Machado de Assis’ short story O Espelho: Esboço de uma nova teoria da alma humana. Jacobina’s theory of “two souls” — an inner one and an outer one validated by social recognition — serves as a metaphor to understand how subjectivity is constructed and can be dismantled, particularly within the penal context. Prisons, often acting as a deforming mirror, systematically negates individuality and fragments the self. In contrast, this study argues that scenic arts (theater and performance) in correctional facilities can function as “critical mirrors” and “stages of (re)existence.” By analyzing artistic projects in Brazil and internationally and dialoguing with theorists such as Foucault, Mbembe, Ben-Moshe, Freire, hooks, Lucas, and Nascimento, this study investigates how these practices enable incarcerated individuals to challenge stigmatizing narratives, rewrite their own stories, and reconstruct their subjectivities. The core objective is to show that scenic arts, when imbued with liberatory pedagogies, can transcend pastime, becoming a political and existential act of resistance, humanization, and social critique and fostering the decolonization of the gaze and the claim for full humanity within and beyond prison walls. This study ends by emphasizing the importance of investing in artistic and pedagogical practices that aim at “rehabilitation” and at a fundamental transformation of the criminal justice system toward a more just and less punitive society.
subject: Artigos (Articles)
  topic: section
subject: Machado de Assis
  topic: keywords
subject: prison system
  topic: keywords
subject: subjectivity
  topic: keywords
subject: resistance
  topic: keywords
creator: Jéssica Painkow Rosa Cavalcante
creator: Armando Soares de Castro Formiga
creator: Felipe Barnabé Batista
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Felipe Barnabé Batista, Armando Soares de Castro Formiga, Jéssica Painkow Rosa Cavalcante https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-12-23
publication date: 2025-12-23
starting page: 69
ending page: 86
doi: 10.11606/issn.2238-3999.v15i2p69-86

Routes of a drifting boat: the ethics of care in the performance of pain
type: item
description: Based on the experience of a body that, when moving, is interrupted by pain, this study investigates how contemporary theater engages with the vulnerability of the body on stage and the effects triggered by its spectatorship. For this, it uses the allegory of the Ship of Fools, as recounted in Book VI of Plato’s Republic, as a metaphor for reflecting on the stage. Given that shock is a sensibility rooted in contemporary sensory experience, this study questions how the fascination with the performance of the body in pain on stage risks turning pain into spectacle, which may lead to apathy in spectators. To address this dilemma, this study proposes an ethics of care that transforms the experience of spectatorship beyond shock.
subject: Artigos (Articles)
  topic: section
subject: body
  topic: keywords
subject: performance of pain
  topic: keywords
subject: performativity
  topic: keywords
subject: contemporary theater
  topic: keywords
creator: Giovanna Galisi Paiva
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Giovanna Galisi Paiva https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-12-16
publication date: 2025-12-16
starting page: 125
ending page: 138
doi: 10.11606/issn.2238-3999.v15i1p125-138

The invisual knowledge of plasticity: for a pedagogy of excess
type: item
description: 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.
subject: Artigos (Articles)
  topic: section
subject: blind look
  topic: keywords
subject: tactility
  topic: keywords
subject: theater teaching
  topic: keywords
creator: Diego Landin Borges
creator: Anchieta de Carvalho
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Diego Landin, Anchieta de Carvalho https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-12-16
publication date: 2025-12-16
starting page: 54
ending page: 76
doi: 10.11606/issn.2238-3999.v15i1p54-76