Urdimento: Revista de Estudos em Artes Cênicas
Journal of the Performing Arts linked to the Graduate Program in Theater, at the Arts, Design and Fashion Center of the Santa Catarina State University. ISSN: 2525-5304 Frequency: continuous Year of criation: 1997
Universidade do Estado de Santa Catarina (UDESC)
Copyright Statement The articles published by the magazine are free to use. The copyright is all assigned to the magazine. The articles whose authors are identified represent the expression from the point of view of their authors and not the official position of the journal Urdimento. The author (s) undertakes whenever publishing material relating to the article published in Revista Urdimento mention the said publication as follows: This article was originally published by Urdimento magazine in its volume (put the volume), number (put the number) in the year of (put the year) and can be accessed at: http://www.revistas.udesc.br/index.php/urdimento This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Some political-ideological notes on Teatro Oficina and its theatrical aesthetic
This paper aims to offer a political-ideological inventory of the scenic practices incorporated by Teatro Oficina (SP) and its main animator, José Celso Martinez Corrêa, from 1968 to the mid-2000s. In the first part, a survey is made of the main analyses and criticisms directed at the São Paulo group, in ideological terms, over the course of its history. In the second part, based on a problematization of the use of nudity in the group's shows, we discuss the influences that explain this choice and its respective ideological repercussions. In the final section, by way of a conclusion, an attempt was made to round off the debate, with a view to establishing a synthesis that brings together the views set out above.
Copyright (c) 2025 Urdimento: Revista de Estudos em Artes Cênicas https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
From action to scene: a creative path in the Odin Teatret tradition
By sharing the experiences of the process of putting together La prima volta, which was the first phase of the solo performance The Nightmare of the Butterfly, created by this author and directed by Julia Varley (Odin Teatret), we discuss the unfolding of the theatrical tradition based on the assumptions of Theater Anthropology in the pedagogy of the Odin Teatret group, highlighting creation based on Actress and actor’s dramaturgy.
Blood Drops, Red Words: VestAndPage’s blood writing in their performances
This self-reflective article addresses how VestAndPage (Verena Stenke & Andrea Pagnes) have been exploring blood in a bifold symbolic value as a performative tool since 2006: connection–separation, immutability–violation, abjection–access. After medical complications and becoming blood donors, the artist duo has started deploying surgical instruments in their performances to engrave Pagnes’s skin, extract his blood, and ritualise this process into stream-of-consciousness writing. Thus, blood becomes a device of intimacy that allows them to transcend the representation of concepts and explore the human condition’s transitory presence and fragile nature.
Blood Drops Red Words: Considering VestAndPage’s blood writing in performance
Is there freedom in writing behind bars? Theatrical practices and the construction of exits
This text explores the potential of artistic-pedagogical practices in the context of incarceration, taking the activity notebook Das saídas que moram nas palavras as a starting point. Theater and writing are thus investigated as possible abolitionist practices, which transcend walls, opening windows to other glimpses of freedom.
Performance of Embodied Fragments - Fight, Flight, Freeze
This article analyzes the fragmented presence of body artists in contexts where the iconographies of violence attack notions of integrity, displaying bodies as Necromessages. Who are the artists? What are the works we speak of in contemporary theater, understanding that memory preserves the trauma of violence on fragmented bodies? An research of performances was carried out, cataloged into three response patterns of the organism when facing danger: Fight, Flight, and Freeze. Far from being a psychological view of art, the analysis focuses on the artists and how, in practice of Performance Art, they embody their experiences, legitimising the very conception of narratives of pain, war, trauma and terror in the contemporary scene.
Disability as scenic materiality: assistive technology and Its poetic possibilities
The article explores the use of assistive technology in theater, focusing on the creative possibilities that arise from integrating this technology into the theatrical scene, once it is understood as scenic materiality. It discusses the experiences of the shows “Happy New Year” and “Nicole Wolfman” and the work developed by the group “Signatores”, which use disability as a scenic materiality through the presence of assistive technologies on stage. The research suggests that disability can be a creative power, contributing to artistic practices for/with/by people with disabilities from the perspective of Cultural Accessibility.
Tramaturgy of Knowledge: an expanded methodology in the Performing Arts
Structured on principles of memory, narrative, creative process and writing, this article presents the methodology called “tramaturgia de sabenças”, an extension of the concept “corpo griot” (Fernandes, 2022), in which the body is understood by the origin of its trajectory from contemporary movements in the Performing Arts under a countercolonial perspective. Through intersections between expanded dramaturgies and knowledge of oral tradition, the study was related to the ancestral knowledge of the “loiceiras” (clay potters) of the municipality of Remígio (PB), intertwining their stories with dance improvisation, making scenic compositions of movement and an audiovisual performance documentary flourish.
Dealing with the (im)possible: the pedagogical residency in arts during the covid-19 pandemic
This text seeks to reflect on the actions of the Arts Pedagogical Residency, designed during the Emergency Remote Education (ERE) adopted by the Federal University of Minas Gerais. We recorded and analyzed actions that are necessary for continuity in the academic training of arts professionals. These experiences reveal how fruitful it can be to think that Digital Technologies can be in favor of the process of artistic creation and help us to keep the artistic flame burning in each of those involved in the process. We realized that it was possible to recreate other ways of exercising teacher training in Art, such as pedagogical mediation, dealing with the (im)possible.
University Extension and the training of theater graduates: divergences and confluences
When dialoguing with legal frameworks related to University Extension, we chose to reflect on some extension actions that problematize the challenges imposed by the curricularization of extension in Theater Degree courses, paying attention to CNE/CP Resolution No. 4, of May 29, 2024. It is concluded that such a resolution, by restricting the execution of curricular extension actions to Basic Education institutions, highlights a paradox: it expands the horizons of theater practices at school, but tends limiting the training experiences of people with a degree in theater, prevented from developing curricular extension actions in non-formal education.
Between the player and the spectator: ludic and performative dimensions in theatre education
This article analyzes the relationship between player and spectator within theater teaching-learning processes, exploring play as both an aesthetic and pedagogical device. Based on a theoretical review and an analysis of the influences of contemporary theater on pedagogical practices, it discusses three theatrical modalities—theater game, jeu dramatique, and drama in education—highlighting the centrality of playfulness in fostering critical perception, creative autonomy, and the capacity for relational alterity in both active players and spectators. The study concludes by valuing play not merely as a scenic tool, but as an emancipatory aesthetic activity that promotes critical, sensitive, and open subjectivities—especially in contexts of increasing political and social polarization.
“Encounters with Bodies that Fled”: A Performative Action of Shelter and Refuge
The article examines the performative action “Encounters with Bodies that Fled”, held in Rio de Janeiro, with Ian, the author, and Mohammed El Jazouli, a Moroccan refugee in Brazil. The performance was an encounter between them, a gesture of sharing between bodies shaped by different experiences of belonging and displacement. Through the report of the preparation and execution processes of the performance, the article discusses the implications of this encounter. Here, performative action is seen as the creation of spaces of hospitality, where the confluence of multiple alterities becomes the driving force of the action.
Bodily states in children's performances: basic education and Contexts of Social Precarity
This article presents part of a doctoral research in Performing Arts with children in Basic Education in contexts of precariousness in the Federal District, Brazil. The objective is to recognize and analyze children's narrative performances with a view toward an anti-racist pedagogy. The notion of bodily states is introduced through an artistic-performative practice committed to addressing the structural racisms faced by students. The proposed bodily states are named: aerial body; bonding body; present body; and manifest body. These bodily states are presented as anti-racist pedagogical possibilities.
Fontainville Abbey: William Dunlap’s forgotten Gothic play, the first American playwright
Fontainville Abbey (1794), by William Dunlap, inspired by Ann Radcliffe's Romance of the Forest (1791), is a play that has been relegated to oblivion. Dunlap is considered an outstanding historian, as well as the first American playwright and the first Gothic writer in the country. Forgotten by his peers, Dunlap was also forgotten by the academy. The aim of this article is to show how Dunlap's melodramatic dramaturgy and its dialogue with American literature’s seminal texts serve as a receptacle for memory and how this memory, in this case, the memory of the history of American melodramatic (Gothic?) theater, is transformed into phantasmagoria.
Fontainville Abbey(1794), by William Dunlap, inspired by Ann Radcliffe's Romance of the Forest(1791), is a play that has been relegated to oblivion. Dunlap is considered an outstanding historian, as well as the first American playwright and the first Gothic writer in the country. Forgotten by his peers, Dunlap was also forgotten by the academy. The aim of this article is to show how Dunlap's melodramatic dramaturgy and its dialogue with American literature’s seminal texts serve as a receptacle for memory and how this memory, in this case, the memory of the history of American melodramatic (Gothic?) theater, is transformed into phantasmagoria.
Editorial - Drama: 30 anos da abordagem no Brasil
Information on the content of the Thematic Dossier I.
Editorial - Acervos ex-cêntricos: As materialidades diversas da documentação nas Artes Cênicas
Information on the content of the Thematic Dossier II - Acervos ex-cêntricos: As materialidades diversas da documentação nas Artes Cênicas
Sala de Aula em Cena! Mostra Skholé de Artes Cênicas
Informações sobre o Projeto cênico - Sala de Aula em Cena! Mostra Skholé de Artes Cênicas - UDESC - Centro de Artes, 2023/2024.
Information about the content of the Urdimento v.2, n.55, August 2025.
In the expediente we present the Urdimento - Revista de Estudos em Artes Cênicas, editorial team, that is, the body of editors, associate editors, thematic dossier editors, editorial board and the body the reviewers working in the issue of Urdimento. We also introduce the editorial support team.
Urdimento in Memoriam. A tribute to Tadashi Endo (1947-2025).
The article presented reflections based on the author’s experience with drama in education in elementary schools in the city of Uberlândia, Minas Gerais (Brazil). The guiding question was: what challenges and possibilities emerged when considering the drama in education? Based on processes carried out with children, teenagers and youth, the assay discussed the principles of drama, its implementation in daily school life, and the challenges faced. Strategies, conventions, and artistic and pedagogical possibilities were highlighted, with an emphasis on collective creation and active listening to school contexts.
Experimentum Cyborg: Investigating the school in a Drama process in Higher Education
This article presents an analytical account of an artistic-pedagogical process carried out with a second-semester class from the undergraduate Theater Teaching Degree program at Universidade do Estado de Santa Catarina - UDESC. In this theatrical process, the school was used as a thematic pre-text for scenic investigation through the Drama approach. The structuring and creation process of the drama Experimentum Cyborg, as well as some of the chosen materialities and strategies, were described and analyzed. The text includes a description of the real context of the artistic experimentation and the fictional context developed in the classroom, with an emphasis on the methodology of practice as research.
Estranhas criaturas: Drama in teacher education through a gaze at childhoods
This article analyzes the use of Drama in initial teacher education in theater, drawing on childhood sociology, on decolonial epistemologies, and on the concept of corazonar (Arias, 2010). The experience, conducted within a course focused on theatrical practices with children, centered on storytelling and narrativity, using the book Estranhas Criaturas by León and Rubio as a pre-text. Drama is proposed as an ethical and sensitive practice of listening and collective creation, capable of challenging colonial and adult-centered logics and expanding ways of teaching with childhoods.
Dramas and dilemmas of the effeminate queer teacher: Subversions of gender, race, and ancestrality in the school
Amid the rise of conservative governments and their impacts on LGBT+ bodies, particularly within educational context, this study explored how the strategies of “teacher character” and “composite stimulus” contributed to addressing intersectional issues (gender, sexuality and ethno-racial relations) through a Drama-based process with fifth-grade children in a public school – SC. The research adopted a research-training methodology, drawing on field diary entries, material artifacts created by the children and teacher reflections. Grounded in gender theory, queer, among others, the study is situated within the pedagogical practices of Theatre and Performing Arts in schools.
Process Drama and Educational Technologies: creative potential for training teachers and children
This article presents a discussion about process Drama and technologies as educational potentialities considered in teacher training and creative processes with students. This writing aims to reflect on the word technology, as well as its application within the school and how this practice can be related to process Drama, reflecting on the current educational and social context.
Drama with deaf people in a remote environment: the teaching material Catálogo de Drama
This article presents the development of a teaching material about Process Drama for deaf people. The Catálogo de Drama is composed of content for the preparation and execution of five Process Drama in single sessions, initially proposed to be developed in a remote environment. The article presents the origin of the material, linked to practices carried out in a Theater final course work, highlighting the main references and delving into specificities of theatrical work with deaf people. The lack of accessible teaching material, aimed at a specific audience, is also addressed, together with a reflection on the importance of the study of Deaf Culture in theater teaching.
Compound stimulus and social belonging: fiction, identity, and bond formation
This article investigates how the feeling of belonging can be understood and stimulated through theatrical practices. Focusing on an experience with young athletes from Coritiba Foot Ball Club, the research draws on theoretical foundations related to social belonging and its implications for identity and the formation of affective bonds. Inspired by principles of Drama, the approach used the compound stimulus as a pre-text to provoke immersion in fictional situations, awakening a sense of group belonging. The article argues for the centrality of belonging as a foundation for sensitive, emancipatory educational practices that value each subject’s uniqueness.
Teacher-in-Role: Contributions to teaching children in Early Childhood Education
This article discusses the presence of theater specialists among Early Childhood Education teachers in Florianópolis, presenting Drama as a powerful approach to teaching and experiencing theatre to children at this stage of Basic Education. Through the teacher-in-role strategy, characters such as Sheila Enxerida and Fortroide provide a theatrical experience in which children and teachers become creative partners. Throughout the text, we argue that the presence of theatre teachers and theatrical language in NEIMs significantly expands children's expressive and bodily experiences.
The Boutique of the Master Perfumer: Drama and its accessibility for blind and low vision individual
The article investigated the Drama process The Boutique of the Master Perfumer, analyzing its potential as a pedagogical-creative approach accessible to blind or visually impaired individuals. The experience, conducted within a university extension project, highlighted the mobilization of tactile worldview in theatrical training and creation. The results indicated that Drama can challenge theater’s visual-centric nature and foster interactions among participants with different sensory perceptions. Furthermore, they reinforced the importance of Extension as a privileged space for dialogue between higher education students and visually impaired individuals, historically marginalized in academic settings.
Revue theater dissected: a dialogue between France and Brazil
This critical review presents to the academic community and others interested in revue theater the study by Professor Romain Piana (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris 3), published in November 2024. In his book, the author carefully examines the French theatrical genre, detailing its main structural, dramaturgical, and scenic characteristics, while emphasizing the intrinsic link between revue theater and what Piana (2024) calls the “media era.” Given the strong impact of the revue in Brazil, Piana’s study stands out as a qualified reference that not only deepens the understanding of the theatrical genre, but also encourages dialogue between the French and Brazilian traditions.
Extra! Extra! A burlette by Artur Azevedo and Eduardo Garrido just published!
Review of the burlette Pum!, a play by Artur Azevedo and Eduardo Garrido. This is an unpublished play, written and performed in the late 19th century in Brazil, in the context of the Armada Revolt (1893-1894). The work is the result of a research carried out by the historian Tania Brandão, in partnership with professor Diógenes Maciel, who together rescued and edited a previously unpublished brazilian burlette, whose survival over time occurred through the risky transit between drawers, collections and hands. With the recent publication of Pum! by Editora Papel da Palavra (2024), readers, students and theater artists will be able to delight in a work that reinforces the greatness of the national theater with its comic, musical and popular tradition.
The Seeds of Peking Opera: interview with the National Peking Opera Company
Conducted during the National Peking Opera Company’s tour of Brazil in November 2024, this interview interprets the opportunity to listen to its artists as a form of living archive, contributing to the construction of the memory of Chinese theater on Brazilian stages. In their reflections, Guan Xiaohui, Liu Kuikui, Jiang Meiyi, and Wu Zeyu discuss the troupe’s legacy, the repertoire selected for the performances, the role of Peking Opera in the cultural diplomacy of the People’s Republic of China in the 1950s and today, as well as the genre’s continuity at the intersection of tradition and contemporary innovation.
Style, genealogy and performative tradition: voices of legong in Bali
This article presents an exclusive interview with Professor Ida Ayu Wimba Ruspawati, a faculty member of the Dance Programa at the Institut Seni Indonesia (ISI – Denpasar), and legong dancer since childhood. The conversation explores the origins of the legong dance and its stylistic variations across different regions of Bali. The interviewee shares her learning experiences with various masters – such as Ketut Arini and Gusti Agung Susilawati – and in villages like Saba, Peliatan, Bedulu and Tista, amassing a vast and diverse technical repertoire. She also reflects on her role as teacher, dancer, and creator of new choreographies within the tradition of legong.
Archetypal dialogues: goddesses as a source of inspiration for stage creations
In August 2024, Dr. Luciana Aires Mesquita began the postdoctoral project "Mitoludens between Goddesses and Sambaquis," as a FAPESC Fellow, under the supervision of Dr. Maria Brígida de Miranda in the Graduate Program in Performing Arts at the State University of Santa Catarina (PPGAC/UDESC). Over the course of a year, the partnership resulted in several academic and artistic activities, such as performances, lectures, and film productions made available on web platforms. In this interview with Miranda, Mesquita reflected on the field of archetypal psychology created by James Hillman and the experience of creating stage productions based on the study of goddesses and gods from Greek mythology.
Excavations of Memory: examining a theatrical contract at the Court of Pedro II (1852-1853)
This article examines a collection of archival documents housed in the Manuscripts Division of the Biblioteca Nacional do Rio de Janeiro, which detail a dispute over wage payment in a theatre at the Imperial Court. The case focuses on the lyric soprano Augusta Candiani and the actor João Caetano dos Santos, who held the position of director of the Teatro Provisório in 1853. Among these documents is a contract between the singer and the theatre. This previously unpublished source provides valuable insights into the dynamics of labor relations, as well as the rights and responsibilities that shaped professional theatre in the 19th century.
Duets with the future: An Invitation to Participate in Lume Teatro’s Body Archives
This study proposes new approaches to body archives, inspired by the relational and presence-based perspectives of Lume Teatro and the concept of the open work (Campos, 1955; Eco, 1976). It considers contemporary forces such as cultural hybridization (Canclini, 2008) and the deconstruction of the individual (Hall, 2006). The research highlights body archives that encourage interpretative multiplicity and creative interaction, as in the Bottle Duets project, which performs an open invitation to resignify memories and experiences through dialogue with a collective and open becoming.
Traces of Light, Marks of Craft: foundations for the analysis of stage lighting documentation
This article presents the theoretical and methodological foundations of a study on the documentation of stage lighting as an expression of technical-artistic knowledge. It proposes an archival-artistic approach based on interviews and the collection of documents from professionals in Brazil, Argentina, and Italy. Operational concepts, criteria for the study of document typologies, and methodological procedures are outlined, along with initial reflections on the meanings attributed to these materials. The proposal contributes to recognising these documents as part of the history of performance.
Theater, Music and Memory in the Teatrosamba do Caixote
Mnemonic box is a concept used by Aleida Assmann to refer to a portable space of memories. In its complex role as a boundary between scene and audience, as well as a stool for musicians and actors, the box, imbued with memories, is also a mnemonic box, a container of the experiences and processes of the Teatrosamba do Caixote. A theatrical device within the samba circle, this activity conceived by the Grupo dos 7 was part of the City in City Out Project, implemented in spaces in the North Zone of São Paulo between 2001 and 2004. This article explores the contents of this memory box to outline an expository itinerary of the Teatrosamba do Caixote’s journey during that period.
Two decades of Fomento ao Teatro for the city of São Paulo: the project as relevant materiality
This article investigates projects drawn up by theater groups to apply for public funding, a materiality that is present daily in today's theatrical activity. Its source of research is the 573 projects awarded by the first 40 editions of the Theater Promotion Program for the city of São Paulo. It briefly introduces the Program, and the research methodology based on a cartography of the awarded projects and then investigates the role of the selection committees and the groups' strategies for competing for the program's financial resources. Finally, it outlines the network of proposals made by the groups based on the examination and classification of the set of projects.
Implementation of a sound research center for the performing arts: Arquivos Sonoros de Teatro project
This article addresses the implementation of the Theater Sound Archives project (University of São Paulo/São Paulo Research Foundation), which navigates the challenges of a research field that is relatively nascent globally (Mervant-Roux, 2023). We present an overview of international policies and projects concerning the preservation of sound archives and describe the Brazilian context and the Tunica Teixeira Collection, the project's inaugural archive. Consequently, we reaffirm the necessity of strengthening sound archives as a vital source for theater research and documentation, as well as the urgent need for investment to ensure the preservation of theatrical sound memory and its accessibility to future generations of researchers and creators.
To write the History of Theater: between oral history, personal archives, and documentation centers
This article aimed to establish connections between oral history and personal archives, with the goal of proposing a research methodology that integrates the various documentary collections related to the history of theater. The research conducted for the dissertation Na Ciranda da Memória: Maria Helena Lopes — Narratives on Teaching Career, Passion, and Theater Education at UFRGS (1967–1994)provided examples of the use of historical sources in writing the history of theater. Furthermore, the study highlighted the importance of documentation centers dedicated to the study of Brazilian theater history.
Archive as Record and Proposition: creative processes in scenic dance in Acre
This article presents the creation process of the Cartography of Dance Archive in Acre, a continued action of research and documentation of scenic dance in the state. Based on experiences in the Western Amazon and mapping initiated during the author's PhD, the study analyzes the impacts of the absence of archives, the recording strategies adopted, and the challenges faced by local artists. The archive is discussed as a device for memory, education, and aesthetic proposition, in dialogue with other initiatives across the country. It is concluded that the productions still point to distant horizons, largely separated from the social and political reality that surrounds and distinguishes them.
Espiral: motion capturing dances to create a digital library of movements
The article shares procedures for creating a digital library of dance movements entitled Espiral, which documents part of the dance technique of Brazilian artist Eva Schul (1948). Created using a motion capture system (mocap) and video recordings, it consists of twelve dance sequences, viewed through dancers performing the movements and their respective dancing avatars. The composition of the library allowed reflective thinking processes on the notion of the archive's living potential, as well as understanding the movements that constitute it as atoms of dance and the video recordings as digital echoes of Eva Schul's teaching.