Rafaella Uhiara, editor for scientific popularization of the Revista Brasileira de Estudos da Presença, Principal Investigator of “Sound Archives of Theatre” project, developed within the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) Young Investigator Grant.
This week, the SciELO in Perspective blog will present a special program dedicated to the only journal exclusively focused on the performing arts in the SciELO Brazil Collection: the Revista Brasileira de Estudos da Presença. A reference in its field of expertise, both in Brazil and in Latin America, the journal publishes original research results in two languages in open access. The relationship with SciELO plays an important role in the journal, which has been implementing Open Science practices with its encouragement, opening an unknown universe in the field of performing arts publications in Brazil.
This Special Week proposes a dive into the universe of Performing Arts research based on the observation of a high-quality journal, its themes, its transformations, its functioning and position in the face of pressing social issues.
The issue of “presence” in the Performing Arts field (Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024)
The opening of the Special Week discusses the notion of “presence”, which gives the journal its name. Although fundamental and very present in the universe of the performing arts, this notion is not unambiguous and, oddly enough, this is perhaps one of its most interesting attributes. The press release to be released on Tuesday deals precisely with this theme, highlighting issues of the journal that highlight it, such as volume 10, issue 1.
In one of the articles published by the journal on the subject, Gilberto Icle, editor-in-chief and co-founder of the journal, discusses the notion that, according to him, “comes from an undefined imaginary about acting, about performance”, indicating “a sensation of something that escapes the word, something that doesn’t fit into language”. Indeed, Icle postulates that one cannot speak of the presence itself, since the notion concerns a shared experience, in movement (Icle, 2011, p. 16).
Within the Brazilian university context, which is strongly shaped by the hybridity between theory and practice, in which many researches “take the researcher’s own artistic work as a locus of investigation” (ibid., p.11), it is pertinent, according to Icle, to approach the field through Presence Studies, since these “are circumscribed precisely to the need to think about forms, ways and paths for this type of research” (ibid.), encompassing, for example, self-referential productions, in which the researcher proposes a reflection based on his own artistic work “without this being an impediment to a supposed scientific objectivity to be pursued” (ibid., p. 12).
“Perhaps presence is not possible for us, human beings” – Charles Feitosa polemicizes in the video “Dialogues with Philosophy and the Media Arts”, which is part of Tuesday’s Special Week post. From the field of Philosophy, the researcher and professor at UNIRIO (Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro) problematizes the approach to the notion of presence by the Performing Arts in the article Borders between Performing Arts and Philosophy (Feitosa, 2020), published in the 2020 issue Performance Philosophy, which he presents, trying not to develop too much, since he makes it clear that the purpose of his video is to wake the curiosity and desire of the Internet user to read his article, as well as the other works published in the thematic issue organized by Laura Cull Ó Maoilearca and Luciana da Costa Dias in partnership with the Performance Philosophy network (Ó Maoilearca; Dias, 2020)
The video is accompanied by the text “Presence as a field of research”, which provides an overview of the different approaches to the notion of presence throughout the history of the journal. From the first issues entirely dedicated to the topic to subsequent articles, in which the concept is mobilized punctually in analyses of very diverse scenic manifestations, Lígia Souza’s text addresses this thematic transversally throughout the history of the journal, which has already published more than 40 issues in its almost 15 years of uninterrupted activities.
Image: Revista Brasileira de Estudos da Presença.
A sample of thematic and methodological diversity in the Performing Arts research (Wednesday, September 4, 2024)
We continue the Special Week program by exploring some of the thematic issues published by the Revista Brasileira de Estudos da Presença. This revisit to the journal’s (digital) archive shows the richness of objects, themes, and methodologies that animate the field of research in Performing Arts.
The issue dedicated to the theme “Performance and Animated Forms” provides an interesting sample of the variety of objects and approaches within the same theme (Costa, 2022). In a video made especially for release during the Special Week, Rossana Della Costa shows her concern, when editing the thematic issue, to treat theater of animated forms in its diversity, contemplating both traditional popular cultural manifestations and the implications of animated forms in more experimental contemporary aesthetics.
Indeed, the articles issue deal with both aesthetic and pedagogical issues, based on the analysis of diverse objects, ranging from the transvestite presence in brincantes performances in the quilombos of Reisado (Oliveira Jr., 2022) to the differences in the reception of a Brazilian animated forms show by national and European audiences (Scrickte et al., 2022), as well as a historical political study on the transformation, during the Nazi regime, of a traditional form of puppet theater in Germany (Alcure, 2022). For the guest editor, these perspectives contribute to the study of this ancient art in Brazil and in the world.
As a complement to the video, Ana Wegner presents a press release about one of the articles in the issue, entitled Images as Appearance of the Body: Ilka Schönbein’s loving game (D’Abronzo, 2022), which consists of a study on a contemporary approach to theater of animated forms, which allows the notion of presence to be tensioned through the contrast between the human and the inanimate.
The importance of thematic issues for the state of the art of a topic (Thursday, September 5, 2024)
Returning to the first thematic issue published by the journal (volume 3, issue 1, 2013), the post on Thursday (September 05), features Tatiana Motta Lima reporting on the importance of the issue, which has become an essential reference for scholars and those interested in the work of Jerzy Grotowski and the Workcenter (Lima, 2013). Invited to curate what was imagined to be “a small thematic issue” (ibid., p.6), the author of the then only Brazilian book on the subject (idem, 2012) saw the project turn into a large volume, consisting of 16 articles signed by some of the leading researchers on the subject in Brazil and around the world, in addition to 5 reviews, composing “a kind of state of the art on research around the Polish director”, as announced by Gilberto Icle in the opening video of this week’s program.
More than ten years later, the issue organized by Tatiana Motta Lima is still relevant to the field of Performing Arts research. In a brief consultation of the access statistics, the guest editor comments in the video that, although the issue addresses “a specific artist, who might be of interest to a smaller number of researchers”, it continues to be widely accessed, with some of its texts among the 100 most accessed within the journal.
The video in the post is accompanied by a text authored by Juliana Coelho, titled “Art as a Vehicle and Jerzy Grotowski’s research for beyond the 20th century”.
The positioning of the journal and the social function of the research (Friday, 06/09)
To close our program, Celina Alcântara proposes a reflection on the treatment of ethnic-racial and gender issues in the Brazilian Journal of Presence Studies, an agenda that she always brought to the journal. This discussion is especially dear to the associate editor, not only because it permeates her trajectory as a black woman, but because she assumes the role, within the Institute of Arts of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), of taking the lead in this debate in the face of decisive transformations in the university environment, such as the quota policy and the legal obligation to teach Afro-Brazilian and African culture.
Celina Alcântara proposes an observation of the way in which the approach to this agenda has changed in the journal throughout its history: if, at first, the topic appears “in a slightly more generic way, in quotation marks, in the sense of thinking about how race relations shape the relationship with performance” (as can be seen in the thematic section Performance and Ethnic-Racial Relations, volume 7, issue 2, 2017), in a second moment, it is already possible to think about the creative processes of racialized people in academic spaces, for example (according to the approach of the thematic section Black Poetics and Contemporary Performing Arts, vol. 12, issue 4, 2022). Celina Alcântara’s full reflection on the subject can be seen in the video of Friday’s post (Sept. 09).
In addition, Ana Wegner presents the magazine’s first thematic issue on the topic – “Performance and Ethnic-Racial Relations” (2017) –, placing it in a broader overview of thematic issues aligned with the principles of diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility. The panoramic analysis of the issue culminates in an important excerpt from Celina Alcântara’s video in which she assesses the place where we are in relation to this discussion: our difficulties, what we are building and where we intend to go.
Faced with these issues, journals have the prerogative — or perhaps the duty — to take a stand. The social function of journals is to make certain debates and authors public and accessible. It is therefore necessary to be aware of the influence of any bias – racist or sexist, for example – in the choice of what (or who) deserves to be published.
For these and other discussions, follow our program this week on the SciELO in Perspective blog! Our next issues will also bring some innovations to the performing arts research field in Brazil, related to the implementation of some Open Science practices. Don’t miss out! 😉
About Gilberto Icle
He is editor-in-chief of the Brazilian Journal of Presence Studies, associate professor in the Faculty of Education and permanent professor in the Graduate Program in Education at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. He is also a permanent professor in the Postgraduate Program in Performing Arts at the University of Brasília. Furthermore, he is the coordinator of GETEPE-Education, Theatre and Performance Study Group (www.ufrgs.br/getepe), where he directs and works at UTA – Usina do Trabalho do Ator, a theater creation and research group.
References
Práticas editoriais para uma Ciência Aberta [online]. Revista Brasileira de Estudos da Presença. s/d [viewed 02 September 2024]. Available from: https://seer.ufrgs.br/index.php/presenca/cienciaaberta
ALCURE, A.S. O Kasper está morto? Domesticação e doutrinação do Kaspertheater durante o Nacional-Socialismo. Revista Brasileira de Estudos da Presença [online] 2022, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 1-25 [viewed 02 September 2024]. https://doi.org/10.1590/2237-2660117208vs01. Available from: https://www.scielo.br/j/rbep/a/FrGbnVHGHvJxGpGnp9bpmJb/
COSTA, R.D. (org.). Seção temática “Performance e formas animadas”. Revista Brasileira de Estudos da Presença [online]. 2022, vol. 12, no. 3 [viewed 02 August 2024]. Available from: https://www.scielo.br/j/rbep/i/2022.v12n3/
D’ABRONZO, T.H. Imagens como Aparição do Corpo: o jogo amoroso de Ilka Schönbein. Revista Brasileira de Estudos da Presença [online]. 2022, vol. 2, no. 3, e118932 [viewed 02 September 2024]. https://doi.org/10.1590/2237-2660118932vs01. Available from: https://www.scielo.br/j/rbep/a/MpjtZwRV8yRsw5Vv95jYvZm/
FEITOSA, C. Fronteiras entre as Artes da Performance e a Filosofia. Revista Brasileira de Estudos da Presença [online]. 2020, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 1-25 [viewed 02 September 2024]. https://doi.org/10.1590/2237-266092410. Available from: https://www.scielo.br/j/rbep/a/LYGSWgwhZ3bRZtfMXppzrbq/
ICLE, G. Estudos da Presença: prolegômenos para a pesquisa das práticas performativas. Revista Brasileira de Estudos da Presença [online]. 2011, vol. 1, no.1, pp. 9-27 [viewed 02 September 2024]. https://doi.org/10.1590/2237-266023682. Available from: https://www.scielo.br/j/rbep/a/NXPDvgzrJX5pBqXzc95ywbR/
LIMA, T.M. Apresentação: para reler Grotowski. Revista Brasileira de Estudos da Presença [online]. 2013, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 6-19 [viewed 02 September 2024]. https://doi.org/10.1590/2237-266039097. Available from: https://www.scielo.br/j/rbep/a/cCbTMM8R3dCNtcdkkGjRjCy/
LIMA, T.M. (org.). Número temático “Dossiê Grotowski”. Revista Brasileira de Estudos da Presença [online]. 2013, vol. 3, no. 1 [viewed 02 September 2024]. Available from: https://www.scielo.br/j/rbep/i/2013.v3n1/
LIMA, T.M. Palavras praticadas: o percurso artístico de Jerzy Grotowski, 1959-1974. São Paulo: Perspectiva, 2012.
Ó MAOILEARCA, L.C. and DIAS, L.C. (org.). Seção temática “Filosofia-Performance”. Revista Brasileira de Estudos da Presença [online]. 2020, vol. 10, no. 1 [viewed 02 September 2024]. Available from: https://www.scielo.br/j/rbep/i/2020.v10n1/
OLIVEIRA JR., R.J. Corpo Brincante: a presença travesti nas performances dos quilombos de Reisado. Revista Brasileira de Estudos da Presença [online]. 2022, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 1–30 [viewed 02 September 2024]. https://doi.org/10.1590/2237-2660118634vs01. Available from: https://www.scielo.br/j/rbep/a/r8WmFBC7L36MHrqFXhs4WmB/
SCHRICKTE, M., CHOULET, P. and BALARDIM, P. De cá pra lá, de lá pra cá: notas sobre a recepção teatral do espetáculo A Filosofia na Alcova. Revista Brasileira de Estudos da Presença [online]. 2022, vol.1, no.3, pp. 1–26 [viewed 02 September 2024]. https://doi.org/10.1590/2237-2660116195vs01. Available from: https://www.scielo.br/j/rbep/a/GZd6Rwg9zPbvNmktxnwKjfk/
External Links
Revista Brasileira de Estudo da Presença – RBEP: www.scielo.br/rbep
Revista Brasileira de Estudos da Presença: https://www.seer.ufrgs.br/presenca
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