Social theater of affections: on the power of theatrical arts to overcome oppressive school relations

Abstract

Considering, based on Vigotski’s reflections on the actor’s creative work, that character building can be a transformative experience in which the body and affections play a crucial role, we propose a scenic experience that transports such potentialities to social relations as a strategy for overcoming oppression at school. It is the Social Theater of Affections (TSA), the assumptions of which are based on Spinoza, Vigotski and Boal, especially on the concepts of intelligent emotion, catharsis, body, singular/universal dialectic and ethical-political suffering. As an example, we discuss a scenic intervention performed in municipal school aimed at confronting gender violence. The scenic actions place the actor as a dramatist and the audience as an actor, intertwining them in the feeling of the common and in the power to imagine and rehearse strategies to overcome oppressions crystallized in affections and social relations. Thus, in the creative act, individual suffering is transformed into collective action.