A Ritual Choreography: The Orishas' Steps in Sortilegio

Abstract

A Ritual Choreography The Orishas’ Steps In Sortilégio Leda Martins (bio) Until the early part of the twentieth century, the black presence in conventional theater projected a limited situation—that of invisibility. This was evident not only in the absence of black characters, but also by the distorted images of blacks that were elaborated by white imagination. The representational models that engendered and elaborated these images had their basis in a Eurocentric vision of the world in which the other, in this case the black, was only recognizable through the narcissistic look of the white “I,” staged as the sole, universal and absolute subject. Thus, in conventional theater, the course of the black persona define their invisibility and the unspeakable. Invisible, as was the hero of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, because they are perceived and elaborated, in spite of themselves, by a look that stigmatizes them in a series of stereotypes that negate and smother their otherness. Unspeakable, because the speech that constitutes them is produced through white discourse and reduces them to an alienating image that is imposed and ideologically conventionalized by Brazilian theatrical tradition. Until the 1940s, with rare exceptions, the figuration of blacks on the Brazilian stage assumed three predominant models: the submissive black, a type of tamed dog who was docile and passive; the pernicious and/or criminal element; and the black caricature, whose ridiculous and grotesque behavior motivated, and still motivates, laughter from the audience. In the theatrical game of mirrors the black appears as an image that is not only inverted, but opposite. The experience of otherness is thus reduced to the very negation of the other, projected as a simulacrum or an antonym of a narcissistic ego that desires itself to be omnipotent. Through these constant marks of the fictionalization of black characters, theatrical conventionality engendered a discourse of “knowledge” that put itself forth as truth. Brazilian theater, similar to cinema and television, mimicked the relations of power and oppression sustained in the society by finding support in an argument of authority that established a priori a pejorative value for the black sign. In the discourse of power that generates the discourse of knowledge, the experience of otherness is reduced to the negation and/or manipulation of the difference, and the scenic creation of the image of the black fits well with the values of a racist and discriminatory mentality. The Teatro Experimental do Negro (TEN)—(Black Experimental Theater)—was founded by Abdias do Nascimento in 1944. TEN was one of the most important achievements in the construction of alternative images and codes that sought to displace the black persona from the situation of object to that of subject, while [End Page 863] simultaneously showing the relations of power and discriminatory social practices that marked the possible “places” for blacks in Brazilian society. Until the mid-1960s, TEN carried out various artistic, cultural, and educational activities, such as literacy classes, acting courses, artistic competitions, conferences, debates, congresses, seminars, publications, etc., that had as a common theme the reflection on blacks in Brazilian society. The group’s numerous theatrical stagings were the most important of these activities. TEN staged dramas by Eugene O’Neill, Augusto Boal and Albert Camus, as well as various plays written especially for the company. Nine of these plays were included in an anthology, Dramas Para Negros e Prólogo Para Branco (Dramas for Blacks and Prologue for Whites) published in 1961. TEN sought to transform the representation of blacks on the Brazilian stage through stagings and productions that created an alternative diction and enunciation that broke with traditional models of fictionalization and presentation of black subjects and culture. The following testimony of Abdias do Nascimento highlights the objectives delineated by TEN: What is TEN? In terms of its aims TEN constitutes a complex organization. It was fundamentally conceived of as an instrument of redemption and revindication of black African values. These values were oppressed and/or relegated to an inferior plane in the context of so-called Brazilian culture where the emphasis is on elements of white European origin. Our theater would be a laboratory of cultural and artistic experimentation whose work, action and production explicitly and...