Abstract
On 29 March 2018, four performers opened one of the most anticipated productions of the 2018 Festival de Curitiba, the largest theatre festival in Brazil. Domínio Público had been commissioned by curators Márcio Abreu and Guilherme Weber, from four artists who had been at the center of controversial events throughout 2017. Wagner Schwarz’s La bête had been the target of vigorous attacks and accusations of pedophilia, after a video in which a child escorted by her mother touching the naked performer during a presentation at the São Paulo Modern Art Museum was widely disseminated online. Renata Carvalho had her play O evangelho segundo Jesus, rainha do céu censored and attacked in several cities across Brazil for performing Jesus Christ as a trans woman. Maikon K had been arrested by the police for nudity during a performance of his piece DNA de Dan. Elisabete Finger, the mother of the child who was allowed to touch Schwarz in the infamous video, and a choreographer and performance artist in her own right, delivers the final monologue. Domínio Público thus serves as a focal point to analyze the current conservative turn. Right-wing groups such as the Movimento Brasil Livre (MBL) have been instrumental in mobilizing protests, specifically targeting advances made in the fields of gender politics, human rights, and culture. In this essay I argue that these mobilizations operate by foreclosing the possibility of politics and replacing it with a constant state of policing, by attacking not only specific modes of knowing and being, but difference itself.
Published Version
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call