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• 1 2024-01-12T08:09:56-08:00 Auto do Negrinho:
  Theater & Community Engagement 1 plain 2024-01-12T08:09:56-08:00

  Teatro Terreiro Encantado has produced one important theatrical production titled Auto do Negrinho (One Act Play of the Little Black Boy). The play is inspired by the literatura de cordel book Negrinho do Pastoreio (Little Black Boy of the Pasture) by Klévisson Viana. It is a production rooted in Afro-Brazilian popular traditions that provides a modern retelling of the Negrinho do Pastoreio legend, which is about a enslaved male child in the southern region of Brazil. The theater company uses the story of the young boy to offer audiences a deeper reflection about the contemporary genocide of Black youth, in particular those that live in the urban peripheries of Brazil's major cities. 
  
  The Auto do Negrinho play incorporates several popular traditions to provide a multilayered telling of this folktale, including the orality of the literatura de cordel (cordel literature) tradition, the drums and dancing of the congada, and the masks and puppets tied to the cultural practices of the Brazilian northeast. These folk traditions encourage the audience to participate and interact with the actors through call and response. A sacredness envelopes the play as the actors engage in a topic that is deeply personal to them and the audience members of the urban periphery. At the conclusion of a performance at the Espaço Clariô on May 15, 2022, Cleydson Catarina told the audience that joy and festiveness is a form of resistance and even to be alive is a form of resistance, which ties back to the play's power of using popular traditions rooted in ritual and celebration to address the urgent social issues that directly impact their communities. 
  
  Teatro Terreiro Encantado performs Auto do Negrinho primarily in community spaces and the shows are free to the general public. They have performed the theatrical piece in the Casa de Cultura (Cultural Center) in Campo Limpo, in the Espaço Clariô in Taboão da Serra, and in SESC community centers throughout São Paulo, including SESC Campo Limpo and SESC Interlagos. The theater company has also participated in cultural arts festivals in the urban periphery, such as the Gira Cultural Festival hosted by the AsSimétrica de Teatro Theater Company and the Circuito Cita Festival hosted by Espaço Cita.  Their mission is to use the performing arts as a vehicle to educate and empower their community, which means it needs to be accessible to all.