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• 1 2024-01-12T08:09:54-08:00 Performance, Politics, and the Popular
  Performance, Política, e o Popular 9 plain 2025-01-03T13:13:32-08:00 Teatro Terreiro Encantado challenges notions of performance as framed by Western, white traditional theater. For the group, the performing arts are rooted in the political, in particular when framed by the the popular traditions of Afro-descendant communities in Brazil that take place in public spaces like the street, the square, and the local neighborhood. 
  
  In an interview with Rádio Busão (a mobile communications and media network based in São Paulo's periphery), Cleydson Catarina, the director of Teatro Terreiro Encantado defines what is performance for him as it pertains to the popular traditions tied to his ethnic identity:

   

  Esse local da rua para mim é um local de ocupação política, né? Por isso que eu não acredito no conceito performance porque a performance existe ante esse conceito branco, né, e é engraçado o conceito todo inspirado no popular, o rito...uma mulher preta na Bahia, né? Eu fico vendo essa imagem, levanta os quitutes. Isso é uma performance, né? O maracatú que faz seus rituais todo por detrás para botar seu mito na rua. Isso é uma performance. ¹

  That location of the street for me is a space of political occupation, right? That's why I don't believe in the concept of performance because performance exists within that white concept, right? And it's funny that the concept is completely inspired by the popular, the ritual...a Black woman in Bahia, right? I keep seeing that image she puts her snacks up for sale. That is a performance, right? Maracatú that does its rituals in secret to place its myths in the street.  That is a performance (author's translation). 

  Black Brazilians occupying public spaces like the street is a political act due to the fact of them being alive and existing in spaces that have a history of anti-Black violence and social oppression. In these same spaces, they have developed popular traditions (foodways, religious rituals, festivals) that not only allow them to survive, but engage in cultural practices that preserve and share their histories. Performance, therefore, is not a staged dance or theater show, but everyday practices and customs by Afro-descendant populations that preserve the essence of their ethnic identity in the face of white supremacy. 
  
  Teatro Terreiro Encantado's orientation as a theater group is rooted in this type of performance - Afro-descendant popular traditions found in public spaces - that is inherently political due to their assertion of traditions that value Black culture. The performance of these traditions focused on the experiences of Black youth in the periphery highlights how the political cannot be separated from the popular within the context of these historically marginalized Brazilian communities both in São Paulo's periphery and other regions with large Afro-descendant populations.

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  Footnotes

  1. Santos, Juliana, host. "Entrevista com Cleydson Catarina." RÁDIOBUSÃO, episode 10, 8 May 2023, https://open.spotify.com/episode/1K3pI3ee8xb2iRANFgO0Pv?si=5f8100ba333a4a13.↵