Brazilian Political Theatre: Aesthetics and Engagement

This book retrieves the narrative and social context of Brazilian historical performances and artistic movements to restore, with the support of a vast literature review, aesthetic analysis and the debate around engagement, the due complexity to the multifaceted concept of political theatre. Broadening the perspective, it addresses one of the most significant contemporary resonances of such an itinerary: Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed, challenging canons of the role of performers and spectators. The research also seeks, by refusing pamphleteering or professorial responses, to shed light on the contested actuality of theatre's social function, especially after the extreme right wave that has been testing the usefulness of traditional institutions.


About the Author
Jos? de Ipanema is a Brazilian actor graduated from the Federal University of Cear?, Fortaleza. With a PhD from the University of Cologne, Germany, he has a Master's degree in Performing Arts from UNI-RIO, Rio de Janeiro. He is also an author, researcher, and theatre producer with research interests in performativity, identity, theatre of the oppressed, and political theatre.