Circus art and biographical processes

• Grant number: 17/26412-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: November 01, 2018
• End date: January 24, 2020
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Social Psychology
• Principal Investigator: José Francisco Miguel Henriques Bairrão
• Grantee: Giovana Tecchio Tonini
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto (FFCLRP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Ribeirão Preto , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The history of the classical circus is about the resourcefulness of the fantastic and the place where the impossible lives. Despite the richness of circus play, it has been perceived that with the advancement of technologies and reaffirmation of contemporaneity, like other arts, it has suffered marginalization and forgetfulness. Faced with this, a woman from a peripheral district of Ribeirão Preto introduced a social circus project in her neighborhood, proposing to teach circus practices for marginalized children and youth. The attitude of the idealizer of the group reflects resistance not only to the failure of the practice, but to the life of children and youth: it represents a space of contact to the arts, not encouraged by the periphery in which they are immersed or by Brazilian public policies, which do not contemplate demands that are sometimes so essential to this public, such as dignified safety and health, and less artistic ones. This study aims to investigate how the circus affects the lives of these children and what expresses symbolically for the author of the project. Data collection will be done through unstructured interviews and notes in a field diary, pertinent to visits to the weekly activity space; will have as artificial pillars of the ethno-psychoanalytic method, as participant listening, and of the biographical method. Regarding the analysis, fundamentally psychoanalytic principles will be taken into account in order to listen to the (many) dimensions of individuals. It is hoped that this research will contribute to the dissemination of the knowledge of circus art and, above all, as it influences the subjectivity and biographical identity of the juvenile protagonists and the author of the project.

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

GIOVANA TONINI; JOSÉ FRANCISCO MIGUEL HENRIQUES BAIRRÃO. PRESENÇA E PROPÓSITO DO CIRCO SOCIAL: UMA INICIATIVA POPULAR AUTÔNOMA. Psicologia & Sociedade, v. 33, 2021-10-25. (17/26412-4)