The aesthetic code in Dress Suits to Hire: aesthetic perspective, lesbian reception and visibility based on theatrical language.

• Grant number: 23/06825-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: September 01, 2023
• End date: August 31, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Arts - Theatre
• Principal Investigator: Lúcia Regina Vieira Romano
• Grantee: Rafaela Jacomini Souza
• Host Institution: Instituto de Artes (IA). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de São Paulo. São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research project's main objective is to examine the articulation of textual, corporal and audiovisual signs used in theater arts to deal with the lesbian community, taking into account aspects of the reception of the works by the public. With the intention of circumscribing some aesthetic bases of theater works that have the articulation of gender and sexuality as an approach, named by researchers such as Romano (2017), Sisley (1996) and Wang (2014) as Lesbian Theater, this research project takes as a case study a piece that marked the history of this way of doing things on stage: Dress Suits To Hire (1987), by the American group Split Britches. Thus, formal inventions and the creative process will be mapped in order to find differentiated scenic alternatives that are opened to the lesbian perspective. Theoretical productions, such as Lorde (2019), Rich (2010) and Grillo (2019), among others, will be used in order to highlight the importance of sharing and affection networks for counter-hegemonic collectives. The references will help to observe the value of creation in the arts for the expression of these subjects, in the construction of unique imaginaries and in the visibility of their expression in the world. In this way, this research project investigates theatrical art from its subversive power, which is capable of destabilizing concepts and discourses considered neutral in the theatrical environment, as a reflection of social blindness, but which carry harmful connotations to certain groups. It will also be examined how, by placing important issues of lesbian life on stage, the American group Split Britches, in Dress Suits To Hire (1987), established dialogues with the experiences of its audience, allowing the play to provoke identifications, which still reverberate today.