Fabulation as a device for bodies deprived of freedom

• Grant number: 23/08352-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: July 01, 2024
• End date: June 30, 2028
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Arts - Dance
• Principal Investigator: Maria Helena Franco de Araujo Bastos
• Grantee: Nailanita Prette
• Host Institution: Escola de Comunicações e Artes (ECA). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This doctoral research has as its central object of interest the development of fables created by bodies deprived of freedom inserted in a prison institution in the city of São Paulo. The fabulation will be based on contemporary dance moves by an expanded spectrum by highlighting gestures honed by addressing tensions in dance. In this context, practical laboratories will be proposed inside a female penitentiary. The methodologies applied are Performative Research and Crítica de Processo (Process Criticism), respectively one guided by practice and the other based on qualitative reasoning. The first, the references that guide the research are studies committed to the concept of necropolitics from Achille Mbembe (2018), studies of the body emphasizing Corpomídia Theory by Helena Katz and Christine Greiner (2005), another cut are feminist authors such as bell hooks (2017), Lélia Gonazalez and Grada Kilomba (2019), in addition to the control devices highlighted in Michel Foucault's studies (2021). The fabulation is based on the concept of Visionary Fiction by the writer, activist and educator Walidah Imarisha (2016). It is believed that fabulation in dance can be a political device for confronting and questioning the third largest prison system in the world, creating denunciations and criticisms aimed at questioning, breaking and debating the public policies of a system that is doomed to decay and the projection of personal and collective issues, by establishing a place to listen and recognize the stories of the participants, envisioning a post-prison life.