Drama Schools in Latin America: Where are Afro and Amerindian Languages?

Zeca Ligiéro Workshop:

Center for the Study of Afro-Amerindian Performance – NEPAA, UNIRIO, BRAZIL

Email: zeluco@hotmail.com

My main goal is to understand why changes in social and cultural life in Latin

America drove some countries to look at African and Amerindian identities, despite

that does not constitute a common trend in their educational curricula and methods,

which are essentially Eurocentric. My focus lays on the process of teaching and

learning theater. I will start the discussion by analyzing the history of Theater Schools

in Brazil, taken as an example the Drama School (Escola de Teatro) from the Federal

University of Rio de Janeiro - UNIRIO, where I have studied forty years ago and

where I have been working for the last 20 years. My research question is “Why, in

spite of a well established knowledge about the foundation of our country by the

three ethnic backgrounds — Europeans, African and Amerindians —, were our

schools created under the influence of just one of these three traditions?”. I will deal

with tradition and changing through Brazilian history and with the struggles of artists

and professors in relation to the ever increasing demands from the public power. I

believe this is a good example of the struggle between traditional methods of

bourgeois theater and other kinds of experimental theater, in both cases with little

vestiges of Afro and Amerindian traditions.

I believe that much of what happens in public schools, and particularly in the

Escola de Teatro, is similar to what happens in other schools and universities in

Brazil, and even in other countries in Latin America. It is possible that our particularity

is not as absolute as it seems at first sight. Our teaching principles were molded

during colonial times by Catholicism as republicans by French and English

standards, and lately by North-American values.

It is very common to say that the theater began in Brazil with the Jesuits. This

is the main textbook of the history of theater, from the most superficial to the more

grounded. Obviously we are talking about theater under the perspective of the

Western tradition, orthodox theater that originated in Greece. The spectacular Native 1

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events, in their multiple and complex celebrations and mythic narratives,

choreography and musical forms are not considered theater events, neither those

traditions brought by African slaves who began arriving in an increasing number

based on the powerful trio (singing/dancing/drumming). The first theater school in

Brazil, in an informal sense, was undoubtedly grounded by Father José Anchieta

(1534-1597); it was not exactly a teaching establishment as a meeting of academics

willing to share knowledge, but as a indoctrination school, in which theater was a tool

for conversion, subduing and framing indigenous to the new order imposed by the

crown. Clearly, Anchieta created an educational theater by means of which he taught

what was considered good and evil, what should be followed and what should be left

to the integration of the Indian people as farm laborers or servants of the new order

imposed by the Portuguese not used to the heavy work of the tropics. Being

impossible to know about the effectiveness of Father Anchieta in the conversion of

the savages, since there was no theater critic at his time or even any news on the

impact of these performances, we are left with his writings, literature of an ideology in

which a superior authority in name of God and the Crown teaches through a

pedagogical theater moral behavior, conduct patterns and right ways of living in a

society of irrefutable caste hierarchy.

During the colonial period until the transfer of the Portuguese court to Rio de

Janeiro in 1808, reports on the theater movement in Brazil are sporadic. Only with

the arrival of D. João VI, fled from the Napoleonic wars, the official cultural

movement, inherent to the aristocracy, is shaped in Brazil. In the first decades of the

nineteenth century, museums are built, schools of fine arts, theaters, botanical

gardens, etc. After all, the Rio de Janeiro became, even for a little over a decade

(1808-1821), the capital of the Portuguese Empire. European artists like Debret1,

Rugendas2, Spix and Martius3 portrayed a very expressive ethnic celebrations

among African slaves and Native Indians in Rio de Janeiro and its outskirts, some

reminded pageant and medieval street processions. However, theater critics to

historians ignored those rituals and celebrations as the origin of Brazilian theatricality.

The visits of theater and opera from Portugal, Italia, England and France became

1 DEBRET, Jean Batiste. Viagem Pitoresca e Histórica ao Brasil (1834-1839) 2 RUGENDAS, Voyage pittoresque dans le Brésil, 1835. 3 MARTIUS, Carl Friedrich Philipp in Jörg von Helbig (Hrsg.): Brasilianische Reise 1817-1820, Geburtstag. München 1994.

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frequent and the Portuguese elite and their offspring born in Brazil were to attend this

considered culturally superior entertainment.

In response to this imported theater, at the threshold of the second decade of

the century, Brazilian artists begins to stand out in the artistic capital and some

authors starts to portray the situation in Brazil with success. The theater movement in

Rio was already intense: authors such as Jose de Alencar, Coelho Neto, Machado

de Assis and Artur de Azevedo led to Rio’s daily life scenes, the way the Carioca

people behaved. A new tradition of review theater (teatro de revista), imported from

France and Portugal flourished in Rio de Janeiro, incorporating national brands which

included the rogue, the Portuguese and the mulata, and, of course, the black servant,

funny and bumbling, almost diabolical. In the early twentieth century, the clown, the

traditional figure of the European circus, is embodied by the Black artist named

Benjamin de Oliveira who became the most famous clown in Brazil and brought to

stage and ring circus classical pieces. Most importantly, Benjamin de Oliveira staged

his own plays, performing the life of average people in an accessible language. On

the other hand, especially concerning to language matters, actors from the "serious

drama" continued imitating the Portuguese accent in order to preserve the

sophistication of Lisbon — even though they have never set foot in Lisbon before —,

and as a result creating an outstanding contrast between the language spoken by the

elite and that one spoken on the street, so different in terms of syntax and prosody.

Despite the protests and fanfare, the theater only aroused to modernity in the

late 1930s. The Student Theater of Brazil and the Comedians provided a new

perspective on the theater industry in Rio de Janeiro, particularly concerning the

scene quality and more contemporary themes. These two theater companies

became informal schools focusing on actor training, the development of a national

drama and aspects of the set, lights and costumes. Meanwhile, European directors

were imported to educate Brazilians about the techniques of making the modern

European theater in Brazil. Influential references remained mainly French and Italian

theater. If the tradition of teaching drama was so far, as so was the case of circus, a

matter of family tradition passed either from father to son or from old masters to their

pupils, they began to be disseminated through the idea of training schools and

improvement among main theater companies, both in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo.

They made their workshops to create their own barns of artists who also nurtured the

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emerging labor market in the entertainment industry made up by the theater, the

radio, the circus and the cinema.

It is plausible to say that the very creation of the Conservatory Theater and the

Conservatory of Music, during the 1930s, under the dictatorial regime of Getulio

Vargas (1930-1945), provides the context for the start of pedagogical thinking of

theatre and music. However, it was still very common at that time that those more

experienced artists would work as makeshift teachers to teach the young their

occupation, since there was no academic training for teachers of drama. In 1937, the

first school of theater with only three disciplines (art of acting, choral singing and

choreography) has been created by the Practical Theater, which had its beginning

connected to the Service National Theater (SNT), a department of the Ministry of

Education. On September 17, 1945, a decree sanctioned by Getulio Vargas created

the Brazilian Conservatory Theater as an association with the University of Brazil.

However, since Vargas stepped down a month later, the decree was not fulfilled.4

Only 5 years later, in Vargas’ new mandate, but this time as elected president

(between the years 1950-54), the Course Practical Theater, with an expanded three

years curriculum and training for interpretation, was created officially as Conservatory

Theater.

The Conservatory brought together professional artists, such as actors,

playwrights, directors, dancers, and set designers who could then teach their craft

skills to the students. In fact, the Conservatory turned out to be one of the first federal

schools of theatre in Brazil. In 1964, a Coup D’ État set in the Right Wing Military

power, the Conservatory was removed to the building took from the National League

of Students (UNE), which was opposed to the regime. After burning UNE’s archives

and exterminated its memory, the military gave the building to the conservatories of

Theater and Music which were pledging for a proper building for a long time. The

building was partially renovated and after a military pressure, those professors who

were ideologically against the regime were expelled from the course by their own

4 Getulio Vargas stayed leading Brazil from 1930 to 1945, he implemented changes in the economy by

initiating the process of industrialization of the country and political by creating new political parties,

syndicates and thinking about educational and artistic programs. Because he stayed as dictator for so

many years, with the end of the era of dictatorship by the end of the II Great War he was replaced by

free election.

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colleagues. In spite of the pressure, this was a moment when the course expanded

and new disciplines were included, as well as that was when new professors joined

in. Three courses were established: Acting, Directing and Set Design. Thus, the

Conservatory became the main center for training actors, directors and set designers

in Rio de Janeiro and a reference model for the rest of the country.

In 1976, the Conservatory is transformed into Drama School and its

curriculum suffered new changes in order to make the courses more theoretical, in

accordance to the new requirements of the Ministry of Education for casting as BA in

theater. Later on, when the former Conservatory became a School of Drama

graduation course, a serious issue took place: none of its teachers had a degree in

theater studies, but in engineering, dentistry, and some have not even completed the

2nd grade yet, although they all had experience in professional theater. This was a

difficult step, because to work as a university, the courses must be more hours given

and had to adapt to the standard of official curriculum of Brazilian universities that did

not have much practical disciplines like those of which depends on the craft of

theater, such as improvisation, body language, dance, games, etc..

In this process of transformation of practical trainers into university professors

I would like to stress a very interesting point: because all the trainers were from

professional theater, the argument was that there were not professional teachers

graduated from other schools since this was the first one. Consequently, as a

practical solution, some trainers who did not have a graduation degree in teaching

became titular professor, the top position of academic career. In such circumstances,

none of the popular masters from capoeira, or samba, or griot was invited to

compose the team of professors — probably because of the solely influence of

European tradition on theater in Brazil.

The old Conservatory is now School of Theater UNIRIO and it is structured

into five distinct courses with a common basis: interpretation, direction, set design,

theatrical theory and pedagogical theater. Reflecting the new democratic times, the

pedagogical course stand out from others that had a recent curriculum reformulation

undergoing implementation, while other courses are still under discussion and

planning. The new degree course was developed from suggestions from all

departments, and written by a team of professors who thus have been able to adapt

the curriculum to new times and new demands considering and establishing

strategies for the training of professionals who are committed not only to their

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educational performance, but also to the awareness of their role and their creative

ability, trying to make research, artistic innovation and the formation of a more just

society possible.5

The new Pedagogical Theater course puts together the practices of various

sectors of theatrical activities, and assimilates the various trends of contemporary

theater. The course adopted the proposals of the majority of professors. It was

possible to start some thought about the integration of African and Amerindian

cultures, even in the absence of an official curriculum on these subject matters and a

specialized bibliography. There is also an absence of African-Amerindians

professionals hired by the university to new disciplines to replace old fashioned

courses such as Folklore to respond to the new demand of social changes. What

happened in Brazil probably is happing in countries like Bolivia and Colombia, whose

government also created new educational policies including Afro-Amerindian in the

school curricula.

The Decree Law 10.639 of 2003 which set the compulsory teaching of African

history and African-Brazilian culture in all schools, which was modified in 2008 to

11465 law to also include the history and Amerindian culture in the school created a

new parameter for educational standard in Brazil. This law crowns so many struggles

and works of different segments of Brazilian society and it strengthens community

and university groups such as the Center for the Study of Afro-Amerindian

Performance, created in 1998 by myself within the School of Theater UNIRIO in order

to promote African-Amerindian knowledge and aesthetics within the university.

However, the special decree is not clear about the entrance of those cultures into the

universities. In this case, the discussion’s emphasis is on how to regulate the

entrance of students with Afro and Amerindian descendencie through the creation of

a percentage of special vacancy for them. I have argued that although this is a very

important issue it does not solve the problem if their cultures continued to be denied

by the academic structure, and their traditional knowledge continued to be in the

limbo. They enter the university but had to abandon their home and native cultures

considered not valuable by Brazilian intelligence.

In spite of all de changes and new knowledge about the complexity of African

and Amerindian cultures there still are prejudices concerning to level them with

5 Curricular Reform Commission included the current Director of the School, José da Costa, and the professors: Adilson Florentino, Carmela Smith and Lucia Helena de Freitas.

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European traditions. Perhaps influenced by the concept that some cultures are more

“evolved” than others, many scientists and academics still insist on thinking the oral

traditions as primitive, and European cultures as the only benchmark. Undoubtedly,

this trend gained momentum with the educational policies implemented by the

pioneering first Vargas’ government (1930-1945). In 1937, at the launch of the first

project of a public university, the University of Brazil, President Getúlio Vargas did an

analysis of education in Brazil until that moment, noting the church's role in

acculturation of different agents in Brazilian civilization:

Only the evangelizing spirit and the virtues of faith can explain the miracle we

were able to amalgamate in colonial society, the disparate factors and our

primary formation - Indians in the Stone Age, African slaves in various stages

cultural and peninsular immigrants - all integrated in Christian civilization. With

the passage of time and experience it is easy to assess as it became a

profound and beneficial moral influence of this period, which still features the

faces of our institutions. (VARGAS, 1937:8)6

Here, Vargas sees how national culture has been homogenized by religious

principles; he points out no contradictions between them and does not distinguish

their differences in terms of a hierarchy. He emphasizes the issue of different cultural

stages, a belief that, no doubt, finds strongly support in the Evolutionary Theory of

Charles Darwin, widely accepted in Brazil. While the Amerindian and African cultures

are adjectives for a qualitative hierarchy, the third one is considered solely as the

immigrant culture, not coincidentally from the European colonizers. In other words,

Vargas sees it as a superior culture while the other two on inferior stages of

evolution. He also highlights how beneficial the moral influence of the colonial period

was, led by the hand rail of education exclusively Christian. It ignores both the

millions of Indians and Africans brutally murdered and the many turned into slaves,

the vast majority of cases, with the acquiescence of the religious power.

6 VARGAS, Getúlio. "Discurso do Presidente Getúlio Vargas" In: Programa Nacional de Educação,

Discurso do Presidente Getúlio Vargas e do Ministro Gustavo Belém, Rio de Janeiro: Arquivo do

Ministério da Educação e Saúde, p 1, 1937.

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Important to note that Vargas’s ideas remain in official speeches and even in

the curriculum in different school levels. Based on this conception rooted in Western

cultures, Latin American governments continued to isolate both the African and

Amerindian values out of our schools and universities. If the historical oppression of

these people away from the centers of decision-making and access to higher

education, their traditions are still seen today as a "cultural stage below”, often

identified as yet primitive religions or sects, and therefore unimportant as an

epistemological subject. Although anthropology and sociology have been busy

studying both quilombos and palenques as well as Indian tribes, communities, and

culture of these people, this does not exempt them from being still considered as

"others". They are no longer part of the body of the nation but of uncomfortable

isolated ghettos. They remained, in many cases, in the margin because the society

does not assimilate their knowledge and ignores their desires, they are also isolated

by the string of poverty and scarcity of human resources.

Vargas, in his administration, brought to the state the role of manager of public

education, which until then had been managed indirectly by teachers with a strong

religious background. Under the new constitution promulgated by him, education is

proposed to be equalitarian and free, at least in theory. His new educational policy

intended to appease the contradictions between the "great mass of illiterate" and the

“elite of scholars and researchers”, and he announces his strategy when he launched

the creation of the first public university in 1935:

We need to react in time against the moral indifference, against the habits of

the idle and parasitic intellectualism, against the divisive tendencies infiltrated

by a variety intelligences in young minds, responsible for the future of the

nation: we need, more urgently, give clear direction, construction guidelines

and uniform rules to educational policy, the most powerful instrument to use in

strengthening moral and economic (VARGAS, 1937:8).7

Seven decades after the creation of the first national university, the situation

has not changed much, or rather, educational policies have taken place without

major changes in the level of dissemination of knowledge for the Brazilian people

7 Ibidem.

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and, today, a crisis out of proportion and thoughtless for his time – the vast majority

of African and Amerindian descendants as a mass of poor semi-literate on one hand,

and a intellectual and wealthy elite, overwhelmingly descendants of the ancient

European immigrants on the other, a clearly defined set offered by Paulo Freire

(1983 ) and Augusto Boal (1979) as “the oppressors and the oppressed”.

The new university policy proposed by Lula government, dealing with

placement for Blacks and Indians, has generated much criticism. It is considered by

many sectors of society, especially by individuals belonging to different political

positions and paradigmatic classes, as imposing, authoritarian and retrograde, as the

fires again concept of race, much in vogue during the totalitarian regimes of the

1930s in Europe, and during the apartheid in 1960 in the U.S. and South Africa. The

word “race”, which has generated so much controversy in the twentieth century,

made the academy itself to drop, putting it in the category of "politically incorrect" to

extricate the speeches of possible Nazi-fascist or racist connotations. For this, he

adopted new approaches to post-modern, broader and less biased, as ethnic studies,

diasporic, multicultural, etc.

Because of the rapid political, economic and social stemming from the Lula

government in trying to change that awful picture it is possible to gradually realize the

integration of African and Amerindian cultures on a daily basis in our schools and

universities. In our school, more and more black students enter the classroom for the

first time to be the protagonists of their stories, as Boal suggests in his Theater of the

Oppressed. Research projects and university extension include support for the

struggles of the Indians to keep their lands and their cultures. Today, with a certain

distance, you can see that when thinking about a cultural revolution, was thought to

give voice to the oppressed as a class but not including their culture and their

traditions, they alleged that they were parts of his individualism. Perhaps the Cultural

Revolution in China was the most radical an unwished step in this direction. Today

we know the legitimacy of both individual and communal expressions, and we do not

want to homogenize them. The voice of the workers or peasants should preferably be

accompanied by their gestures, their dances, their expressive behaviors, their

performances and their religiosities. I believe that is the time for reflection.

Therefore, I ask: Why cannot the Latin America School of Theater open its

doors to African and Amerindian cultures, letting the scenic expressions of those

people who were subjugated by European colonists in our academy with not only

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their art but also their ancient knowledge, so strongly alive in their communities and

religious beliefs, civic festivals, yet so detested by the governments and public

authorities?

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOAL, Augusto. Teatro do Oprimido e Outras Práticas Políticas. São Paulo: Editora

Hucitec, 1979.

DA COSTA, José; FLORENTINO, Adilson; SOARES, Carmela e FREITAS, Lucia

Helena de. Proposta de construção do projeto político-pedagógico: tensões entre

rupturas e permanências. Maio de 2006, inédito.

FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia do Oprimido. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Paz e Terra. 1983.

VARGAS, Getúlio. Discurso do Presidente Getúlio Vargas in Panorama da Educação

Nacional, discursos do Presidente Getúlio Vargas e do Ministro Gustavo Capanema,

Rio de Janeiro: Ministério da Educação e Saúde, Realizações 1, 1937.