{"id":68350,"date":"2021-12-21T10:13:37","date_gmt":"2021-12-21T13:13:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=68350"},"modified":"2022-01-12T10:03:50","modified_gmt":"2022-01-12T13:03:50","slug":"the-racial-resistance-of-grupo-codigo-realistic-and-fictional-performance-in-japeri-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=68350","title":{"rendered":"The Power of Performing Arts in Brazil’s Racial Resistance: Grupo C\u00f3digo’s Realistic and Fictional Theater in Greater Rio de Janeiro"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

This article is the latest contribution to our year-long reporting project, \u201cRooting Anti-Racism in the Favelas<\/a>: Deconstructing Social Narratives About Racism in Rio de Janeiro.\u201d Follow our\u00a0Rooting Anti-Racism in the Favelas series here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Abdias do Nascimento<\/a> transformed his life into a fervent fight against racism. It was not enough for this great Brazilian intellectual to be an activist, politician, professor, journalist, artist, writer and playwrite. He was also an actor on an empty stage of representation. It was a period when white actors used makeup to darken their skin, because black characters were needed here and there. But the chosen actors had to “adapt” their acting to the character\u2019s ethnicity. “Acting out blackness,\u201d at that time, only meant wearing makeup, the famous \u201cblackface<\/a>,\u201d so widely criticized by black movements. It was 1941, and in very successful plays such as O Dem\u00f4nio Familiar<\/a> <\/em>(1857), based on a three-act comedy by Jos\u00e9 de Alencar<\/a>, or Iai\u00e1 Boneca<\/a> <\/em>(1938), written by Ernani Fornari<\/a>, the roles of black characters\u2014who obviously should have been interpreted by black actors\u2014were depicted as grotesque caricatures. White faces painted black.<\/p>\n

Returning from a trip to Lima, Peru, in 1941, Nascimento was determined to create theater that was 100% black. With this goal, the Experimental Black Theater (TEN<\/a>) emerged three years later in 1944, in Rio de Janeiro, proposing to rescue Afro-Brazilian cultural<\/a> values. His first students were recruited among blue collar workers, domestic workers, favela residents without defined jobs, as well as lower-class civil servants. In its first year of existence, TEN had close to six hundred students. However, its success bothered racists. Plays more faithful to our daily cultural reality, staged by the theater company\u2014such as Filhos de Santo<\/a> <\/em>(1948), by Jos\u00e9 Morais de Pinheiro, set in Recife and which intertwines issues of Afro-Brazilian religious mysticism from Candombl\u00e9<\/a> with the story of striking workers persecuted by the police, or even Black Angel<\/a> <\/em>(1946), written by Nelson Rodrigues<\/a>, with a plot focused on the marriage of a black man and a white woman\u2014were censored and persecuted, both by civil society and the media.<\/p>\n

Were it not for the Experimental Black Theater, which was ahead of its time, it is possible that the performing arts and other forms of cultural expression starring black men and women would be restricted to ghettos even today. It is certain, however, that Abdias do Nascimento\u2019s TEN is fundamentally connected to a great promoter of current black performing arts, which operates in Greater Rio’s Baixada Fluminense region: Grupo C\u00f3digo<\/a>. The theatrical group has deeply anchored political engagement and activism in the city of Japeri<\/a>\u2014a territory possessed of a dense political reality\u2014making it almost completely impossible to dissociate themselves from local reality through poetic, playful or escapist freedoms. Even if these are present in the script, inescapable daily life prevails.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Part of the inescapable daily life of Grupo C\u00f3digo, which turned 15 in 2020, is the goal of surviving with its cultural productions in these pandemic<\/a> times. Mainly formed by black and peripheral residents, the group is a mixture of theater company and workshop, NGO, and cultural center. Grupo C\u00f3digo has more than eleven shows in its repertoire, of which the vast majority are narratives constructed around Brazilian peripheral bodies, female and black, in their most varied dimensions. One might then ask: how can you create “fictional” elements from the daily life of characters who can barely detach themselves from a reality that extrapolates perverse elements such as racism, sexism, and the criminalization of poverty<\/a>? Can other realities besides these everyday occurrences and experiences serve as a laboratory? The collective seeks to break these barriers.<\/p>\n

A few of these concerns have already been researched. Grupo C\u00f3digo was one of the theater collectives included in Marina Henriques Coutinho’s doctoral thesis The Favela as Stage and Character, and the Challenge of the Subject-Community<\/a><\/em>, published in 2012. The thesis sought to understand artistic productions based on the various relationships between theater and community, and how this directly influences the creative processes developed through such relationships. As developed by theorists Jos\u00e9 da Costa and Cristophe Bident, the concept of “traversed theater<\/a>” arises from this involvement with the territory, with other media and artistic expressions\u2014dance, sound, video, music, new technologies, visual arts, etc.\u2014blending with theater. Performance locations are free: tents, shopping malls, train cars, public squares, streets, boats, buses, etc. From there, mechanisms are developed through specific actions such as the insertion of the social context in the dramatic and aesthetic structure, influencing the scenic-dramaturgical results of the spectacle.<\/p>\n

\"Members<\/a><\/p>\n

This is what happened with the enactment of Yaper\u00ed, That Which Floats<\/a> <\/em>(2017), an artistic conception of Ponto de Cultura Peneira<\/a>\u2014a Ministry of Culture-recognized organization that promotes multicultural practices\u2014in partnership with Grupo C\u00f3digo. Created in the form of a traveling drama, Yaper\u00ed<\/em> is a poem that honors the city and was performed in its streets with its final acts culminating in the main square, where aesthetics and symbology capture popular everyday elements, such as the vendors on the SuperVia trains<\/a>. In its debut, in August 2017, the collective creation happened between actors and members of the local population.<\/p>\n

Another show, Tracks<\/em><\/a>, came about through a public bid issued by industrial social service agencies SESI\/FIRJAN that sought new theater talents, and whose script was signed by playwright Suellen Casticini<\/a>, a resident of Mesquita<\/a>. In the narratives of female characters inserted in the universe of train vendors\u2014including nods to the prison system and to faith as a business\u2014we perceive selling as a lonely task, as one more addition to women’s second shifts. In the play, a male vendor who accidentally kills a co-worker is arrested and becomes a pastor. It’s a way of criticizing how certain churches influence power in some cities.<\/p>\n

\"Nil<\/a>Actress Nil Mendon\u00e7a performed in both Yaper\u00ed<\/em> and Tracks<\/em>. Born in Rio’s central region<\/a>, in the neighborhood of Est\u00e1cio<\/a>, Mendon\u00e7a’s family moved to Japeri when she was seven and she has remained in the city since. Mendon\u00e7a has been involved in artistic activities since she was a child. A resident of the Engenheiro Pedreira<\/a> district, which is still a rural area, she feels she missed out on opportunities which could have developed her cultural skills. She only rediscovered theater when she went back to school and met a teacher from Grupo C\u00f3digo\u2019s cast who offered workshops on site. Before acting, Mendon\u00e7a pursued writing in the newsroom of Japeri Online<\/a><\/em>, one of the region’s few media outlets.<\/p>\n

Asked about the two plays she was in, both of which analyze the reality of the Baixada Fluminense<\/a> and its population, and about the “non-distinction” between facts and “fiction” in the theatrical composition of certain characters she performed in Grupo C\u00f3digo plays, Mendon\u00e7a replied:<\/p>\n

“As an actress, you need to make choices about what to do in a specific role, what kind of research needs to be done… I prioritize the theatrical production of black women and black men from the periphery. Because it is important, within your artistic process, to define what you identify with. I prioritize the black and peripheral body that is active in that moment. Although I feel comfortable playing roles that are like my reality, I also believe we should occupy spaces that need to be occupied. We need to echo various theatrical forms available in the Baixada and Rio as a whole.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A Democratic \u201cSystem?\u201d<\/h3>\n

Russian actor and educator Constantin Stanislavski<\/a> (1863-1938) created a system for preparing actors’ and actresses’ performances that stimulates psychological realism and living out authentic emotions on stage. The method employs an excessive emphasis on emotional memory, reconstructing actors\u2019 personal experience as a function of acting. He concluded that the actor should strive, as much as possible, to represent real life. When role and actor connect, the role comes to life.<\/p>\n

There was no way Stanislavski could have envisaged his method being used by black actors and actresses from the peripheral regions of Baixada Fluminense, something unthinkable in his time. Neither was his method imagined for a non-white, non-European audience. However, it is undeniable that his system allows actors to explore the possibility of bringing together experiences provided by episodes of racial or class prejudice and the psychological construction of black and peripheral characters, performed by individuals from these territories. Actress Juliana Fran\u00e7a explains:<\/p>\n

“In the last works I participated in, fiction and reality unfortunately mixed a lot. It is always important to try to understand how far this reality can serve as material for creation. Reality is very harsh, and I always need to make sure that that specific character reflects a reality that is still very unequal, although that is not me. And, in this way, I manage to create some space so I can distance myself and have an outsider\u2019s view of what I’m creating and what I’m feeling… In a society where social markers are inscribed on one\u2019s body, I find it hard to disassociate one thing from the other. After all, this is a black woman’s body. My body is my own flag. Militancy happens in several, distinct ways; I believe change happens through small and through large cracks. So, when I’m working with a crowd that is mostly from Rio\u2019s South Zone and I propose that filming also take place in the area where I live, that is, in Japeri, Baixada Fluminense, and that actually happens, something breaks. A ‘de-localization’ happens.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In 2009, Fran\u00e7a was invited to join Grupo C\u00f3digo’s professional company. She has been in practically every one of the Group\u2019s performances since and has won awards at theater festivals as a supporting actress. In 2015, she began studying to break into the audiovisual market. In 2019, she starred in her first short film, Neguinho<\/a><\/em>, by Mar\u00e7al Viana for which she won over five awards for her performance. Scripted and directed by Viana, the film covers specifically the lack of representation<\/a>\u00a0and racial segregation in the school environment<\/a>. Inspired by a true story that happened in Duque de Caxias<\/a>, the narrative follows a teacher who asks a student\u2019s mother to cut her son’s afro, allegedly in the name of hygiene, since in the teacher\u2019s racist view the hairstyle is dirty. Hers is a form of social and aesthetic “cleansing.”<\/p>\n

Fran\u00e7a explains that to play Jessica, her character in Neguinho<\/a><\/em>, she created a list of songs she believed her character would like: \u201cBefore shooting, I would put on my headphones and dive into Jessica\u2019s world, which would then become my world too. Obviously after hearing ‘cut’ there were still some remnants left, but they were easier to dilute.”<\/p>\n

Goodbye to Rita Diva<\/h3>\n

The coronavirus<\/a> pandemic stirred the hearts and minds of the students, employees and collaborators of Grupo C\u00f3digo. Between planning and organizing humanitarian efforts, such as the distribution of basic foodstuffs that included bottled water, personal hygiene products and face masks, while also trying to balance the books through access to resources via the cultural promotion Aldir Blanc Law<\/a>, all members had to deal with the loss of Rita Diva. One of the founders of Grupo C\u00f3digo, Rita Diva was yet one more fatal victim of coronavirus and died in April 2021, at the age of 41.<\/p>\n

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Uma publica\u00e7\u00e3o compartilhada por Grupo Co\u0301digo (@grupocodigo)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n