2015 » Brazil » Student Section

BRAZIL: Shared LAByrinths

Brasília: Shared LAByrinths is the title and the concept which intend to trigger a reflection on the multiplicity of stage work, and to foster the sharing of experience, discoveries and understanding that take place in teaching laboratories. The name is suggested by one of the etymological meanings of the word “labyrinth”, which originates from “labor” (work), and “intus” (interior or a closed place). Brazilian researchers were invited to contemplate their differences as opportunities to build a national unit from the regional particularities. This perspective adopted for the Students’ Exhibit is aligned with the proposal from the Prague Quadrennial 2015 Commissionaire, presented in the title of this edition, SharedSpace: Music Weather Politics. The Curators’ Commission has appointed the theme “Politics” as the conceptual guide for the Brazilian Participants.

Aiming to broaden the study – developed in previous editions – regarding the Brazilian schools where performance design is taught, a communication platform called Brasil Labirintos Compartilhados (www.brasillabirintoscompartilhados.com) was created. This platform has allowed people to promote and share the development of projects.

Based on the guidelines from the national call for projects, the latter were presented in the form of notebooks, photos and videos – cartographic portfolios – in which the stage designs from different schools were inserted. It was given priority to the recording of the processes and steps of the creative actions of the scene drawing and space, valuing the interaction between students and educators, and not exactly the resulting works of art. It was suggested that schools sought regional references stemming from multiple forms of expression: short stories, poems, theatrical texts, and images, as well as current affairs in their regions, so as to investigate and interpret freely the theme “Politics”.

The Identity Cooperative Game available on the website allowed for all the institutions to take part in building the visual identity of Brasília: Shared LAByrinths. Each school created a symbol by means of a square grid (an empty stage), cut into three lines, forming a block to be colored with the virtual palette.

For the first time ever, Brasília (capital of Brazil) hosted an exhibit to select the projects to be presented during the Prague Quadrennial 2015. The exhibit’s curator was Professor Sonia Paiva, from the University of Brasilia, who turned the event into a national happening, together with the Stage Design Transdisciplinary Laboratory (LTC in Portuguese). The objective was to gather Brazilian teachers and students to discuss educational paths regarding performance design.