ABSTRACT
The author theorizes that the post-dictatorship generation responded to the state-imposed censorship under which it came of age by committing to research-driven and group theater practices as paths out of the authoritarian environment imposed by the regime. The analysis of this cohort’s education in the arts and early professional trajectories maps the generation’s interest in the country’s oral and written canons, emphasis on interdisciplinary training, experimentation with visual and dramaturgical languages, and rejection of realist aesthetics. These traits mark the pursuit of creative processes anchored in the application of national postcolonial theories of cultural appropriation, the confrontation of historical trauma through site-specific performances, the purposeful decentralization of the director’s authority, and the exploration of innovative performative frames and relationships with the spectator. This chapter details why and how the post-dictatorship generation developed a political voice that was different from that of their predecessors as it provides examples of the unequivocal presence of the legacies of the dictatorship in Brazil’s contemporary theater.
