Sensitive Sharing and the Corda de Nó(s) Emancipation and Autonomy in the Teaching of Arts

ABSTRACT

This article proposes to discuss the aesthetic and poetic praxis in the performance art Corda de Nó(s),¹ based on theatrical and visual narratives directed towards intellectual emancipation and the expansion of the sensibility from the teaching experience within a municipal public school unit, in the city of Palmas (TO). This study focuses on a qualitative methodology of oral and exploratory narrative as well as the researchers’ field notebooks, prepared during the activities referred to in this text, in conjunction with bibliographic studies, on the concepts of preparation, development and conclusion of the lesson plan of Arts discipline, based on universal education, as proposed by Jacques Rancière.

KEYWORDS:
Arts teaching; Elementary school; Sensitive sharing; Jacques Rancière

RESUMO

O presente artigo propõe discutir a práxis estética e poética na performance arte Corda de Nó(s), com base nas narrativas teatral e visual direcionadas para a emancipação intelectual e para a ampliação do sensível a partir da experiência docente de uma unidade escolar pública municipal, da cidade de Palmas (TO). Esse estudo debruça-se em metodologia qualitativa de narrativa oral e exploratória e nos cadernos de campo dos pesquisadores, elaborados durante as atividades a que se refere este texto, em articulação com estudos bibliográficos, nos conceitos de preparo, desenvolvimento e conclusão do plano de aula da disciplina Artes, baseado no ensino universal, tal como proposto por Jacques Rancière.

PALAVRAS-CHAVE:
Docência em Artes; Educação básica; Partilha do sensível; Jacques Rancière

Introduction

This article is the result of the Projeto de iniciação científica [Scientific Initiation Research Project] (PIBIC-UFT)² of the first author,³ under the guidance of the second author. The research problem emerged from the authors’ concerns about the perception of the dichotomy between: 1 - a teaching approach primarily and exclusively (or at least primarily) focused on the teacher, their personal desires, beliefs, and pedagogical choices; and 2 - teaching centered on the processes of teaching and learning, the worldviews of the participants, and the relationships experienced both inside and outside the classroom by the students.

Indeed, theater in education emerges as a field of sensitive, aesthetic, and political knowledge for the human development of individuals. This ultimate objective is what we recognize as crucial for the integration of art into the school, as Ingrid Koudela (2008, p. 52) asserts. Koudela (2008) understands that in theatrical performance, there are components that allow for the disruption of patterns and systems conveyed through theatrical symbolism.

Theater in education, beyond character development, enables students to engage in a broader universe than just performance, providing them with a foundation for the development of other aspects of theatrical language: stage design, costume, sound design, lighting, physical expressions, among others. This contributes to giving meaning to the world of stage, as mentioned by the teacher and researcher (Koudela, 2008). Building upon what was mentioned by Koudela (2008), Spolin, 2010 [1985] asserts that,

The reality of communication is much more important than the method used. Methods change to meet the needs of time and place (...) techniques are not mechanical devices - a bag of neatly labeled tricks to be pulled out by the actor when needed. If the actor is not highly intuitive, such rigidity in teaching that neglects inner development will invariably be reflected in the performance. When an actor “feels in the flesh” that there are many ways to do and say something, techniques will come (as they should) from the total self (Spolin, 2010 [1985], p. 20).⁴

The aforementioned study arises from concerns about the teaching practice in theater during the education of the first author of this article in the Bachelor’s degree program in Theater at the Federal University of Tocantins - UFT. These concerns include a) the distancing of theatrical practices from the signs present in the sociopolitical reality of the students and b) the understanding of staging as the only possible outcome for theatrical practice.

The dichotomy about which we talked reveals the discrepancy between the symbolic goods (Béra & Lamy, 2015) that underpin teaching practice, namely, what is positively valued as choices for the classroom, and the symbolic demand from students, stemming from their daily needs. Such misalignment clearly generates a symbolic economy (equation) that overly favors the maintenance of alienating and dominant (not to mention oppressive) discourse and practice by some teachers in relation to students.

In summary, what this text accomplishes is the construction of insights into some possible relationships between art education in basic education - with a focus on visual arts and theater as primary references - emancipation, politics, and the personal development of basic education students, as well as the expansion of teacher sensibility.

This last aspect is considered from the premise that the art teacher must develop listening and a sensitive view as an impulse for the formation of their own autonomy and intellectual emancipation because “only an emancipated person is untroubled by the idea that the social order is entirely conventional; only he can scrupulously obey superiors that he knows are his equals” (Rancière, 1991, p. 109).⁵

The relevance of this emancipation for the calm listening that Jacques Rancière speaks of in teaching practice centers on the fact that there is an educational-political-social system that precedes the teacher and often places them in a condition of necessary subservience. However, there are at least two paths to follow: 1 - blind and unconditional acceptance of the system’s demands; 2 - Partial adoption, critical engagement, and filled with resistance and confrontations against the alienating demands of the system.

1 A Corda de Nó(s): The First Knot

We understand that the teaching practice of an arts/theater education professional is associated with the signs that permeate them as individuals (social, political, and creative). In this sense, for the supervision of the Internship discipline in the Theater Teaching Bachelor’s program at UFT, attended by the first author of the mentioned article, the choice was made to “bring to the students’ reality a proposal that goes beyond a mundane art practice, one that imparts new meanings to the students, providing them with new senses and perceptions”⁶ (Cassiano, 2018-2023, s/p).⁷

Indeed, the school unit where teaching activities were conducted is maintained by the municipal public administration and is located in Palmas, Tocantins. It is situated in a peripheral area of the city’s master plan. The streets surrounding the school lack pavement, and deficiencies in access to basic sanitation, public electricity, traffic signs, and public transportation can be observed. The school operates on a full-time education regime.

In line with what we mentioned above, we highlight some points that drew our attention in the empirical case we are using as a basis in this text: at the back of the school, there is a garden that remains green and well-maintained even under the intense sun. This work is carried out by the students. The sports court is cleaned by the school’s cleaning team with the assistance of the students. According to them, that space is the only one where they can play and kick a ball without the intense sun. As the days went by, we could see this proactivity being reflected in various situations, from helping us carry materials to the teacher’s room to assisting us in organizing the classroom for our studies. It was evident the strong sense of pride among the students, both boys and girls, with impeccable hair and clothing. It was a common practice for boys to make mandatory stops to apply gel to their hair, and for girls to touch up their makeup. It is essential to respect the characteristics of this space without attempting to colonize it.

In juxtaposition to this understanding, the name Corda de Nó(s) emerged from an experimentation in visual arts by the first author, in which he draws on affective relationships stemming from his relationship with his maternal grandmother.⁸ “Each knot represents a memory lived with my yabá ,⁹ and each one of them is singular with its own meaning, the smell of freshly brewed coffee, the taste of pumpkin sweet”¹⁰ (Cassiano, 2018, n/a).¹¹ The artist further asserts that,

Just like me, many of those students were raised by their grandmothers. (...) I understand that upbringing ceases to be alive and political when confined to the dungeon of selfishness; bringing it into experimentation with the students, providing new perspectives and interpretations, is a way to keep it alive ¹² (Cassiano, 2018-2023, s/p).¹³

The Corda de Nó(s) comes into play as a pedagogical proposal following a survey called¹⁴ “What do I want to say to the world”?¹⁵ In which students were encouraged to express what they would like to convey and communicate about their daily lives to the school community and the world through art/theater. In this direction, the pedagogical praxis aligns with the proposals of Augusto Boal (1991) in his renowned book Teatro do oprimido e outras poéticas políticas [The Theater of the Oppressed and Other Political Poetics] and with educator Paulo Freire in his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed (2000),¹⁶ which is based on autonomy proposals for an education that fosters humaneness capable of embracing differences. Barbosa (2008) mentions in this regard that,

The training of an Art teacher, therefore, has this peculiar character of dealing with the complex issues of production, appreciation, and reflection of the individual themselves, the future teacher, and the transposition of their experiences with Art into the classroom with their students. In addition to this peculiarity related to the subject matter, it is also necessary to provide opportunities for the future teacher to get to know the other individuals in the process: the children, the youth, their students. To understand how they grow and relate to the social and cultural environment. How they establish communication and develop languages and expressions (Barbosa, 2008, p. 157).¹⁷

Methodologically, we start from the study of two works by Rancière, namely, The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation (1991)¹⁸ and The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible (2005),¹⁹ and we illustrate the theoretical reflections with a teaching experience of the first author, problematized by the second author of this text. The illustrative data was constructed through oral and exploratory narrative, a method that aims to “identify and obtain evidence about objectives that individuals are not conscious of but that guide their behavior”²⁰ (Lakatos, 2003, p. 79).

It is also worth highlighting the use of a logbook constructed by the first author as a research instrument. Thus, throughout the text, excerpts from this logbook will corroborate the weavings embraced here. The illustrations consist of presenting the experiences lived in the classroom: their reasons, choices, and outcomes, as well as the social context that shapes the institutional reality and the surroundings of the school in focus.

The introduction of the Corda de Nó(s) into the classroom followed a carefully planned course. Initially, materials of various textures, characteristics, and shapes were placed in the corner of the room to encourage a sensitive gaze towards the world, based on autonomy, and what Rancière (2005) points out as the desire for autonomous learning. The rules for this course were: “The materials at the back of the room can be used by you if you want and when you want during the Art class; you can also take them home if you prefer” (Cassiano, 2018-2023, s/p).²¹ This guidance was provided to the students when they inquired with the facilitator about the purpose of the materials present there.

According to the artist Lygia Clark (2006), the aesthetic experience occurs at the moment of contact and the signs and meanings that emerge from it. Clark states that “I invent nothing on my own: inventions are born in twos, in threes, in a common exchange of dialogue, which is what I have managed to propose that is closest to life. I share the proposition and accept the invention of others”²² (Clark, 2006, p. 355). Based on what Clark (2006) proposes, can it be said that the school is prepared for an art education based on autonomy?

Clark’s space is not one of spectacle as a performance to be seen, but an action to be experienced. It is a shared, activated, and perceived space-time by the participants. These are forces interacting and constantly assuming renewed expressive forms. The experiences are limited to small groups of initiates who immerse themselves in a process of relationships with their own meaning. This is where the originality of this work lies: intimate, minimalist in material terms, but rich in psychosensory production (Milliet, 1992, p. 130).²³

At the end of one of the classes, the students decided to investigate the materials left at the back of the room. In a third moment, within the same context, the students came into contact with the corda de nó(s), or the first time, which is of fundamental importance for the illustrations and analyses we will conduct in this text. Still in the classroom, after several questions about what that object was, what its function was, and how it was made, we began exchanging playful and aesthetic experiences about the art object (how and why it was constructed/created). We highlight the following statements from students about the object: “How strange!”, “I liked it, I found it beautiful!”, “Is this art?”, “It reminded me of my aunt’s clothesline!”, “Does this require work?”, “I can do it!”.²⁴

Figure 1
An artist-teacher sharing their experiences of constructing the white patchwork rope with the elementary school students. In the classroom, there were the class teacher and the art teacher, as well as the internship supervisor at the school. Collection: Researcher’s collection (Cassiano, 2018),²⁵ Logbook: Meanings and Permissions in Art, Theater, and Creative Process Teaching. n/a). (2018)

Thus, a process of creative investigation was established between the teacher-mediator and the students, and an artistic relationship between individuals who are experiencing the process of creating art in the formal classroom setting. We understand that the experience of art in education should encompass what is significant to the students (memory, affectivity, senses). In this direction, Rancière (1991, p. 56) points out that:

A professor is neither more nor less intelligent than another man, and he generally presents a great quantity of facts for the researcher’s observation. But there is only one way to emancipate. And no party or government, no army, school, or institution, will ever emancipate a single person (Rancière, 2002, p. 102).

Furthermore, regarding this segment of the experience, it is worth highlighting the students’ interest in collectively making another knot rope, considering what was meaningful to them. We then began the collective production of a white patchwork rope, a color chosen by them, which would later be wrapped around the “guardian,” as we will discuss further This experience, from the outset, leads us to understand how fruitful the intertwining of the artistic experiences of art teachers and what they propose as experiences for students can be. As the teacher makes themselves available to students through the contextualized exposure of their creation, they make artistic creation much more symbolically accessible to students because they are a social pair with whom daily life is shared.

We turned to the playful imagination and affective memory of the students to expand their social and political perception experienced in school and in other spaces. We instructed them to express on a blank sheet of white paper something they would like to say, communicate, speak, “tell the world.” It is worth noting that this was the only prompt given about the activity up to that point. This was done to avoid any kind of “contamination” or theoretical or world perception induction beyond what the students had already developed.

Art in education should, first and foremost, be a stimulus for free thinking and self-expression based on individual and collective human foundations, imbued with the ethos and knowledge of the student, culminating in a human formation that, in turn, becomes organic material (aesthetic, emotional, and poetic) for artistic experience (Cassiano, 2018-2023, s/p).²⁶

With this activity, we sought the expression of affectivity in feeling (oneself, oneself in the world, the world) from the perspective of the sensible. “(...) in trans-viewing²⁷ what one wants to say to the world through artistic narratives, in addition to the development of creative expressiveness” (Cassiano, 2018-2023, s/p),²⁸ the formation of a process of refining aesthetic-poetic sensibility is also sharpened. Some students chose to draw instead of writing. Not ask to write or draw, but on orienting them amply on what would be done, made it possible a plurality of expressions based on the symbolic reality of each participant.

After expressing the “silenced voice” from the realm of playful imagination to tangible material, what to do with it? The possible paths suggested by the students as ‘solutions’ to these issues were directly related to their way of seeing, being, and thinking about the world around them. “Some students proposed holding a meeting with the teachers to talk about how they feel about the shouting or the lack of empathy.” (Cassiano, 2018-2023, s/p).²⁹

We understand, then, based on this experience and iteratively, that art in education is closely related to the lived and experienced world of the student, for if the student cannot emancipate themselves from within, according to Rancière (2005), it will not be traditional forms of art that will do so. By traditional forms, the author refers to teaching and learning processes, even in art, based on the centrality of the teacher, with them being the holder of knowledge as the sole and dominant form of knowledge.

We bring the focus of the art mediation process to the students and everything that surrounds them, urging them to reflect and experience the world through their own perspective, and then “trans-view” through a collective perspective. But before turning to the things of the world, students need to be returned to themselves, as someone who, through artistic experience, can experience themselves in the world in ways that everyday life does not allow (Sampaio, 2017). Gaining self-confidence, making their voice heard. Having the confidence to resist in the world is a path to the encounter with oneself, as Sampaio (2017) mentions, in the direction pointed out by Rancière (1991).³⁰

2 The Corda de Nó(s): A Second Knot - Sensitive Sharing

Building on this initial experience of students (fabrics and chair), in the subsequent classes, as a means to facilitate the construction and development of the participants’ knowledge regarding performance art, and with the aim of critically reflecting on the social and political situation experienced by these students in society, we proposed the development of the performative action with which we began this text: “What do I want to say to the world?” This path serves the objective of enabling the social and political expression of students, the ‘silenced voice,’ leading them to perceive the society in which they are situated and their particularities within the whole.

What the students wanted to convey to the world at that moment involved issues related to domestic violence, corruption, poverty, hunger, and other social hardships. Following their statements, we discussed the possibility of creating art based on our memories and emotions. In other words, their ‘desires for the world’ could become triggers for an art creation if they wished.

We created a white rope made of various woven patches, as mentioned earlier. Afterward, the students chose a “guardian of the class” to carry the “silenced voices” that would be expressed to the world. Each student intertwined their expressed desires into the rope, which had previously been wrapped around the student chosen democratically as the class guardian. “[...] atomic and attentive to all commands given, full of a repressed desire for expressiveness, their bodies were alert, as were their fixed and attentive eyes to each new piece of information” (Cassiano, 2018, s/p).³¹

Figure 2
Students in the process of constructing and (re)performing the work proposed by the artist-teacher Coda de retalhos branca [Patches of White Rope]. In the classroom, there were the class regular teacher and the art teacher who also supervised the internship at the school. Collection: Researcher’s collection (Cassiano, 2018, Logwork: Meanings and Permissions in Art, Theater, and Creative Process Teaching. n.d.). (2018)³²

We understand that by choosing the guardian, a ludic and emotional human relationship was established between ‘my individual desire’ and the ‘individual desire of the other’ in the proposed activity. This already suggests social sharing and sharing of the sensible. Trusting a guardian with their ‘desire to express to the world’ is also an attempt to develop trust in humanity, thus establishing human relationships from a plural and collaborative perspective.

It is worth noting that for this type of ‘sharing’ to occur during classes, a strong establishment of trust between students and the teacher-mediator is necessary. After one student expressed a desire to never go hungry again, other students, having established the necessary trust, were motivated to express new and more intimate wishes: “I wish to never be beaten by my father,” “I wish for the school to have air conditioning in the classroom because the principal’s office has it and ours doesn’t,” “I wish to become a soccer player,” “I wish to buy a house for my mother.”³³ During this stage, students began to gain a strong and assertive ability to communicate what they wanted to express.

Amidst this range of expressions, a student said, “I wish the school had decent food because there was a larva in our food today.”³⁴ From there, a political movement among the students emerged. They stopped thinking about personal wishes and began to understand the need to also consider the collective. From that moment on, they started raising various issues within the school, such as the lack of cold water, a shortage of cleaning materials, mistreatment they experienced from various parties (administration, teachers, cooks, and caregivers). This activity allowed us to see even more clearly that the importance of sensitive teaching lies precisely in the possibility of creating protagonists of their own learning process and, above all, of human formation. In this sense, we understand that:

The democratic distribution of the sensible makes the worker into a double being. It removes the artisan from ‘his’ place, the domestic space of work, and gives him ‘time’ to occupy the space of public discussions and take on the identity of a deliberative citizen. The mimetic act of splitting in two, which is at work in theatrical space, consecrates this duality and makes it visible. The exclusion of the mimetician, from the Platonic point of view, goes hand in hand with the formation of a community where work is in ‘its’ place. (Rancière, 2005, p. 40).³⁵

After listening to the students, we resumed the proposed activity with the agreement to return to the situation of the larva found in the food. After individually reading their wishes, we asked each one to place their wish on a part of the body of the guardian (wrapped in the Corda de nó(s)) that they felt corresponded to their wish, based on the provocation: “where in your body is the strength to express your wish?”³⁶

With this done, we moved on to a stage of expanding the sensitive gaze. The guardian of the classroom was disentangling herself from the fabric weave observed by all of us while reading each wish from the students, thus creating an aesthetic image, based on personal poetics, developed collectively. The importance of this stage of highlighting the wishes is linked to Rancière’s idea (1991)³⁷ that the mediator should help the other to awaken to the oppressive mechanisms that occur when there is no real perception of the place where one lives, or the situation in which one lives.

By considering the private space of desires, but above all, the social space of desires: the school, in our case, allowed the students to turn their attention to what they had been experiencing but had no space for expression. The metaphorical activity showed the door, but never turned the doorknob. This is part of the students’ choice, as they could have chosen any other theme to guide their wishes. At the moment when the guardian reads the wishes, disentangling herself from the fabric of the ropes, she returns the students to themselves, an essential function for us in the teaching of Arts. (SAMPAIO, 2017).

3 The Corda de Nó(s): Third Knot - Recontextualization of the Sign in Aesthetic and Poetic Expression

For Rancière (2005),³⁸ the expression of affective and poetic playfulness, through an aesthetic narrative, develops from the sharing of the sensible. Based on this principle, we asked the students if they would like to share with their class what they had created on their papers. Some students, even embarrassed, chose to share their production. From this stage on, construction became effectively collective. We chose this path believing that the “[...] student needs to understand himself in his process of expression individually so that he can enter the collectivity” (Cassiano, 2018-2023, s/p).³⁹ Some students, even though embarrassed, chose to share their production. From this stage onwards, the construction became truly collective. We chose this path believing that the student needs to understand themselves in their process of expression individually in order to enter into collectivity.

In the same vein as Rancière, Vianna (1990, p. 34) states that “the teacher is a midwife; they help the student bring forth what they have to give,” which aligns with Rancière’s proposition about the equal intelligence among humans. Vianna also points out that “abortion exists” in relation to the student’s creativity, as he believes that “many teachers kill the artist in the classroom” (Vianna, 1990, p. 32).⁴⁰

Rancière emphasizes the need for a sensitive teacher who doesn’t act with indifference toward the knowledge and wisdom related to the students’ everyday lives. It’s through the positive appreciation of these knowledge and wisdom that the sharing of the sensible becomes possible. It is from the students’ everyday experiences that the idea of sharing can emerge more strongly. According to Rancière (2005, p. 7).⁴¹

I call the distribution of the sensible the system of self-evident facts of sense perception that simultaneously discloses the existence of something in common and the delimitations that define the respective parts and positions within it. A distribution of the sensible therefore establishes at one and the same time something common that is shared and exclusive parts.

If the students’ everyday experiences are rejected or underestimated by the teacher, they will certainly not find emotionally, symbolically, and communicatively strong enough structures to enter the space of expression that interests us in this text. After all, languages as a form of communication and our everyday experiences are so intertwined that it’s impossible to separate them without partially silencing the person. Without our everyday lives as a reference, we lose our ability to assume social positions that favor our discourses and actions.

In the same vein, for Rancière (1991, p. 39):⁴² “What stultifies the common people is not the lack of instruction, but the belief in the inferiority of their intelligence.” When we lose our everyday experiences, we tend to lose each other as partners in knowledge. The chain of meanings that we build with and from others we relate to is broken, as Vygotsky reminds us in the words of Bock, Furtado, and Teixeira (2002). Therefore, we are compelled to recognize the role of an arts teacher, regardless of the artistic language in focus, as a qualified mediator of knowledge and not as the holder of absolute and unshakable knowledge, techniques, and aesthetics. This doesn’t mean they are not knowledgeable about techniques and aesthetics or that they shouldn’t use them to expand students’ repertoires and skills. However, they should not prioritize these over individual and collective expressions that may and should emerge in the art classroom.

In line with the positive valuation of everyday life, the notion of universal teaching proposed by Rancière guided all stages of research. Universal teaching, according to the author, “is based on the opposition between science and ignorance.” (Rancière, 1991, p. 14), aiming for intellectual emancipation with a focus on the equality of intelligences and emotions. It emphasizes that ignorance is associated with the brutalization perpetuated by traditional educational practices within school contexts and their hierarchies. Rancière addresses the idea that brutalization occurs through egoism when one believes they can actually teach someone. The philosopher breaks with these traditional principles by placing the teacher and student on an equal footing in the processes of knowledge construction. Therefore, “this is the first principle of universal teaching: one must learn something and relate everything else to it.” (Rancière, 1991, p. 20).

This statement deserves special attention. We must not forget that, even though we understand the equality proposed by the philosopher, teachers and students occupy different social positions in educational-artistic processes, in which they establish games of signification of experiences and even power struggles, directly or indirectly, in order to validate proposals and actions within and for the working groups, as can be recognized in the analyses presented by the second author of this text in another work (Cassiano, 2018-2023). ⁴³

At times, Arts teachers mix up the ends and the means, disconnect from the students’ everyday lives, and fail to consider that “what good is it for my student to create a memorable work or the most visceral scene possible if the same student... when given the opportunity, physically and affectively [symbolically] harms others”⁴⁴ (Cassiano, 2018, s/p). In this way, our proposal aligns with the promotion of possible relationships between art education in elementary education, focusing on the languages of visual arts and theater, and exploring possibilities for expanding meanings and intellectual emancipation of students. According to Rancière (2005, p. 3),⁴⁵ suffice to indicate “that a battle fought yesterday over the promises of emancipation and the illusions and disillusions of history continues today on aesthetic terrain.” Furthermore, we still perceive deeply rooted in art education within the formal education context a certain spectacular culture that stifles the process of experimentation, creation, and the development of intellectual, emotional, and social autonomy in students, in line with what we are presenting. The countless presentations in the school environment emerge as a certain obligation that is inconsistent with what should be the purpose of art classes, focusing on performing “short plays,” “small exhibitions,” “tiny choir,” “little piece of performed art,” to celebrate events like Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Christmas, among others.

If everyday life should guide didactic and methodological choices, the realization of a human, geographical, and political mapping of the school unit is necessary for the teacher to understand the reality in which they are placed, including the customs, habits, etc. of the school community and the community connected to it. “This mapping emerges as a kind of thermometer for the teacher’s smooth integration into the school” (Cassiano, 2018-2023, s/p).⁴⁶ This valuable process should not be ignored, as it is the beginning of sensitive teaching. Observing, reviewing, and “trans-viewing” the perspective in the school mapping initiative relates to the process of self-emancipation that Rancière discusses. A teacher with a sensitive ear and vision, engaged in their own self-emancipation, who is attentive to the space around them and, in turn, respects this space as an established biome with an affective, cognitive, and historical legacy, can build affectivity in knowledge mediation in that place: sharing the sensible. “I call the distribution of the sensible the system of self-evident facts of sense perception that simultaneously discloses the existence of something in common and the delimitations that define the respective parts and positions within it” (Rancière, 2005, p. 08).⁴⁷

We emphasize that the school is a space where the exchange of knowledge occurs (or at least should occur) gradually among the participants of the school community. However, contrary to this path, we find rampant pedagogism that forces information down the students’ throats and does nothing to help in the autonomous development of individuals. “This is the genius of the explicators: they attach the creature they have rendered inferior with the strongest chains in the land of stultification-the child’s consciousness of his own superiority.” (Rancière, 1991, p. 22).⁴⁸

Regarding this excerpt, Brandão (1986, p. 119) states that:

In the daily dynamics of the classroom and even in the life of the school, this absolutely ordered, regulated, and creatively pedagogical set of school practices, both autonomous and transgressive, interacts with “planned activities.” To a large extent, it has always been the interaction between this free and permissive side of student initiative and the pedagogical mechanisms of teacher control that the real life of the school itself has emerged as a social and culturally existing reality, and not just something pedagogical and formally planned (Brandão, 1986, p. 119).⁴⁹

From this perspective, Brandão (1986) aligns with Jacques Rancière (1991)⁵⁰ regarding the formation of a teacher who acts as a catalyst for intellectual emancipation. This formation involves and depends on both emotional and social emancipation, with a focus on the collective of students. Emancipation, in this sense, should be the primary goal of all areas of knowledge in regular education. For example, it is of no use for an Arts teacher to rely on acting and aesthetic creation techniques taken from books distant from the students’ reality, without delving into the sensitive field of human and aesthetic formation. In this vein, art becomes a mere instrument of ‘repetition for repetition’ and a driving force for the unchecked ‘ego’ of ‘art educators’ who continue to believe in an artistic and creative practice that suits their personal taste or didactic-methodological inclinations.

The child who recites under the threat of the rod obeys the rod and that’s all: he will apply his intelligence to something else. But the child who is explained to will devote his intelligence to the work of grieving: to understanding, that is to say, to understanding that he doesn’t understand unless he is explained to. He is no longer submitting to the rod, but rather to a hierarchical world of intelligence. For the rest, like the other child, he doesn’t have to worry: if the solution to the problem is too difficult to pursue, he will have enough intelligence to open his eyes wide. The master is vigilant and patient. He will see that the child isn’t following him; he will put him back on track by explaining things again. And thus the child acquires a new intelligence, that of the master’s explications. Later he can be an explicator in turn. He possesses the equipment. But he will perfect it: he will be a man of progress. (Rancière, 1991, p. 09).⁵¹

It is important to recognize the social, political, and affective conditioning in which an unemancipated individual is placed and how this constitutes the ethos of the school. Cases of aggression in or outside of school, for example, are also reflections of a culture experienced by the student. A teacher sensitive to the reality in which the student is immersed, with training and work focused on the student, has the opportunity to loosen these conditioning factors, mediating situations that promote intellectual emancipation and autonomy.

Only after observing the geographical and political reality, human relationships, and school structures and hearing various perspectives about the same space in an expanded way, were we able to start our lesson plan in a manner that was consistent with the school’s organization and its members. In contrast to the context described outside of the classroom, during the actual lesson, we encountered non-participatory and highly agitated students, who were sometimes referred to the pedagogical coordination due to behavior considered ‘inappropriate.’ The classes were conducted in a cramped classroom with approximately thirty students and an overwhelming heat, with only one fan working; any restlessness can be expected in such a situation, which is not always understood.

During the break times, most of the time, we chose to stay with the students in the schoolyard, experiencing all the sensations and emotions they were going through. This was because we started from the idea that: “The distribution of the sensible reveals who can have a share in what is common to the community based on what they do and on the time and space in which this activity is performed.” (Rancière, 2005, p. 08).⁵² These were the moments of the greatest emotional and cultural exchange between personalities that we experienced in this research. It was not about observing laboratory rats and their behaviors, but about transversing with a focus on individuality and emotion to construct a teaching and study plan in art. There was no hierarchy, common between student and teacher, nor repressive sovereignties.

We were given the opportunity to get to know much more about those personalities than, perhaps, in a classroom with chairs lined up. Observation in education should go beyond collecting data; it should be closely related to perceiving and transversing human content and its expressions. In this way, the teacher can engage in a sharing of the sensible in education.

4 Corda de Nó(s): Fourth Knot - Sensitive Teaching in Art/Theater

Let’s now return, with more emphasis, to the teaching activity that led us to this writing. As it involves teaching in the Arts (a curricular subject), in the pedagogical proposal and lesson plan we developed, we chose to bring various materials for the students to experiment with (modeling clay, paint, colorful pens, T-shirts, fabric, objects, among others). We were more focused on fostering possibilities for experimentation in the playful, cognitive, emotional, and creative fields of the students, and less on materials that could result in large artistic productions predetermined by the “interest” of the teachers. Upon arriving with a suitcase full of objects and various materials in the classroom, questions immediately arose about what those things were. After the suitcase was opened and placed in the corner of the room, they were given the following and only guidance: “You can pick up any object whenever you want, if you want, and do whatever you want with it.”⁵³ We chose this approach because we observed a strong affinity of the students for manual work, such as the school’s garden, and drawing on references from, for example, the study of scenic objects, scenography, stage set construction, and costume making. The intention behind this proposal was to create autonomy in the use of materials according to the needs and desires of each student and the collective. This does not imply a lack of guidance or planning on the part of the teacher, as: 1 - There is selectivity in the materials made available; 2 - The time and interests of the students are respected, but also, after initial choices, pathways of exploration are encouraged; 3 - As the students’ interest in those materials grows, the teachers question and drive guided creation processes, as already reported in this text.

That is to say, we emphasize that even within the process of autonomy, this type of activity must be prepared with dedication and a specific purpose. It is an open lesson plan that allows for classroom interventions, rather than simply offering materials without a purpose. We justify the above approach from the following perspective: we understand that school is also a place for the formation and development of a sensitive gaze, self-emancipation, emotional and cognitive experimentation, and the creation of a sense of belonging to a common and plural environment, so that art emerges as part of the ethos, not disconnected from it. In addition, this process of offering materials to students is also an opportunity to explore their expressiveness and interests in terms of languages and materials. This information is of great value for future choices by the teacher in conducting class activities.

Let’s see how free experiences with materials and interests in the development of languages can come together, based on the continuation of the accounts of experiences in the classroom in the context guiding this work.

“When will you teach today?”⁵⁴ We heard this question a lot during our time at the school. When we replied that the class would be about theater, they asked if we were going to create a play. We responded that not necessarily.

We presented, through audiovisual material, some possibilities of language expression and dialogues with other artistic languages. We then asked them to choose one of these possibilities for the development of their language experimentation in class. It is important to emphasize that here too is the selectivity of the teacher, in choosing which videos will be presented to the students, establishing the range on which their choices are relevant. With this initiative, we aimed, in the direction of our theoretical framework, to build an aesthetic-sensitive communion, which involved materials to be explored according to the choice of the students and based on the manifestation of the artistic language, also chosen by them from the range of possibilities suggested by the selectivity of the teacher. Regarding the specific class we are discussing, with the proposal of the Corda de Nó(s), the students chose to work with performance art.

Performance art (also known as performance art) emerged in the 1960s, where “the performer, distinct from the actor-performer, embodies the ability to conduct the ritual-performance, valuing live art, the art that is happening live, in the present moment” (Cohen, 2002, p. 109, author’s emphasis).⁵⁵

Renato Cohen, a Brazilian performer and theoretical professor, understands the performer as a ‘ritualizer’ of the present moment (2009), by proposing an action that can be appreciated, questioned, collectively carried out, hindered, in short, open to the plurality of life” (RACHEL, 2013. p. 4). In education, the performing artist has in the role of the teacher the “possibility to elaborate, experiment, reflect, disseminate, and recognize performance art as part of contemporary artistic expressions” (Rachel, 2013, pp. 5-6).⁵⁶

Professor-Performer Naira Ciotti (2014, p. 43), who is responsible for conceptualizing the term teacher-performer in creation and teaching, mentions that the foundation for the work of the teacher-performer lies in hybrid processes of experimentation through various devices. Regarding the role of the teacher-performer in education, Ciotti (2014, p. 43) states that there is a “high level of responsibility, but this should not serve as an obstacle for the art teacher to face the difficulties of their students’ repertoire and creativity.”⁵⁷ The teacher-performer, in the very word “performance, embodies a ‘differentiated pedagogical attitude.’ Not only the body, voice, and place are intertwined, but also, in this way of viewing performance, there is an implicit pedagogical concern” (Ciotti, 2014, p. 62).⁵⁸ Teachers in this direction,

They experienced with the students ways of artistic knowing/doing that diverge from the standard of art class as learning techniques, creating products under the supervision and evaluation of an external figure, and accumulating and crystallizing concepts. The idea of blending the roles of the teacher and the performer brings relevant contributions to the ongoing reflection on the teaching of the arts, creating spaces for the construction of artistic knowing/doing that is involved in the act of listening, expression, and problematizing the multiple voices that make up the relationships in the classroom (Rachel, 2013, p. 5).⁵⁹

After choosing the language manifestation we would work with, a student got up, went to the back of the room, and shouted, “Look, there’s a lot of fabric here. Let’s use it, we can try putting it on the pequi tree.”⁶⁰ At that moment, due to the possibilities of choice opened up by the mediators, the student was able to realize the aesthetic encounter between the objects proposed by the teacher, the aesthetics chosen by the class, and the specific characteristics of the school, in a sense of belonging that should not be lost sight of in teaching.

When attempting to carry out the intervention on the Pequi tree⁶¹ at the school, the students realized that they did not have the conditions, skills, and competencies to complete the creation at that moment. Their interests then turned to an old chair that was abandoned in a corner of the school, which gradually transformed into a material (substitute for the Pequi tree) for their creation. The performance art class constitutes a moment of appropriation and discussion around performance as an artistic language, based on the (re) recognition of works created by various artists that, in some way, contribute to the debate around unsettling and relevant situations for each community established in the classroom (Rachel, 2013, p. 88).

We realized that the experience of the creative impulse (fabrics and language), followed by the failure of execution (fabrics and pequi tree), and finally the adaptation of means and ends for creation (fabrics and chair), reaffirmed our commitment to mediating knowledge focused on the intellectual, emotional, aesthetic, and political emancipation of students, as it did not condemn failure. That’s because what is understood as “failure” in a performative action when compared to other narratives in the field of art is relative because the terminology “performance” in the arts departs from the understanding of “high performance” or success. Nor did it overemphasize the need to strictly adhere to any aesthetic pursuit that did not emerge from their sense of belonging to the school environment. It is through living the school that they find the creation for autonomy: sometimes focusing on the pequi tree, sometimes on the chair that had been abandoned.

Belonging to that space was linked to the possibility of re-signifying it through the experience of creation. From this perspective, we understand that it would be of no use to teach them how to create what they intended, or to spend endless hours talking about artistic movements and artists in a classroom for students in the final years of their education in this educational cycle (from 12 to 15 years old). Both approaches would only serve us if they could help in making expressive needs culminate in possibilities of affectivity, learning, and diverse involvement that give rise to creation. Whether in the direction of learning techniques to expand creative skills or to understand the solutions adopted by artists in the face of the resistance of materials and social and cultural conditions in the face of their creative impulses. In this way, when technique or history appear, they are not approached from the perspective of banking education. They appear through the needs of the process.

Paulo Freire in his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed (2000)⁶² conceptualizes Banking Education⁶³ as the imposition of knowledge carried out by the teacher on the student. The thinking of Freire is correlated with that of Rancière when it comes to the existence of equal potential in every human individual, for whom “The friends of equality do not have to instruct the people to bring them closer to equality, they have to emancipate the intelligences, they have to compel anyone to verify the equality of intelligences.” (Rancière, 2002, p. 12).⁶⁴

As we have been reaffirming throughout the text, sensitive listening to the needs of students is crucial for a mediator in art. Adapting students’ needs to the physical and technical reality is one of the greatest challenges to be faced, as well as abandoning pedagogical and repressive routines. The art in school, in the direction of autonomy and emancipation, should not be treated and inserted through the path of reproducing objects (representative regime) of art itself or of objects from any other sphere of human activity.

The aesthetic regime of the arts stands in contrast with the representative regime. I call this regime aesthetic because the identification of art no longer occurs via a division within ways of doing and making, but it is based on distinguishing a sensible mode of being specific to artistic products (Rancière, 2005, p. 18).⁶⁵

It is worth noting, however, that according to Rancière, education for autonomy is not given but earned. The teacher is not the primary figure for intellectual emancipation; it can be achieved independently. In this sense, we understand the teacher as a mediator of knowledge and skills, responsible for perceiving the socio-structural reality in which the student is placed, directing them to critical-analytical reflection on it, and providing them with means to establish more effective and emotionally human relationships for the needs of individuals and groups.

If we need to overcome the idea of the teacher as the holder of all knowledge, we also need to overcome the notion that the solitary path of discovery is simpler, safer, and faster. The art teacher, as a mediator of knowledge and skills, acts as a guiding light that illuminates doors and windows to creative possibilities. They should show that there are other possibilities, beyond those already experienced, for human expression and creation. They should be a true advocate for human autonomy. In this direction, respect for the aesthetic, political, and cultural experiences of the students start with the premise of equality in doing, creating, feeling, and expressing oneself, and that: “that every common person might conceive his human dignity, take the measure of his intellectual capacity, and decide how to use it” (Rancière, 1991, p. 17).⁶⁶

For “‘History’ is only made up of stories that we tell ourselves, but simply that the ‘logic of stories’ and the ability to act as historical agents go together” (Rancière, 2005, p. 35). Sometimes, schools and universities, spaces responsible for the education of these education professionals, permeate parallel and often contrary fields to autonomous intellectual formation. However,

Given that individuals are not obliged to remain constantly within these micro-societies [schools and universities, in our cases], and yet they still do, we can assume that it is possibly because the relationships established there satisfy or create the illusion of satisfaction, in some cases, of certain individual desires; this moves the symbolic actions and interventions of these individuals in specific directions, with the aim of fulfilling implicit micro-social requirements within the collective (Sampaio, 2014, pp. 103-104).⁶⁷

At the end of the class, we formed a circle to discuss each participant’s perceptions of the process. After statements like “I found it very strange because I felt like crying,” “I liked seeing the papers falling on the floor,” “It didn’t even feel like we were at school,” “I don’t like doing theater, I’m shy, but I liked this class,”⁶⁸ we started dialogues to try to find ways to deal with the satisfaction of the expressed desires, written and read, in the artistic context for and by the students. These conversations led to a movement called by them: “Strike for the rights of the students.”⁶⁹

This strike was summarized in the creation of posters about the problems detected by them in the school. These posters were exhibited during a procession through the school’s spaces. The student movement, created by them, emerged like flames in dry grass within the school. The political awareness that these students were experiencing through artistic experimentation was evident. The students walked through the school shouting slogans, creating a full state of political engagement. From this experience, we understand that the silenced voice could then manifest itself, unleashed and strengthened by art.

5 The Corda de Nó(s): The Last Knot - Conclusion

In this article, we presented the results of the scientific research project titled “Hidden for Evaluation.” The discussions presented here were based on the narration and analysis of a teaching experience in Arts (as a curricular subject) that took place in a municipal elementary school (upper grades) in the city of Palmas, Tocantins, Brazil. The analyses were conducted from the perspective of emancipation and the sharing of the sensible, as proposed by Rancière.

We conclude that artistic languages in schools can be powerful mediators of a person’s experience in the world, aiming for intellectual, emotional, social, and political autonomy. From the analyzed experience, we encourage current and future educators to consider and practice the possibility of empowering the ‘silenced voices’ of students. This emancipation, in the case analyzed, for example, can lead to political stances that enhance the sense of belonging to the school environment, which is also shaped by practices of advocacy and resistance against the oppressive system that tends to operate in educational institutions in Brazil. In this same direction, the mediation carried out and presented here highlighted the need to abandon ‘pedagogical euphemisms’ and the dictatorship of traditional teaching.

Valuing sensitive, aesthetic, and political materialities that arise from the students themselves was the path that we recognized as a potentializer of emancipation and autonomy, which we have discussed throughout the text. From this, we conclude that it is necessary for the teacher to also emancipate themselves in order to mediate an emancipatory process in the classroom. Therefore, we conclude this work by emphasizing the need to develop a sensitive teaching approach, focusing on mediating knowledge and practices, as well as the processes that lead to them. We highlight the need for art teachers to provoke various disruptions in the everyday way students inhabit and interact with the world, moving towards a diverse experience of oneself in the world. This experience should move towards aesthetic senses, affections, and intellectual emancipation, with a strong belief that artistic languages can play a collaborative role in this process.

• 1
  The term Corda de nó(s), the name of the artistic process under analysis in this text, has been retained in Portuguese, as in English, the terms would not convey their original meaning. To understand the term: the term ‘nó(s)’ means, in Portuguese, both more than one knot and a collective of people, including the sender. Thus, corda de nó(s) indicates both the knots in a rope and the connection between the participating people, as if they were linked by a rope.
• 2
  This research was conducted in a municipal elementary school unit in the northern region of Palmas, Tocantins, Brazil. The study was financed by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq). It is presented as the result of a Course Work (TCC) for the Bachelor’s degree in Theater at Universidade Federal de Tocantins [Federal University of Tocantins] (UFT) - University Campus of Palmas, under the guidance of Professor Juliano Casimiro de Camargo Sampaio who holds a post-doctoral degree from (UFT). The research has been expanded in the form of the present study.
• 3
  This research presents an in-depth discussion of Thiago Francysco Rodrigues Cassiano’s study titled Emancipação e Autonomia no Ensino de Arte e na Formação de Professores: A Escuta e a Partilha Sensível na Perspectiva de Rancière [Emancipation and Autonomy in Art Education and Teacher Training: Listening and Sensitive Sharing from Rancière’s Perspective]. This work served as his Undergraduate Thesis for the Bachelor’s degree in Theater, under the supervision of Professor Dr. Juliano de Camargo Sampaio Casimiro at the Federal University of Tocantins - UFT, Palmas, Tocantins, in 2019.
• 4
  In Portuguese: “A realidade da comunicação é muito mais importante do que o método usado. Os métodos se alteram para atender às necessidades de tempo e lugar (...) as técnicas não são artifícios mecânicos - um saquinho de truques devidamente rotulados, a serem tirados pelo ator quando necessário. Se o ator não for extremamente intuitivo, tal rigidez no ensino que negligencia o desenvolvimento interior, estará invariavelmente refletida no espetáculo. Quando um ator sente “na carne” que há muitas maneiras de fazer e dizer uma coisa, as técnicas virão (como deveriam) a partir do eu total.”
• 5
  RANCIÈRE, Jacques. The Ignorant Schoolmaster. Five Lessons in Intelectual Emanciation. Translated with an Introduction by Kristin Ross. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991.
• 6
  In Portuguese: “trazer para a realidade dos estudantes uma proposta que superasse uma prática em “arte corriqueira” que imprimisse novos significados aos estudantes, proporcionando-lhes novos sentidos e percepções.”
• 7
  CASSIANO, Thiago Francysco Rodrigues. “Diário de Bordo: Sentidos e Permissões na Docência de Artes, Teatro e Processo Criativos.” Unpublished work - Continuous Research Instrument. Palmas, Tocantins. 2018-2023.
• 8
  Edenir Maria Rita Rodrigues (Dê), a dark-skinned black woman, daughter of immigrants from Minas Gerais in the State of São Paulo, Brazil, played a crucial role in the upbringing of the first researcher in this study.
• 9
  The term originates from the Yoruba language and is used to refer to older women, wise individuals, or community and religious leaders. In this case, the author is referring to his maternal grandmother, Edenir Maria Rita Rodrigues (in memoriam).
• 10
  In Portuguese: “Cada nó se trata de uma memória vivida com minha yabá, sendo cada um deles, singular e com um significado próprio, o cheiro de café coado no pano, o sabor do doce de abóbora.”
• 11
  See footnote 7.
• 12
  In Portuguese: “Assim como eu, muitos daqueles estudantes eram criados por suas avós. (...) Compreendo que uma criação deixa de ser viva e política quando se limita ao calabouço do egoísmo, trazê-la para uma experimentação com os estudantes proporcionando novos olhares e interpretações é um modo de mantê-la viva.”
• 13
  See footnote 7.
• 14
  Activity produced by the first author of this article as pre requisite for the term of Estágio Supervisionado I [Supervised Internship I] at the Licenciatura em Teatro [Licentiate Course in Theater] at Universidade Federal do Tocantins [Federal University of Tocantins] (UFT) - Campus of Palmas in the year 2017.
• 15
  In Portuguese: “O que quero dizer para o mundo?”
• 16
  FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Translated by Myra Bergman Ramos with an introduction by Donaldo Maldonado. New York/London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2000.
• 17
  In Portuguese: “A formação do professor de Arte tem, portanto, esse caráter peculiar de lidar com as complexas questões da produção, da apreciação e da reflexão do próprio sujeito, do futuro professor, e das transposições de suas experiências com a Arte para a sala de aula com seus alunos. Além dessa peculiaridade ao objeto do conhecimento, é preciso, também, propiciar situações para que o futuro professor possa conhecer os outros sujeitos do processo: as crianças, os jovens, seus alunos. Entender como crescem e se relacionam com o meio social e cultural. Como estabelecem a comunicação e como desenvolvem as linguagens e as expressões.”
• 18
  See footnote 5.
• 19
  RANCIÈRE, Jacques. The Politics of Aesthetics. The Distribution of the Sensible. Edited and translated by Gabiewl Rockhill. London/New York: Bloombury Publishing Inc., 2005.
• 20
  In Portuguese: “identificar e obter provas a respeito de objetivos sobre as quais os indivíduos não têm consciência, mas que orientam seu comportamento.”
• 21
  In Portuguese: “The materials at the back of the room can be used by you if you want and when you want during the Art class; you can also take them home if you prefer.” For reference, see footnote 7.
• 22
  In Portuguese: “nada invento só: as invenções nascem a dois, a três, numa troca comum de diálogo, sendo isso o que mais colado à vida consegui propor. Divido a proposição e aceito a invenção do outro.”
• 23
  In Portuguese: “O espaço de Clark não é do espetáculo como encenação para ser vista e sim ação vivenciada. É um espaço-tempo compartilhado, ativado e percebido pelos participantes. São forças inter-reagindo e assumindo formas expressivas constantemente renovadas. As experiências são restritas a pequenos grupos de iniciados que mergulham num processo de relacionamento cuja significação lhes pertence. Nisto reside a originalidade deste trabalho: intimista, reducionista em termos matéricos, mas denso em produção psicossensorial.”
• 24
  In Portuguese: “Que estranho!”, “Gostei, achei bonito!”, “Isso é arte?”, “Lembrou o varal da minha tia!”, “Isso dá trabalho?” “Eu consigo fazer!”
• 25
  See footnote 7.
• 26
  In Portguese: “A arte na educação deve ser a priori estímulo a um livre pensar e expressar-se pautado nos fundamentos humanos individuais e coletivos, permeados pelo ethos, e saberes do estudante, culminando em uma formação humana, que por sua vez torna-se material orgânico (estético, afetivo e poético) para experiência em arte.” See footnote 7.
• 27
  We understand “Trans-viewing” by the perspective of seeing with an affectionate and sensitive eye, transcending the physical vision; that is, a vision that is based on human, affective, ludicrous and creative. In CASSIANO, Thiago Francysco Rodrigues. Emancipação e Autonomia no Ensino de Arte e na Formação de Professores: A Escuta e a Partilha Sensível na Perspectiva de Rancière. Trabalho de Conclusão de Curso - Colegiado [End of Term Monography - Collegiate]
• 28
  In Portuguese: “Ao transver o que se quer dizer para o mundo por meio das narrativas artísticas, além do desenvolvimento de uma expressividade criativa.” See footnote 7.
• 29
  In Portuguese: “Alguns estudantes propuseram realizar uma assembleia com os professores para falar como eles se sentem em relação aos gritos, ou da falta de empatia.” See footnote 7.
• 30
  See footnote 5.
• 31
  In Portuguese: “[...] atômicos e atentos a todos os comandos dados, repletos por um desejo de expressividade reprimida, seus corpos estavam alertas, bem como seus olhos fixos e atentos a cada nova informação.” See footnote 7.
• 32
  See footnote 7.
• 33
  In Portuguese: “Desejo nunca mais apanhar do meu pai”; “Desejo que a escola tenha ar-condicionado na sala de aula, porque na sala do diretor tem e na nossa não”; “Desejo ser jogador de futebol,” “Desejo comprar uma casa para minha mãe.”
• 34
  In Portuguese: “Desejo que a escola tenha comida decente, porque tinha uma larva na nossa comida hoje.”
• 35
  See footnote 19.
• 36
  In Portuguese: “onde está no seu corpo a força para expressar seu desejo?”
• 37
  See footnote 5.
• 38
  See footnote 19.
• 38
  In Portuguese: “[...] estudante necessita entender-se em seu processo de expressão individualmente para que possa adentrar na coletividade.” See footnote 7.
• 40
  In Portuguese: “o professor é um parteiro, ele tira do aluno o que ele tem para dar,” o que corrobora com a proposição de Rancière sobre a igualitária inteligência entre os humanos. Vianna aponta ainda que “o aborto existe” em relação a/ao estudante na direção da criação, pois, segundo ele, “muitos professores matam o artista na sala de aula.”
• 41
  See footnote 19.
• 42
  See footnote 5.
• 43
  See footnote 7.
• 44
  In Portuguese: “o que adianta meu aluno criar uma obra memorável, ou criar a cena mais visceral possível, se o mesmo aluno (...) quando tem oportunidade agride física e afetivamente [simbolicamente] os outros.” See footnote 7.
• 45
  See footnote 19.
• 46
  See footnote 7.
• 47
  See footnote 19.
• 48
  See footnote 5.
• 49
  In Portuguese: “Na dinâmica cotidiana da sala de aula e mesmo da vida da escola, este conjunto absolutamente ordenado, regrado e criativo de práticas escolares, autônoma e transgressivamente pedagógicas, [interage] com as “atividades planejadas”. Em boa medida, sempre foi da interação justamente entre este lado livre e permissivo da iniciativa discente, e os mecanismos pedagógicos de controle docente, que a própria vida real da escola se [constitui] como uma realidade social e culturalmente existente, e não apenas pedagógica e formalmente pensada.”
• 50
  See footnote 5.
• 51
  See footnote 5.
• 52
  See footnote 19.
• 53
  In Portuguese: “Vocês podem pegar qualquer objeto quando quiserem, se quiserem e fazer com ele o que quiserem.”
• 54
  In Portuguese: “O senhor vai dar aula de quê, hoje?”
• 55
  In Portuguese: “o performer, como alguém distinto do ator-intérprete, é essa capacidade de condução do espetáculo-ritual, valorizando a live art, a arte que está acontecendo ao vivo, no instante presente.”
• 56
  In Portuguese: Renato Cohen, professor performer e teórico brasileiro compreende o performer como um “ritualizador” do instante presente (2009), ao propor uma ação que pode ser apreciada, questionada, realizada coletivamente, impedida, enfim, aberta à pluralidade da vida” (RACHEL, 2013, p. 4). Na educação, o artista performer tem no ofício de professor a “possibilidade para elaborar, experimentar, refletir, divulgar e reconhecer a arte da performance como integrante das manifestações artísticas contemporâneas.”
• 57
  In Portuguese: “alto índice de responsabilidade, mas isso não deve servir como empecilho para que o professor de arte enfrente as dificuldades de repertório e de criatividade de seus alunos.”
• 58
  In Portuguese: “performance é o impulso de ‘uma atitude pedagógica diferenciada’. Não só corpo, voz e lugar estão imbricados, como também, nessa forma de ver a performance, está implícita uma preocupação pedagógica.”
• 59
  In Portuguese: “Experienciaram junto aos estudantes modos de saber/fazer artísticos que divergem do parâmetro da aula de artes como aprendizado de técnicas, elaboração de produtos sob a supervisão e avaliação de uma figura externa, acúmulo e cristalização de conceitos. A ideia de mesclar as figuras do professor e do performer traz contribuições relevantes para o exercício permanente de reflexão em torno do ensino de artes, que gera espaços para a construção do saber/fazer artístico implicado ao ato de escuta, expressão e problematização das múltiplas vozes que compõem as relações em sala de aula.”
• 60
  In Portuguese: “Olha tem um monte de pano aqui. Vamos usar, a gente pode tentar colocar na árvore de pequi.”
• 61
  Pequi, also called piqui, is the fruit that originates from the pequi tree, a tree native to the Brazilian cerrado region and belonging to the Caryocaraceae family. Frequently used in the Northern part of Brazil culinary.
• 62
  See footnote 16.
• 63
  Freire (2000) understands that the banking education is based on a mechanism in which the teacher deposits knowledge in a cumulative manner, without critical engagement.
• 64
  In Portuguese: “Os amigos da igualdade não têm que instruir o povo, para aproximá-lo da igualdade, eles têm que emancipar as inteligências, têm que obrigar a quem quer que seja a verificar a igualdade de inteligências” (Rancière’s preface to the Brazilian edition with no equivalence in English).
• 65
  See footnote 19.
• 66
  See footnote 5.
• 67
  In Portuguese: “Dado que os indivíduos não se veem obrigados a permanecer constantemente no seio dessas micro-sociedades [escolas e universidades, nos nossos casos] e ainda assim permanecem, podemos supor que possivelmente seja pelo fato de que as relações que ali se estabelecem satisfazem ou criam a ilusão de satisfação, em alguns casos, de determinados desejos individuais; isso movimenta as ações simbólicas e intervenções desses indivíduos em direções específicas, com fins do cumprimento de exigências micro sociais implícitas ao coletivo.”
• 68
  In Portuguese: “Eu achei muito estranho porque tive vontade de chorar”, “Eu gostei de ver os papéis caindo no chão”, “Nem parecia que a gente estava na escola”, “Eu não gosto de fazer teatro, tenho vergonha, mais gostei dessa aula.”
• 69
  In Portuguese: “Greve pelos direitos dos alunos.”

• Reviews

  Due to the commitment assumed by Bakhtiniana. Revista de Estudos do Discurso [Bakhtiniana. Journal of Discourse Studies] to Open Science, this journal only publishes reviews that have been authorized by all involved.

Research Data and Other Materials Availability

The contents underlying the research text are included in the manuscript.

REFERÊNCIAS

• BARBOSA, Ana Mae. Inquietações e mudanças no ensino da arte 4.ed. São Paulo: Cortez, 2008.
• BÉRA, Matthieu; LAMY, Yvon. Sociologia da cultura São Paulo: Edições SESC, 2015.
• BOAL, Augusto. Teatro do oprimido e outras poéticas políticas Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 1991.
• BOCK, Ana Mercês Bahia; FURTADO, Odair.; TEIXEIRA, Maria Lourdes Trassi. Psicologias São Paulo: Editora Saraiva, 2002.
• BRANDÃO, Carlos. Rodrigues. A educação como cultura. São Paulo: Brasiliense, 1986.
• CASSIANO, Thiago Francysco Rodrigues. Diário de bordo: sentidos e permissões na docência de Artes, Teatro e Processo Criativos. Obra não publicada - Instrumento Continuo de Pesquisa. Palmas, Tocantins, 2018-2023.
• CIOTTI, Naira. O professor-performer Natal, RN: EDUFRN, 2014.
• CLARK, Lygia. Da supressão do objeto (anotações) [1975] In: FERREIRA. Glória; COTRIM, Cecília (org.). Escritos de artistas: anos 60/70. Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar, 2006.
• COHEN, Renato. Performance como linguagem: criação de um tempo-espaço de experimentação. São Paulo: Perspectiva, 2002.
• FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia do oprimido Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 2014.
• KOUDELA, Ingrid Dormien. A encenação contemporânea como prática pedagógica. In: Urdimento, Florianópolis, v.1, n.10, p. 45-54, 2008. https://www.revistas.udesc.br/index.php/urdimento/article/view/1414573101102008045 Acesso 20 out. 2023.
  » https://www.revistas.udesc.br/index.php/urdimento/article/view/1414573101102008045
• LAKATOS, Eva. Maria; MARCONI, Maria de Andrade. Fundamentos de metodologia científica. São Paulo: Atlas, 2003.
• MILLIET, Maria. Alice. Lygia Clark: obra-trajeto. São Paulo: EDUSP, 1992.
• RACHEL, Denise Pereira. Adote o artista, não deixe ele virar professor: reflexões em torno do híbrido professor-performer. São Paulo: Cultura Acadêmica Editora, 2013.
• RANCIÈRE, Jacques. O mestre ignorante: cinco lições sobre a emancipação intelectual. Tradução de Lílian do Valle. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica, 2002.
• RANCIÈRE, Jacques. A partilha do sensível: estética e política. Tradução Mônica Costa Netto. São Paulo: Editora 34, 2005.
• SAMPAIO, Juliano Casimiro de Camargo. A construção da identidade no teatro de grupo. Moringa - Artes do Espetáculo (UFPB), v. 5, p. 01-13, 2014. https://periodicos.ufpb.br/ojs2/index.php/moringa/article/view/19626 Acesso 20 out. 2023.
  » https://periodicos.ufpb.br/ojs2/index.php/moringa/article/view/19626
• SAMPAIO, Juliano Casemiro de Camargo. A teatralidade de si-mesmo no ensino de teatro. Repertório, Salvador, v. 20, n. 29, p. 233-257, 2017. https://periodicos.ufba.br/index.php/revteatro/article/view/25483/15606 Acesso 20 out. 2023.
  » https://periodicos.ufba.br/index.php/revteatro/article/view/25483/15606
• SPOLIN, Viola. O jogo teatral no livro do diretor 2. ed. São Paulo: Perspectiva, 2010.
• VIANNA, Klauss. A dança São Paulo: Siciliano, 1990.

Review I

About the reviewer SCIMAGO INSTITUTIONS RANKINGS

Review I

The work is suitable for the proposed theme, providing a significant contribution to the fields of Art and Education, and indirectly, to Language Studies. The objective is clearly stated and consistently developed throughout the text. There is conformity with the theory used, demonstrating the authors’ up-to-date knowledge of the literature. The reflection is original and written with clarity, correctness, and language appropriateness for a scientific work. In addition to the more technical aspects of evaluation, the inclusion of the work in an urgent theme is noteworthy: the meanings of school and the presence of art in school in contemporary times. The choice of a non-obvious path allows the authors to articulate theory and practice in a way that engages the readers in a process as sensitive as the writing of the text. The article demonstrates the authors’ commitment to quality public education, confirming the production of a science linked to social and community practices. Therefore, the review is favorable to the publication of the text in Bakhtiniana. Journal of Discourse Studies. APPROVED

• peer review recommendation: accept

History

• Peer review received
  23 Dec 2023

REVIEW II

About the reviewer SCIMAGO INSTITUTIONS RANKINGS

Review II

The article “SENSITIVE SHARING AND THE CORDA DE NÓ(S): EMANCIPATION AND AUTONOMY IN ARTS EDUCATION” consists of a vigorous critical discussion about the “aesthetic and poetic praxis” process of a theatrical performance called ‘Knot(s) String’ developed within the curriculum of Arts in a municipal elementary school unit in the city of Palmas, Tocantins, Brazil.

In this work, resulting from the conclusion of a Scientific Initiation research project (PIBIC-UFT), the authors/researchers - the author/scholar and the advisor - employ a qualitative methodological approach based on aspects of oral and exploratory narrative, while also considering possible connections for reflection in their field notes. To achieve this goal, the study is grounded in a substantial theoretical and bibliographic framework, and appropriately brings forth the postulates of Jacques Rancière [emancipation and sharing of the sensible], with a clear intention/objective of on-site verification whether the potential theatrical and visual narratives are imbued with the exercise and artistic and pedagogical/teaching experience “aimed at intellectual emancipation and the expansion of the sensible.”

The analysis of the work was conducted according to the criteria proposed by Bakhtiniana. Journal of Discourse Studies. The coherent text provides relevant contributions to the fields of Education and Arts in general and, in an exemplary manner, presents the construction of insights into some possible relationships between art education in basic education - focusing on visual arts and theater as primary references - emancipation, the politics, and personal aspects of the students, as well as the expansion of teacher sensibility. The article’s title is consistent with the keywords and the investigative path pursued. The excellent Abstract already presents the objective, methodology, guiding question, and possible considerations/conclusions inferred after the analytical, critical-reflective, and bibliographic study. Starting from 26 pages (with one page dedicated to a relatively up-to-date and highly relevant bibliography list related to the theme and subject investigated), the article is structured with a substantial and clarifying Introduction, followed by 5 sub-chapters - featuring 2 images that complement the textual content. The theme is relevant to the scope of the Journal and provides a clear and distinctive contribution to the field of Education and Arts, as previously mentioned. The text is written in a cohesive and rigorous manner, especially concerning spelling and grammar. The Journal’s guidelines for authors are observed and followed. The concluding remarks are appropriate and provide satisfactory responses to the objectives presented in the Introduction. In their conclusion, the authors also point out possible directions and developments for these primary reflections in the context of Arts education in schools. In light of the aforementioned points, I am in favor of the publication of the article. APPROVED

• peer review recommendation: accept

History

• Peer review received
  05 Jan 2024

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  18 Mar 2024
• Date of issue
  2024

History

• Received
  21 Nov 2023
• Accepted
  20 Feb 2024