This essay interrogates the political dimensions of black presence in black theatrical practice. To do so, I focus on the deployment of black presence in the spectacle Silêncio performed by Cia dos Comuns and premiered in 2007, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I argue that the option made by director Hilton Cobra in not making use of fictional characters, as well as not deploying realistic representations of every day life, indicates a political gesture that challenges what I consider to be the most fundamental aspect of black theatrical practice: the black presence on stage. By facing the multidimensional, challenging, and contradictory aspects of black presence, this study will approach the negotiation of presence in black theatrical practice. I argue that an approach on the black phenomenal presence on stage complicates assumptions regarding the benefits of the investment in black presence as a political tool to enhance the participation of black people in Brazilian society. This essay aims to engage and expand on the available theoretical apparatus in the scholarship about black theatrical practice in Brazil. / text

Despite the apparent hegemony of vision in racial categorization, historically vocality has borne the brunt of as much racial presumption as physical appearance. This project explores ideas about Blackness, and how the voice in performance engenders conversations on racial authenticity within the United States. Broadly, the work examines how “sounding Black” functions within dramatic performance, and how wider concerns of racial identity adhere to a performer’s vocal choices. The contextualization of racialized sound presented in this project begins with an historical overview of how a “Blackness of tongue” has been framed in U.S. theatrical performance from the early 1800s through the 1960s. It then addresses the dynamics of voice and racial authenticity through two performance case studies: August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson and Adrienne Kennedy’s Funnyhouse of a Negro. These cases will be used to explore how issues of racial authenticity thrive in the space between vocal sound production and perception. As case studies based on specific productions of these two plays, text, directorial choices, and the vocal characteristics of the actors themselves occupy equal space at the center of each analysis. At a deeper level, this research seeks an understanding of the cultural assumptions that support the idea of a uniquely Black vocal sound, and what that sound purchases within American societies. In addressing both the phonological and the interpretive qualities of these performances, the central research concerns of this project attempt to pinpoint with more accuracy how voice, fore-grounded in performance, triggers different sets of assumptions that have been commonly identified as a significant component of Blackness / text

[pt] Este texto tem como interesse central propor o debate, no campo das artes, sobre o corpo e os processos de escrita de vozes negras, ao analisar vissungos — cantos de trabalho e imaginações sonoras — e relacioná-los a conceitos das Ciências Sociais, das Ciências Econômicas, da Filosofia e das Artes da Cena. A expressão de táticas e modos de vida em processos de desumanização de indivíduos submetidos a uma experiência ininterrupta com a utilidade, a exploração e a exaustão. O fundamento dos estudos observa, a partir da década de 1980, autorias como Joel Rufino dos Santos, Lélia González, Nei Lopes e Neusa Santos Souza, entre outras importantes figuras do pensamento. Contribuir com escritas movendo-se a pé, buscar derivas etnográficas (Florencio,2015), levantar indagações sobre a mobilidade urbana em perspectiva afrodiaspórica. Caminhos entre literatura e devir-negro do mundo; observar presenças, memórias e afetos do corpo diante da permanência colonial. / [en] This text central interest is to propose a debate, in the Arts field of study, about the body and writing processes of black voices, analyzing vissungos — worksongs and sonic imaginations — and relating them to concepts of Social Sciences, Economics, Philosophy and Performing Arts. The expression of strategies and lifestyle in the processes of dehumanization individuals submitted to an uninterrupted experience with the utility, the exploitation, the exhaustion. The foundation of the studies observes authors from the 1980s, such as Joel Rufino dos Santos, Lélia González, Nei Lopes and Neusa Santos Souza, among other important figures of thought. The study intends to contribute to writing processes moving by foot, searching for ethnographic dérives (Florencio,2015) ; to raise questions about urban mobility in an Afro-diasporic perspective. This master s thesis follows paths between literature and becoming-black of the world. It observes presences, memories and affections of the body in the face of colonial permanences.