Performing Arts

The goal of the Performing Arts Graduate Program is to qualify researchers and professors in areas related to the performing arts, namely theater, dance and performance, in interaction or not with other artistic areas, providing the spread of knowledge through the contribution of researchers to specialized journals, scientific events in the area and, regarding the extension and socialization of knowledge, public presentation of shows and performances stemming from research.

Prominent among the relevant aspects of the Performing Arts Graduate Program/UNICAMP is the close relationship between theory and practice. This is viewed as a core element of the program for being a fertile ground of questioning and problematics, widely discussed in artistic and academic circles of performing arts research in Brazil, and which is in continuous development. Alongside the relationship between theory and practice, also of  key importance are the notions of “experience” proposed at different levels by philosophers, scholars from different fields and artist-researchers, who act as catalysts for tensions that, in turn, contribute to the materialization of the singularities that run through performance phenomena. This trait is reflected in the research being developed by students of the master’s and doctoral courses of the Performing Arts Graduate Program, under the supervision of faculty members, which often culminates in a two-fold final production: a dance, theatre and/or performance show accompanied by a dissertation or thesis defended in front of a committee of experts.

Another aspect to be highlighted in the overall context of the program is the fact that it is based on a conception of contemporary art as a critical perspective of the present, which drives research that addresses dilemmas experienced in the field of performing arts by contemporary artists. This requires the current production of knowledge in the arts to be investigated also in the light of historical, regional and topological experiences, leading to the production of multiple perspectives that feed the production of theoretical thought in tune with the foundational and emerging issues of actual artistic production, thus stimulating knowledge generated in processes of artistic creation, always in close connection with reflection, with theory and practice feeding each other as equals.

Since 2018, the Performing Arts Graduate Program has been part of Unicamp’s Institutional Project for the Internationalization of Graduate Studies through the CAPES/PRINT Program.

Main activities:

The Performing Arts Graduate Program/UNICAMP publishes a biannual online journal, Conceição/Conception, which aims to give visibility to the production of researchers from different higher education institutions on artistic creation, critical reflection, performance and training of dancers, actors and/or performers. In the last Qualis/Capes evaluation (2015), the journal was rated B1 in the Arts area. In 2016 it started being published in Unicamp’s Scientific Electronic Journals Portal.

 

The Performing Arts Graduate Program/UNICAMP holds annually the Mario Santana Research Seminar, which aims to strengthen interaction between the program’s various research groups and the academic community as a whole, providing an overview of research done in the program and introducing it to incoming students and undergraduate students of the university’s Performing Arts and Dance courses, as well as sharing with the community the status of ongoing research.

 

Every two years the Performing Arts Graduate Program/UNICAMP organizes Rethinking Contemporary Myths, an international event that aims to reflect on the great contemporary myths in the field of performing arts – people, ideas or concepts that throughout history have spread, transformed or developed ways of thinking and producing performing arts, and therefore deserve to be reconsidered, problematized, modernized. The goal of the event is to provide various activities to foster interaction between Brazilian and foreign researchers on the subject.