Saturday, November 16, 2019 • 1–3 p.m.
Assistant Professor Marcos Steuernagel, Theatre & Dance
In this talk, Steuernagel analyzes how theatre, dance and performance reflected and responded to the rise and fall of the Workers’ Party in Brazil (2002–16). As part of what came to be known in Latin America as the Pink Tide, the election of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (popularly known as Lula) brought about a period of progressive policies in the areas of income inequality, human rights, gender politics and cultural production.
How, then, did Brazil go from poster-child of the Latin American Left to electing far-right President Jair Bolsonaro in 2018? As this New Right carries out its project of coupling the advance of neoliberalism with the elimination of difference, what are the ways in which performance serves as a particularly productive arena for addressing this shift? And what are the consequences of the Brazilian case for a global understanding of the conservative turn?
Note: The lecturer will be showing images of performances, some that contain nudity.
Find out more about Steuernagel's research
About the Presenter
Marcos Steuernagel is an assistant professor in the Department of Theatre & Dance at the University of Colorado Boulder. His work focuses on the intersection of performance and politics, Brazilian and Latin American theatre and performance, and the digital humanities. He is co-editor with Diana Taylor of the trilingual digital book What is Performance Studies? (2015). His upcoming monograph traces the relationship between politics and aesthetics in contemporary Brazilian theatre and dance. Steuernagel holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in performance studies from New York University and a Specialization in Cinema and Video and a B.A. in Theatre Directing from Faculdade de Artes do Paraná, Brazil. More more information, visit Steuernagel’s website.