Theater, Prison and The Search for New Possible Imaginaries

University Extension and Criminal Abolicionism in the Teaching of Performing Arts

Abstract

This article shares the procedures that inaugurate the extension program “Theatre, Prison and the search for new possible imaginaries”, started in April 2024 at CAC/ECA/USP, which emerges from the combination of two doctoral research developed at GRUPO DE PESQUISA/PPGAC/ECA /USP, by researchers Murilo Moraes Gaulês and Nailanita Prette, both supervised by professor Dr. Maria Helena Franco de Araújo Bastos. The studies focus on the modes of production of performing arts in prison institutions, viewing artistic activities as political strategies with a focus on bringing people deprived of liberty to the center. In the extension program, in addition to sharing academic productions, undergraduate and postgraduate students and the community outside ECA/USP are embraced, bringing together the triad of the Brazilian university: teaching, research and extension. In this sense, here we share our central work methodology, the Visionary Fiction production technique, created by the writer, activist and educator Walida Imarisha (2016), as well as dialogues with references such as the Brazilian researcher and artist Jota Mombaça (2013), with the researcher, politician, activist Abdias Nascimento (2023), who anchor our confabulation with penal abolitionism as the foundation of our artistic praxis. The writing concisely walks through data and historiography of the prison system in the State of São Paulo, as this is where the extension program has been operating.