Corpo atuado: Cena e Xamanismo

In the Caboclo de Pena and Marac shamanic ritual, a shaman's body is said to be "actuated" when her perspective merges with that of the Encantado spirit. The article relates performing arts concepts to cabocla and indigenous experiences of the actuated body, arguing that the encounter between differences involves a positive distance not meant to be bridged. It draws on fieldwork in Amazonia and Mexico, along with theater, anthropology, literature, and philosophy, to challenge modern Western paradigms of stage presence and politics of presence.

Study at a glance

Abstract

In the Caboclo de Pena and Marac shamanic ritual, when the shaman's performing body superimposes her perspective on that of the Encantado, it is said that she is actuated.Considering the assumption that the encounter between differences involves a positive distance, which is not supposed to be bridged, this article aims to relate certain trends in performing arts and the cabocla/indigenous imagination and experience of the actuated body in order to provoke debates about politics of presence and problematize some paradigms that are on the basis of certain practices and ideas about stage presence in the modern Western context.In this sense, it articulates fieldwork in Amazonia and Mexico, theoretical and poetic material coming especially from theater, anthropology, literature, and philosophy.