João Redondo Theater of Rio Grande do Norte: transmission, negotiation and circulation of practice and knowledge
Transmission, negotiation, circulation, popular culture, spectacularization, pasteurization
The popular northeastern puppet theater, which in Rio Grande do Norte is better known as João Redondo theater, the object of this research, is a manifestation of popular culture, with greater concentration in the northeast of Brazil, which over time and traversing different spaces. , was building his identity and a dynamic of his own where his codes and symbolic values fit the social contexts, imprinting himself reworkings of said elements of tradition in dialogue with innovations. In this type of theater are used dolls that are the double of the joker which follows a structure during the play with improvisation of speech, loas, northeastern language, forró music, dance, often fast passages, imagined scenarios and type characters. As with other manifestations of popular culture, the theater of João Redondo do RN is in the process of transforming its practice and knowing as a form of resistance, adaptation to modernity and new and different social contexts. The research aimed to understand the dynamics of practice and knowledge through the observation of three factors present in the process of construction and reworking of the theater of João Redondo do RN: the transmission, negotiation and circulation of the theater by its masters. The initial assumption is that the theater of João Redondo do RN is inserted in a process of spectacularization, according to the concept of José Jorge Carvalho, in which a manifestation of popular culture becomes a spectacle to be consumed by a group detached from its community of origin. without knowledge of their codes and unfamiliar with their senses and symbolic values. Participant observation was used with five masters as anchor interlocutors of the research. The fieldwork also consisted of observing the RN Puppets and Puppets Meetings and their masters, virtual media where practice and knowledge circulate, audiences and contractors in order to understand the complex system in which the five masters selected for the research are inserted. The research is justified by the observation that the three factors may be acting in the way each master builds and redesigns his theater. It was concluded with the research that within the process of spectacularization there is another that we can call pasteurization, where there is an elimination of elements considered offensive to the consuming audience and insertion of new elements easily digestible. It is hoped with this research to promote a greater understanding of the process of transformation of a manifestation of popular culture that resists its traditions, but that spectacularizes and may become another product.