THE OUTBREAK AS CREATION: INTERFACES BETWEEN BIPOLAR DISORDER AND THE PERFORMING ARTS IN THE CREATIVE PROCESS OF “ESPECTRO”
Bipolar Affective Disorder; Creative Process; Practice as Research. Meditation; Performative Theater.
This master's thesis studies the interfaces between the Performing Arts and Bipolar Affective Disorder through the analysis of the creative process “Espectro”, developed by the author of this dissertation while going through his first manic episode. Using Practice as Research as the main methodology, the study seeks to map the scenic poetics of a bipolar actor-creator, the practical developments and the particularities of the process. In a performative writing, the reflection is organized in two moments: autobiographical testimonies of the author juxtaposed with the autobiography of psychiatrist Kay Redfield Jamison (1996), reporting passages of his life with bipolarity; and the description of the practical laboratories, experiences and studies, analyzing the construction of the creative process “Espectro” in Theater, Performance and in life. This research envisages the possibility of drawing connections between creativity in bipolarity and also in the Performing Arts, becoming a reference for bipolar artists in the contemporary scene, in addition to being a unique example of how art and life can be interconnected and blur their boundaries in creative processes. Through self-knowledge and the blurring of the boundaries between art-life in contemporary times, a new look is proposed, from a neurodivergent perspective, for artistic-academic research, which invites us to transform limitations into strengths in relation to BAD.