Authentic subjectivities: in theater, dance, and capoeira angola at the intersection of different educational modalities^*1

Abstract

This study examines the understanding of lived experiences of artistic embodied practices in formal, non-formal, and informal educational contexts, involving theater, dance, and Capoeira Angola². The research was conducted with teachers and students engaged in these practices, which took place, in some cases, within regular schools and, in others, in specialized schools dedicated to these modalities, community spaces, street settings, and theater venues. The study is grounded in a phenomenological theoretical framework and includes a bibliographic review of research on theater, dance, and Capoeira Angola in relation to educational practices and subjectivity. Data analysis was carried out through intentional cross-analysis, an operation that enacts phenomenological reduction following the production of experiential accounts obtained through semi-structured interviews conducted within a stance of suspensive listening³. The objective was to comprehend how students and teachers who engage in theater, dance, and Capoeira Angola in diverse educational contexts experience these practices as processes that foster authentic subjectivity. It is argued that such practices may contribute to the development of personal potentialities and to the realization of a meaningful experience of the self across different educational settings and at their intersections. The moving body in these artistic expressions is thus emphasized as a site for the constitution of authentic subjectivity.

Keywords:
Education - Subjectivity - Authenticity - Artistic embodied practices.

Resumo

Este trabalho teve como foco de estudo a compreensão de experiências com práticas corporais artísticas em situações educativas formais, não formais e informais, envolvendo teatro, dança e capoeira angola. Foi realizada uma pesquisa com professores e alunos dessas práticas, as quais ocorriam, em algumas situações, dentro da escola regular, e em outras, em escolas específicas das modalidades, espaços comunitários, na rua e no teatro. Tal pesquisa está embasada pelo referencial teórico da fenomenologia, especialmente com atenção aos escritos de Edith Stein sobre práticas educativas corporais e subjetividade, e foi realizado um levantamento bibliográfico de pesquisas sobre teatro, dança e capoeira angola relacionados com práticas educativas e subjetividade. A análise dos dados se valeu do cruzamento intencional, operação que coloca em prática a redução fenomenológica após a produção de relatos de experiência por meio de entrevistas semiestruturadas sob escuta suspensiva. O objetivo foi pautado na compreensão da maneira como pessoas que praticam o teatro, a dança e a capoeira angola em situações educativas diversas, alunos e professores, as experienciam como subjetivação autêntica. Considera-se, portanto, que essas práticas podem contribuir para o desenvolvimento de potencialidades pessoais e para a efetivação de uma experiência significativa de si mesmo em diferentes contextos educativos e nas suas intersecções. Ressalta-se o corpo em movimento nessas expressões artísticas como espaço de produção de subjetividade autêntica.

Palavras chave:
Educação - Subjetividade - Autenticidade - Práticas corporais artísticas

Introduction

Authentic subjectivity emerges when a person expresses themselves authentically, achieving congruence between interiority and the expressivity of the living body, which feels and attributes meaning to lived experience. Artistic, embodied practices - permeated by music, playfulness, sensory experience, and relationships with others and with audiences - were reported by participants across different educational contexts, particularly in theater, dance, and Capoeira Angola.

Given this context, the object of this investigation is the study of the emergence of authentic subjectivity within the practices of theater, dance, and Capoeira Angola across diverse educational modalities. The objective is therefore to understand how such artistic embodied practices foster authentic subjectivity, which emerges when subjects experience alignment with the self through meaningful and emotionally expressive experiences characterized by belonging, participation, and a desire to engage in them. The following questions thus arise: Is it possible to promote authentic subjectivity through these practices? If so, how? Authenticity is linked to “becoming aware of one’s own experience and allowing the self to be guided by it, […] as a human process essential to the development of a person’s personal potentialities”⁴ (Coelho Junior, 2018, p. 14). In this sense, can the artistic embodied practices under study contribute to the development of personal potentialities and to the realization of a meaningful experience of the self?

Edith Stein’s conception of subjectivity encompasses embodied, psychic, and spiritual dimensions, in which the body is not constituted solely in its materiality but is understood as a living body, capable of feeling, sensing, and initiating its own movements in constant exchange with the external environment, thereby expressing interior life. The person is a psychophysical unity constituted between body and soul, with the psyche understood as the structuring dimension of the soul. Through the expression of the living body, the human being constitutes its own world in active engagement with the environment. Forms of expressivity make it possible to access the interior life of persons (Cardoso; Massimi, 2013).

Theoretical considerations

In seeking to relate subjectivity and embodied experience, Nóbrega, Silva, and Lima Neto (2015, p. 46-47) emphasize the value of embodiment and its polysemy, proposing investments in “experiences of the body, in the sensations of the body in action, and in the configuration of a sensitive logic, […] seeking new regimes of intelligibility for embodiment and new forms of affective and social sharing.”

According to Coelho Junior (2018, p. 76), “embodiment is indispensable for the understanding of subjectivity”; it conditions both psychic experiences (feelings, perceptions, etc.) and spiritual experiences (reflection, free acts, decisions, etc.). For Stein (2021), the soul is rational; it is spirit and constitutes the form of the subjective body, which, in turn, is the living body that experiences, lives through, and possesses self-consciousness. A deeper and more originary internal force related to the spirit exists: the manner in which value is attributed (or not) to knowledge derived from the external world. This form of valuing acquired knowledge is individual, singular, and authentic; authentic subjectivity may therefore be understood as the expression of this singular form of valuing.

The artistic embodied practices reported occur across formal education (regular schools and universities), non-formal education (dance academies, community theater courses, or Capoeira Angola classes in public spaces), and informal education (family contexts, theaters, street rodas⁵, and dance performances in diverse settings). Gadotti (2005) proposes a harmonization between formal and non-formal education. Simão (2022) argues that both modalities are structured by the intentionality of their organizers and participants, are methodical and systematic in their processes, and are capable of fostering meaningful exchanges. Marandino (2017) suggests that non-formal education, together with formal and informal education, should be understood as part of a continuum - an idea also present in Rogers (1986) in his discussion of significant learning. Gohn (2020) maintains that non-formal education should intersect with and strengthen formal education as a structuring principle. This study engaged with artistic embodied practices occurring across these educational contexts, including theater classes within the mandatory arts curriculum in regular schools, vocational programs, and universities; dance classes at dance academies; and Capoeira Angola classes in community spaces. Informal education also appears in reports of individuals encountering artistic embodied practices in the street, in theaters, and in other public spaces. These experiences, across different educational modalities, may be analyzed relationally and can contribute to reflections on the authentic subjectivity emerging from lived practices.

Studies highlight regular schools as institutions that regulate bodies through disciplinary mechanisms, often valuing education through rigidity and coercion (Torri; Albino; Vaz, 2007). Traditional education tends to promote a standardized, mechanistic, and individualistic conception of the body (Brasileiro; Marcassa, 2008). Scholars also criticize art education in regular schools for its lack of meaningful content and as mere memorization of commemorative dates (André, 2008). Despite legislation reinforcing the importance of the arts across educational modalities, visual arts continue to predominate, the body remains confined to desks (Strazzacappa, 2001), and teachers often assume that students learn only when seated and silent (Scarpato, 2001). In this context, the body is frequently treated as an accessory element within the regular school environment, when it should instead be understood as an affirmation of human existence (Nóbrega; Tibúrcio, 2004).

In theater education, by contrast, the body is understood as a source of knowledge (Moura, 2012, p. 39). In this case, “nothing is more effective for learning than the face- to-face dimension of theater” (Serres, 2004, p. 71). Embodied gestures reveal a “singular and plural history” and must therefore be perceived in a “subtle and sensitive” manner, recognizing art as a fundamental dimension for understanding the body’s potency (Zanella; Peres, 2017, p. 114). The body is described as knowledge present here and now and deeply attentive to experience, despite having been “forgotten” in Western cultures; it is believed that it must be “awakened” in order to rethink teacher education (Zanella; Peres, 2017, p. 103). Likewise, for Grotowski, what matters in theater is the “production of modes of existence” (Plá, 2013).

In the early twentieth century, Rudolf Laban introduced dance education into regular schools as a counterpoint to the rigidity of classical ballet. Corrêa and Santos (2014, p. 521) argue that dance teachers should recognize students’ embodied histories of movement and propose alternative possibilities for expression. Motivated by playfulness, movement, rhythm, and storytelling, this process can facilitate students’ initial contact with artistic language and embodied expression and awaken their sensitivities and talents (Strazzacappa, 2001). Through dance, the body is allowed to exist in multiple ways (Moehlecke; Fonseca, 2005). Understood not only as a game and a form of combat but also as dance, the African-derived educational tradition of Capoeira Angola values touch - associated with feeling, affect, and attentiveness toward the student - as a fundamental pedagogical principle. This perspective highlights the importance of articulating formal education with popular culture. In this sense, capoeira and its mestres⁶ offer significant contributions to educational practice (Abib, 2006, p. 90).

The Introduction presented the concept of authentic subjectivity in relation to the living body from a phenomenological perspective and discussed the educational modalities in which the artistic embodied practices of theater, dance, and Capoeira Angola were examined. It also addressed critiques of educational practices that fail to value embodiment and introduced studies addressing conceptions of the body in theater, dance, and Capoeira Angola. The Methodology section presents phenomenology as the theoretical-methodological foundation and describes the procedures through which the research was conducted. The Results section identifies authentic subjectivity as a central nucleus of meaning and examines its different forms of manifestation, relating them to the works studied on theater, dance, and Capoeira Angola. Finally, the Conclusion revisits the concepts of embodiment and authentic subjectivity, enabling a deeper understanding of how they manifest within the artistic embodied practices investigated.

Methodology

The methodological and epistemological foundation of this research is phenomenology, which seeks to understand how participants experience the phenomenon (Leite, 2021, p. 45) and become aware of their lived experiences, as well as their intersubjective relations with the external world (Pena, 2021, p. 58-59). According to Teixeira (2021), Edith Stein emphasizes the human being as a person constituted by body, psyche, and spirit, highlighting identity and relationality.

Thus, in order to analyze authenticity and its relationship with embodiment, it is necessary to gradually suspend the meanings embedded in the natural attitude and in scientific interpretations, so that the phenomenon may be analyzed as it presents itself, moving beyond representations and directing attention toward the things themselves (Coelho Junior, 2018).

To this end, practitioners of theater, dance, or Capoeira Angola were identified, and ten semi-structured interviews⁷ were conducted to understand how participants experience such artistic embodied practices on personal, subjective, and existential levels. After being recorded, the interviews were numbered in the order in which they were conducted and transcribed for analysis.⁸ The interviews involved central guiding questions aligned with the research objective. The interviewer remained attentive to language, form, and the sequence of questions, while also remaining open to the circumstances of the moment (Manzini, 2004). The interviews used the following guiding themes: first encounters with the artistic embodied practice; motivations; aspects participants appreciated or disliked about the classes; relationships with teachers and colleagues; the meaning of the practice in their lives; what they considered unique about the practice; and descriptions of pleasurable sensations related to it.

Phenomenological reduction, understood as the researcher’s effort to bracket preconceptions regarding the object of study through suspensive listening, was then undertaken by focusing on and encouraging participants to articulate the essential aspects of their lived experience. Analysis and description of the phenomenon proceeded first by attending to the singularities of each participant and, subsequently, through an analysis across participants’ experiential reports, identifying the intersubjective and universal dimensions that emerged both individually and collectively (Coelho Junior, 2018).

Authentic subjectivity

Passion and enchantment in first encounters

There is often an initial encounter that draws a person’s attention to an artistic embodied practice, whether in regular school contexts or elsewhere. Participant E3 (2022) describes being enchanted by a play she attended at the theater, where she encountered a scene of contact improvisation, stating to herself, “That is what I want to do.” Likewise, participant E9 (2022) recalls his first informal encounter with capoeira, stating, “I saw capoeira on the street and went crazy.”

In both cases, a passion is awakened in response to what is singular and distinctive in each practice. In the case of Capoeira Angola, this involves expressing oneself within its distinctive temporality - marked by slowness - which shapes the lived experience of practicing capoeira: “Then I had the first experience inside the roda; I was impressed […] there is the aspect of embodied expression, it is slower” (E9, 2022). This experience reveals an existentially meaningful desire: “The moment I experienced Capoeira Angola, I said, ‘This is it,’ and I never stopped after that; at that moment, I fell in love - I felt good there” (E9, 2022). A similar dynamic appears in dance: “I saw an oriental dance ballerina for the first time and I fell instantly in love!” (E2, 2022).

Participant E6 describes a desire to dance like the small animals she saw in a performance that deeply moved her. The experience awakened a playful dimension of her childhood and a desire to become what she had perceived. The inspiration emerged through her encounter with the cinematic representation of animals:

I saw a ballet danced by little animals - something very playful - and I was completely enchanted. I said, ‘Wow, I want to dance like those little animals, those guinea pigs; I want to be those little animals’ […] From then on, it became my whole life (E6, 2022).

Such experiences arise from encounters with artistic embodied practices in their manifest form. They are not primarily structured as educational events, although they may implicitly or explicitly include formative elements. In this sense, they may be understood as informal educational experiences. The existential desire or passion directed toward the practice becomes a motivating force in the development of the art form.

First encounters may also occur within formal educational contexts such as a theater class at a regular school: “It was at school […] and at the end of every year we could choose which project we wanted to do, and the Portuguese teacher left that open, so we performed several plays” (E5, 2022). Similar situations appear in non-formal educational contexts: “The ballet school had just opened, and her nanny took her there, so I went along. During those visits, I started enjoying the classes and eventually began taking them as well” (E6, 2022).

In informal educational contexts, passion or enchantment is often immediate and intense, arising from the presence and action of experienced practitioners. Motivation emerges from what reveals itself as singular in the practice when it is witnessed in action. In contrast, in formal and non-formal educational contexts, initial experiences are more frequently shaped by institutional and social environments. What emerges is not necessarily an immediate passion for the practice in its fullness but rather an initial engagement marked by pleasure, enjoyment, and a sense of capability, often accompanied by social recognition. Regarding dance, participant E6 states: “It was the only thing I did well, and it was the only space […] where I received praise […] ‘Wow, she dances beautifully.’ There, I felt beautiful - I felt that I belonged” (E6, 2022). This contrasts sharply with her experience in regular school: “My relationship with school was very frustrating; at least in ballet I had space - I was beautiful in ballet. It was something I didn’t hear at school: ‘Oh, you are beautiful’” (E6, 2022). The beauty recognized in ballet - or its absence in school - is not merely aesthetic. At school, she experienced a lack of recognition: “At school I was a failure; I couldn’t stay in my chair, I failed the year, I kept looking outside - completely distracted” (E6, 2022). In ballet, however, recognition was linked to performance: “It’s a beauty of performance; it’s not about being beautiful according to social standards […] that was very healing for me - only in ballet - my self-esteem was very good” (E6, 2022). Finding herself in ballet - “ballet was the place where I found myself” (E6, 2022) - was constituted through the social recognition of a form of performance proper to the practice. This recognition corresponded to an authentic desire aligned with what she experienced as proper to herself: “I want my body to also do what their bodies are doing, and I am going to get up and try to do it” (E6, 2022).

Participant E8’s experience with theater unfolded similarly: “Suddenly, I ended up in a room where people were studying theater. I went in to watch, and then they put me in a scene - I did it, enjoyed it, liked it” (E8, 2022). The enjoyment of improvisational games and performance is expressed as follows: “Being on stage, being with other people, enjoying it - there is a good sensation […] you make people laugh, and that laughter also motivates you” (E8, 2022). What stands out is the act of practicing itself, which awakens a desire to continue. Social recognition is also present, as one elicits laughter from others. Correlatively, there is a desire for recognition of the self: “The need to represent in some group […] this adolescent desire to be someone - theater brings a little of that space” (E8, 2022).

The motivating aspects of theater (Oliveira; Stoltz, 2010), the changes in students’ attitudes after dance classes (Strazzacappa; Vianna, 2001), and the “impacts on personal and social life” provoked by Capoeira Angola (Gallep, 2022, p. 19) indicate that first encounters can transform and propel participants toward further involvement. A first encounter is a singular moment in which something from the external world - a cultural and spiritual expression embodied in practice - touches the interior of the person’s soul, marking the possible emergence of authentic subjectivity insofar as the person freely chooses to continue.

When students engage with a desire, enchantment, or need that resonates with what each artistic embodied practice offers, the first encounter mobilizes an authentic dimension constitutive of the person. This encounter establishes a correspondence between the desire to act, the need for self-experience through practice, and the lived experience of social recognition in its enactment. Such alignment - varying in degree, intensity, and context - reveals itself as a principal motivating axis for an educational and existential formative process sustained through continued engagement. The beginning of this formative trajectory is thus driven by the lived experience of being-through-practice in both personal and social dimensions.

The authentic formative process as primordial belonging to the body

A persistent impulse emerges - a desassossego - expressed in the ongoing search for plays, dance courses, training sessions, and capoeira circles. A desire for improvement and refinement of artistic embodied practice gradually takes shape: “I said, ‘I need to do theater.’ Do you see the desassossego that it is?” (E1, 2022).

Within formative processes, participants report significant aspects of their relationships with others during artistic embodied practices - with fellow students, teachers, and audiences. In dance and theater, stage performance constitutes part of the training process; in capoeira, the moment of the roda represents a central experience in which capoeira practicioners and spectators participate together. In this way, various forms of social recognition emerge and reinforce the founding and constitutive dimension of authenticity within these practices: “I received a Best Actress award, and then I said, ‘Guys!’ It really reinforced for me that I had to do theater.”

That was when it felt really good, surprising. I felt like the best; I felt very good, because I had never felt so good doing something I wanted. I didn’t see it as an obligation, or as work, or as a sacrifice - something I had to do just because. I did it because I truly liked it, and I dedicated myself to it more than to anything else I had ever done in my life (E5, 2022, student, regarding theater in a Portuguese class at regular school).

When it corresponds to others’ appreciation of a person’s desire and its realization through artistic embodied practice, such social recognition continues to shape self- understanding: “For me, this was truly significant in shaping who I am and in understanding myself as a person” (E6, 2022).

Not only does what occurs involve a renewal of this authentic dimension of the experience of practicing, and its associated aspects, but it also entails a deepening of that experience through continued engagement in the practice. This deepening involves a specific pleasure of significant existential intensity. In these experiences, pleasure appears as “a good sensation of being there, of wanting to be there,” yet it is not merely a form of enjoyment comparable to many others. Rather, it is described as a unique pleasure: “Inside the roda, it is something unique, right? Ah… it’s… I can’t really explain it, but it’s a good sensation of being there - a feeling of pleasure, you know, of wanting to be there. I think that’s it” (E9, 2022). Beyond the pleasure of existing or the desire to exist, what emerges is a singular embodied experience inherent to the act of practicing. In this sense, “there is the extreme of tiredness, and after that tiredness there is a place that is very pleasurable” (E6, 2022). This “place” also reveals itself “as a place of liking where you are and what you are feeling in the body; it is knowing that you were supposed to be there, it is very good, it is a physical pleasure that comes after ecstasy” (E6, 2022).

Physical pleasure, therefore, manifests as the pleasure of being there and, consequently, as an experience of belonging that is originally embodied: “of saying: ‘I belong to this,’ of wanting to be in this place and in this space, I say: ‘Wow, I am from here, from this sensation; it is here that I want to be, this is what I want to feel’” (E6, 2022). The pleasure of belonging to the realization and experience of practicing these art forms is thus evident. Expressions such as “being from here” or “being in it” reveal a sense of belonging that manifests in action and, above all, in lived experience; it is a belonging to a specific and profound embodied experience. In this context, sensations, pleasure, and desire are elements of the act of dancing manifested as an existential space in which an authentic experience of the self is realized. It is in this sense that belonging to an artistic embodied practice takes place. At the same time, this belonging is also a belonging to the self - to one’s own living body - to the art executed by it, and consequently to a specific social world that it helps constitute.

An extension and unfolding of the initial authentic experience of an artistic embodied practice can thus be observed, leading to a deeper experience that develops through an authentic formative process. This development reveals itself as a deepening, grounded in the lived experience of the here and now, of participating in capoeira, acting, and dancing in a more mature and integrated manner. At the same time, this authentic guiding thread of experience reveals, develops, and sustains the formative process as it moves across formal, non-formal, and informal educational contexts.

Through “repetition and belonging,” the element of playfulness appears linked to the aforementioned artistic embodied practices and contributes to strengthening bonds and feelings of belonging to social groups (Massa, 2015, p. 119). Dance, for example, promotes a sense of belonging to a group through being seen and acknowledged by the teacher and spectators, generating an experience marked by both intimate and social recognition (Miranda n Cury, 2010). Likewise, similar dynamics occur in theater and capoeira, where recognition by peers and audiences reinforces this sense of belonging. Being recognized in this way fosters feelings of pleasure and group affiliation.

When experiences of recognition are associated with embodied sensations inherent to the specific movements of these practices - such as musicality, expressivity, dance, play, and game - not only do “pleasurable sensations” emerge, but also a social and existential dimension of meaning that renders them unique and motivates the continuation of practice. Pleasurable sensations are experienced in theater (Oliveira; Stoltz, 2010), games and play (Massa, 2015), and in dance and capoeira. According to Scarpato (2001, p. 57), learning requires that the student become involved and experience pleasure.

The authentic formative experience as a discovery (Emergence) of the self

The experience of belly dance, beginning from the way the music affects the person bodily, reveals itself as another practice of deepening authenticity through the living body in movement. In this sense: “Whoever hears, dances, and I gradually fell in love with the stimulation of my body - that inner feeling, that pulsing, that sweat, the beauty of the human body” (E2, 2022, teacher, dance academy). It is this passion for bodily stimulation that brings forth beauty in movement and gives rise to an experience of moving freely - “I like a kind of movement that is less regulated, freer, like, ‘let the body express what it is feeling with that music,’ you know?” (E7, 2022, student, dance academy). Such movement, impelled by music, brings forth “a bodily intelligence that I have had since childhood - it really is an ecstasy, enjoying unusual movements […] discovering other things, the poetry of the body […] within character construction” (E8, teacher, regular school). Also highlighted in this experience of discovering movement is a bodily intelligence present since childhood; that is, a dimension of discovery that, although it emerges as something new, also appears as the manifestation of something that already constituted the person and their movements. Similarly to dance, listening to music involves allowing the body to move - “I let the body move” (E7, 2022, student, dance academy). This allowing oneself to be moved bodily appears, in this sense, as a mode of movement in which “things can come to the surface” (E7, 2022, student, dance academy).

In these experiences, an emergence of the self becomes evident - or of something that is at once personally familiar and recognizable, yet also strange - configuring itself as a process of self-discovery. In belly dance, for example, there is a “discovery” through the act of “valuing adornment,” which occurs when “working on characteristics that were hidden from myself” (E7, 2022, student, dance academy). Thus, the participant is able to glimpse something akin to a tendency within her psychic dimension that was already active, participating in the act of dancing as a process of working through hidden characteristics: “I think my psyche was already guiding me toward an integration” (E7, 2022, student, dance academy). In this reflection, something more directly revealing of her experience stands out - an emergent experience of integration through dance. It is an experience that “touches deeper layers of myself that I cannot put into words; it is something I feel, you know, as if… it awakened something in me that was hidden, or held back, when I heard those songs” (E7, 2022, student, dance academy).

Therefore, dancing also reveals itself as an experience in which deeper layers are touched, allowing something hidden to emerge and giving rise to a particular feeling of something of the self coming forth. If dance implies an experience of “being able to show the body, the movement of the body, the beauty they have” (E7, 2022, student, dance academy), such showing of the self to others has as its correlate the emergence of deeper dimensions of the self. Through a simultaneous experience of the self, the music, and the body as bearers of beauty, showing the self in its beauty to others implies the manifestation of deeper dimensions of the self in the act of dancing.

In dance, emphasis is placed on the possibility for each individual to create their own movements in search of expressing femininity, sensuality, and creativity, encouraging the cultivation of a “harmonic relationship with the self and with the world, self-knowledge, and emotional balance” (Castro, 2011, p. 556), as well as the expression of the self in an original way, seeking to be who an individual is at their personal core. Thus, through dance, a person may experience what has been described as an encounter with the self and with the person´s authentic individuality. Andrieu and Nóbrega (2016) identify contemporary dance and improvisational practices as particularly potent for bringing forth the living body and distinguishing the corpo vivo⁹ from the corpo vivido¹⁰, the latter referring to the consciousness of what has been lived.

The authentic formative experience as integration with the self

If, in certain practices, this experience of integration occurs as an emergence of the self, in others it takes the form of completeness, wholeness, and security: “For me, theater is where I feel most whole. That is what it means to me - I become integrated. Where I am fragmented and shattered, the moment I am there, I gather all the pieces and everything fits together, and then I live that moment, which is sublime” (E1, 2022, theater teacher, regular school). However, such a “feeling of completeness lasts only for a moment […] and when it ends, incompleteness already returns; it lasts only briefly […] I struggle with insecurity, but the moment I decide to enter, I become whole” (E1, 2022). Thus, this moment of completeness experienced in the practice of theater contrasts with experiences of incompleteness, insecurity, fragmentation, and shattering in other moments of life: “Afterwards I return to real life, but to reach that moment takes a lot of effort, a lot of repetition - theater is repetition. Everything I feel insecure about in life, on stage I […] enter, and there I grow as a person; I feel better” (E1, 2022).

Growing as a person on stage means realizing an experience of integration in which everything fits together. Within the actor’s prepared action in progress, this involves a form of self-integration that occurs through the integration of practical and artistic dimensions developed through effort and repetition. Thus, it entails the integration of one’s capacities, learning, knowledge, and skills cultivated through dedication, as well as the integration of one’s efforts and preparatory actions, culminating in an instant of wholeness in which the person grows.

Two forms of self-integration experience stand out, each occurring through the integration of actions proper to a given artistic embodied practice: the emergence of dimensions of the self as the capacity to feel and to show oneself bodily in one’s beauty through dance; and the integration of efforts, actions, and forms of knowledge in the culminating moment of theatrical action. Both occur, first and foremost, bodily, and it is in the moving, living body that such integrations are realized. In both of these artistic embodied practices, a gathering of dimensions of the self is revealed, together with other lived experiences, constituting a form in which the body tells its own story. More than that, the person realizes themself fully - or, alternatively, experiences the realization of the body’s history, that is, personal history - through a mode of discovery or exercise of the self within a lived here and now.

Although most of the reports come from teachers, statements from students also demonstrate such integration. For participant E5 (2022, student), “Theater is a form of therapy, because I feel outside of the world, outside of judgments, outside of prejudices; I feel that I can be myself, and that life like this is very magical. I wish I could have this feeling every day, at every moment.”

In theater, there is the possibility of participants reflecting on who they are and on the roles they perform in the world through the lived experience of different identities when portraying characters (Strazzacappa; Vianna, 2001). In addition to perceiving the self, a participant also comes to perceive the other (Oliveira; Stoltz, 2010). Bodily work in theater and performance is understood as an expression of human intersubjectivity that fosters the integral development of the human being (Ferreira; Hartmann; Machado, 2017) and, consequently, promotes an experience of the self grounded in embodied practice.

In Capoiera Angola, there are similar reports to those of participants in these other artistic embodied practices. One capoeira participant states that the practice “is part of me,” and, at times, experiences pleasure in the moment that occurs inside the roda, even saying that they “wanted that moment to last forever” (E10, 2022, student, community spaces). The participant feels involved, well, and belonging to the group within the roda, and for this reason this entire movement leads them to feel part of something and integrated into the practice: “This was the feeling I had - and I have experienced it many times […] I need this, because it nourishes my soul, allows me to be with people I care about, and has already become part of who I am” (E10, 2022).

Such experiences, desired by practitioners, give rise to an existential drive or need to continue practicing and dedicating themselves to the art form in order to reach such experiences again or to continuously renew them: “Once you realize you like it - that you feel good in that place, that you’ve already experienced it in an informal, amateur way, and that it says a lot about who you are - you just can’t stop anymore” (E1, 2022). Feeling good, in this sense, means feeling that the self is in the right space (primordial belonging) and, simultaneously, experiencing the artistic embodied practice as something that says much about who the participant is (authentic experience). Therefore, such forms of integration also reveal themselves as forms of belonging to a particular existential embodied space - more precisely, to a particular experience of the artistic embodied practice that is, at the same time, a particular experience of the self. In this way, such experiences speak both of the person and of the art form through which the person expresses themselves in movement.

This expression is simultaneously feeling, acting, moving, and fulfilling the self, constituting a space that is at once artistic and embodied, communal and personal - a space of authentic, full, and integral manifestation of the self. It may be understood as primordial belonging - that is, as an authentic mode of manifestation of the self and of the art form through which the self becomes present in embodied practice. In this sense, primordial belonging reveals itself as an authentic field of experiences of discovering the self, of working on the self, and of engaging with the self, which are inseparable from discovering, working on, and engaging with these artistic embodied practices in the very act of practicing them. It thus constitutes the deepest and most developed nucleus of authentic experience that forms the authentic formative process at an advanced stage.

In Capoeira Angola, “a personal, authentic, and creative style of being in the world is evoked, in which bodily sensibility orients values and gestures recognized as meaningful within the capoeira community” (Valério; Barreira, 2016, p. 107). To live Capoeira Angola is to learn ways of being and values, proper to both the roda and training sessions, which are not confined to these spaces, but extend beyond the practice. Likewise, dancing constitutes a specific way of being in the world, expressed through movements that differ from those of everyday life (Saraiva, 2005).

Final considerations

Starting from the objective of reflecting on the artistic embodied practices of theater, dance, and Capoeira Angola as expressions of authentic subjectivity, and of understanding the ways in a person may approach them - or fail to do so - we understand that these practices are cultural manifestations that, as evidenced in participants’ reports, enable each participant to encounter the self, indicating the emergence of authentic subjectivity. Even with the standardizations required by each artistic embodied practice, participants are still called to imprint a specific expressivity; without this imprint, the practice either fails to take place or occurs merely as a simulacrum - an expression devoid of authenticity. The manner in which participants experience these artistic embodied practices reveals something extraordinary, something that stands out and offers the possibility of realization of the self not found in other experiences. There is, therefore, an integrity of experience in which movement requires feeling, skill, effort, determination, and will, with the participation of bodily, psychic, and spiritual acts (of the order of will, decision, and understanding). The fact that all these dimensions occur integrally and simultaneously is intimately related to the expressive perception of the self - that is, to authentic subjectivity - grounded in knowledge of the self and in the technical knowledge that structures the artistic embodied practices addressed here.

Researching artistic embodied practices as expressions of authentic subjectivity invites reflection on the meaning of becoming a subject. From this perspective, embodiment is not merely expression but the foundation of the person, insofar as they participate in constituting, constructing, inventing, and discovering the self as a person different from who the person was before (Manske, 2022).

Thus, it becomes possible to conceive of an education of the body and of sensitivities, as suggested by Silva and Nóbrega (2021). Authenticity appears as a phenomenon present in embodiment, contributing to a deeper understanding of the processes through which authentic subjectivity emerges from experiences of the living body. Therefore, the forms of experience of the self within artistic embodied practices reveal primordial belonging, which, by being embodied and by promoting sensations of pleasure and belonging, enable the person to experience the self as integral - that is, authentic in their subjectivity (Coelho Junior, 2018).

The possibility of developing personal potentialities and achieving a meaningful experience of the self is demonstrated through the artistic embodied practices of theater, dance, and Capoeira Angola, highlighting the role of authentic subjectivity. In this sense, it becomes possible to consider ways of incorporating the practices of theater, dance, and Capoeira Angola into teacher training programs and basic education (Dolci; Molon, 2016; Gallep, 2022; Strazzacappa; Vianna, 2001).

Authentic subjectivity also takes shape within the dimension of non-formal education. From this perspective, attention turns to formal education and to the inclusion of these artistic embodied practices within that context. The first encounter with the artistic embodied practices described in the regular school setting does not yet constitute a deep experience of self-discovery; rather, it functions as a process of sensitization, opening possibilities for experimentation with the self and for initial engagement. Nevertheless, it is sufficient to trigger a form of discovery that may foster the continuation of an authentic subjectivation process beyond the regular school context, unfolding in a fuller and more developed manner within the non-formal sphere. Thus, there is a dynamic articulation among formal, non-formal, and informal education within an integrated continuum and it is considered essential that students be offered access to this articulation, as it enables the initiation of a process of pursuit, exercise, and development of authenticity through one practice or another.

At the same time, there is a fundamental correlation between authentic subjectivation and the authentic manifestation of a collective culture, which occurs only when each individual realizes their individuation authentically within and through that culture and its collective structure, rather than restricting this process to the structure of the person alone. Finally, Edith Stein’s conception of authentic subjectivity becomes evident in the authentic and expressive artistic embodied practices that traverse educational modalities, as revealed in the participants’ reports.

Without intending to exhaust the theme, it is important to highlight possible intersections among theater, dance, and Capoeira Angola. Silva (2012) and Gallep (2022) point to the possibility of conceiving the embodied preparation of the performing artist through elements derived from Capoeira Angola, in light of its artistic and embodied expressive potency and its integration of elements of dance, theater, and music.

Finally, acknowledging the limitations of this study, the need for future research on the theme is emphasized as an ongoing challenge. When inserted into regular schools and teacher training programs, artistic embodied practices, according to Victorio Filho, Bulcão, and Batista (2019), may constitute a space for the emergence of new meanings, practices, knowledge, and displacements. Such displacements recall the work of Maurice Blanchot, for whom “there will always be some work of art [...] to fall out of this universal knowledge [...] strange combat that attracts them out of themselves” (Blanchot, 2005 apud Mizoguchi, 2017, p. 51). Paradoxically, in this movement of going out of the self, a person may also think of finding the self - that is, encountering another dimension of the self - as well as the possibility of new inventions of the self and new authentic subjectivities.

References

• ABIB, Pedro Rodolfo Junger. Os velhos capoeiras ensinam pegando na mão. Caderno Cedes, Campinas, v. 26, n. 68, p. 86-98, 2006. Disponível em: Disponível em: https://www.scielo.br/j/ccedes/a/g3BxxnrvhvHNtHZfcdzRqZc/?format=pdf⟨=pt Acesso em: 11 dez. 2025.
  » https://www.scielo.br/j/ccedes/a/g3BxxnrvhvHNtHZfcdzRqZc/?format=pdf⟨=pt
• ANDRÉ, Carminda Mendes. Espaço inventado: o teatro pós-dramático na escola. Educação em Revista, Belo Horizonte, n. 48, p. 125-141, 2008.
• ANDRIEU, Bernard; NÓBREGA, Terezinha Petrucia da. A emersiologia do corpo vivo na dança contemporânea. Holos, Natal, v. 3, p. 371-384, 2016.
• BRASILEIRO, Lívia Tenório; MARCASSA, Luciana Pedrosa. Linguagens do corpo: dimensões expressivas e possibilidades educativas da ginástica e da dança. Pro-Posições, Campinas, v. 19, n. 3, p. 195-207, 2008.
• CARDOSO, Carolina de Resende Damas; MASSIMI, Marina. Contribuições de Edith Stein para a fundamentação filosófica da psicologia científica. Psicologia em Pesquisa, Juiz de Fora, v. 7, n. 2, p. 188-199, 2013.
• CASTRO, Julia Carvajal. Una aproximación a la producción de sensibilidad desde las técnicas corporales: el caso de la danza SAMKYA en Medellín. Revista Educación Física y Deporte, Medellín, v. 30, n. 2, p. 553-560, 2011.
• COELHO JUNIOR, Achilles Gonçalves. Autenticidade e corporeidade na obra de Edith Stein. 2018. Tese (Doutorado em Ciências) - Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto, Universidade de São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, 2018.
• CORRÊA, Josiane Franken; SANTOS, Vera Lúcia Bertoni dos. Dança na educação básica: apropriações de práticas contemporâneas no ensino de dança. Revista Brasileira de Estudos da Presença, Porto Alegre, v. 4, n. 3, p. 509-526, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1590/2237-266041528.
• DOLCI, Luciana Netto; MOLON, Susana Inês. A experiência com o teatro na formação dos professores: potencialidades à Educação Ambiental e à Educação Estética. Remea: Revista Eletrônica do Mestrado em Educação Ambiental, Rio Grande, v. 33, n. 1, p. 75-94, 2016.
• FERREIRA, Taís; HARTMANN, Luciana; MACHADO, Marina Marcondes. Entre escola e universidade: dinossauros e caderninhos por uma dramaturgia encarnada. Revista Brasileira de Estudos da Presença, Porto Alegre, v. 7, n. 1, p. 45-70, 2017.
• GADOTTI, Moacir. A questão da educação formal/não formal. In: INSTITUT INTERNATIONAL DES DROITS DE L'ENFANT (IDE) DROIT À L'ÉDUCATION: SOLUTION À TOUS LES PROBLÈMES OU PROBLÈME SANS SOLUTION?, 18-22 out. 2005, Sion. Anais. Sion: s. n., 2005. p. 1-11.
• GALLEP, Cristiano de Mello. A Capoeira Angola diversificando a universidade: semeando ecologia de saberes nas artes da cena. Revista Brasileira de Estudos da Presença, Porto Alegre, v. 12, n. 3, e113063, 2022.
• GOHN, Maria da Glória. Educação não formal: direitos e aprendizagens dos cidadãos(ãs) em tempos do coronavírus. Revista Humanidades e Inovação Universidade Federal do Maranhão, São Luís, v. 7, n. 7, p. 10-20, 2020.
• LEITE, Juliana Miranda de Moraes. A relevância da psicologia fenomenológico-existencial no contexto da Covid-19. In: MENDES, Everaldo dos Santos (org.). Psicologia fenomenológico-existencial: reflexões, método e intervenções clínicas, sociais e comunitárias. Curitiba: Bagai, 2021. p. 43-52.
• MANSKE, George Saliba. Práticas corporais como conceito?. Movimento, Porto Alegre, v. 28, e28001, 2022.
• MANZINI, Eduardo José. Entrevista semi-estruturada: análise de objetivos e de roteiros. In: SEMINÁRIO INTERNACIONAL SOBRE PESQUISA E ESTUDOS QUALITATIVOS, 2., 2004, Bauru. Anais. Bauru, SP: SIPEQ, 2004. 1 CD.
• MARANDINO, Martha. Faz sentido ainda propor a separação entre os termos educação formal, não formal e informal?. Ciência & Educação, Bauru, v. 23, n. 4, p. 811-816, 2017.
• MASSA, Mônica de Souza. Ludicidade: da etimologia da palavra à complexidade do conceito. Aprender: Caderno de Filosofia e Psicologia da Educação, Vitória da Conquista, v. 2, n. 15, p. 111-130, 2015.
• MIRANDA, Renata Marques Rego; CURY, Vera Engler. Dançar o adolescer: estudo fenomenológico com um grupo de dança de rua em uma escola. Paidéia, Ribeirão Preto, v. 20, n. 47, p. 391-400, 2010.
• MIZOGUCHI, Danichi Hausen. Blanchot, a experiência literária e o fim da história: as janelas abertas de uma geração. Estudos da Língua(gem), Vitória da Conquista, v. 15, n. 1, p. 43-55, 2017.
• MOEHLECKE, Vilene; FONSECA, Tania Maria Galli. Da dança e do devir: o corpo no regime do sutil. Revista do Departamento de Psicologia da UFF, Niterói, v. 17, n. 1, p. 29-44, 2005.
• MOURA, Marinalva Nicácio de. O corpo na experiência do ator: diálogos entre teatro e educação. 2012. Dissertação (Mestrado em Educação) - Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, 2012.
• NÓBREGA, Terezinha Petrucia da; SILVA, Liege Monique Filgueiras da; LIMA NETO, Avelino Aldo de. Movimentos do pensamento: cenários da filosofia do corpo no Brasil. Dialektiké, Natal, v. 1, n. 2, p. 38-49, 2015.
• NÓBREGA, Terezinha Petrucia da; TIBÚRCIO, Larissa Kelly. A experiência do corpo na dança butô: indicadores para pensar a educação. Educação e Pesquisa, São Paulo, v. 30, n. 3, p. 461-468, 2004.
• OLIVEIRA, Maria Eunice de; STOLTZ, Tania. Teatro na escola: considerações a partir de Vygotsky. Educar, Curitiba, n. 36, p. 77-93, 2010.
• PENA, Danilo Vitor. Os pressupostos fenomenológicos da empatia steiniana. In: MENDES, Everaldo dos Santos (org.). Psicologia fenomenológico-existencial: reflexões, método e intervenções clínicas, sociais e comunitárias. Curitiba: Bagai, 2021. p. 53-65.
• PLÁ, Daniel Reis. Tornar-se filho de alguém: reflexões sobre organon, técnica e tradição em Grotowski. Revista Brasileira de Estudos da Presença, Porto Alegre, v. 3, n. 1, p. 144-163, 2013.
• ROGERS, Carl. Liberdade de aprender em nossa década. Tradução: José Octávio de Aguiar Abreu. 2. ed. Porto Alegre: Artes Médicas, 1986.
• SARAIVA, Maria do Carmo. O sentido da dança: arte, símbolo, experiência vivida e representação. Movimento, Porto Alegre, v. 11, n. 3, p. 219-242, 2005.
• SCARPATO, Marta Thiago. Dança educativa: um fato em escolas de São Paulo. Cadernos Cedes, Campinas, v. 21, n. 53, p. 57-68, 2001.
• SERRES, Michel. Variações sobre o corpo. Rio de Janeiro: Bertrand Brasil, 2004.
• SILVA, Luiz Arthur Nunes da; NÓBREGA, Terezinha Petrucia da. Experiência educativa no Taekwondo: autoconfrontação como análise subjetiva do movimento. Educação e Pesquisa, São Paulo, v. 47, e229608, 2021.
• SILVA, Renata de Lima. A potência artística do corpo na capoeira angola. Revista do Lume: Núcleo Interdisciplinar de Pesquisas Teatrais, Campinas, v. 2, n. 1, p. 1-14, 2012.
• SIMÃO, Selma Machado. Educação não formal, ensino de arte e comunidade: experiências voltadas ao enraizamento. Caderno Cedes, Campinas, v. 42, n. 116, p. 51-60, 2022.
• STEIN, Edith. A ideia de formação. Revista Filosófica São Boaventura, Curitiba, v. 15, n. 2, 2021. Tradução de Enio Paulo Giachini e Juvenal Saviani Filho.
• STRAZZACAPPA, Márcia. Dançando na chuva. In: FERREIRA, Sueli (org.). O ensino das artes: construindo caminhos. Campinas: Papirus, 2001. p. 39-77.
• STRAZZACAPPA, Márcia; VIANNA, Tiche. Teatro na educação: reinventando mundos. In: FERREIRA, Sueli (org.). O ensino das artes: construindo caminhos. Campinas: Papirus, 2001. p. 115-138.
• TEIXEIRA, Patrícia Espíndola de Lima. Aprendizagem humana: interfaces entre a psicopedagogia e a fenomenologia do ser de Edith Stein. In: MENDES, Everaldo dos Santos (org.). Psicologia fenomenológico-existencial: reflexões, método e intervenções clínicas, sociais e comunitárias. Curitiba: Bagai, 2021. p. 174-186.
• TORRI, Danielle; ALBINO, Beatriz Staimbach; VAZ, Alexandre Fernandez. Sacrifícios, sonhos, indústria cultural: retratos da educação do corpo no esporte escolar. Educação e Pesquisa, São Paulo, v. 33, n. 3, p. 499-512, 2007.
• VALÉRIO, Pedro Henrique Martins; BARREIRA, Cristiano Roque Antunes. O sentido vivido da capoeira: cumplicidade, risco, autenticidade e criatividade. Revista Brasileira de Psicologia do Esporte, Brasília, DF, v. 6, n. 1, p. 88-108, 2016.
• VICTORIO FILHO, Aldo; BULCÃO, Heloisa Lyra; BATISTA, Leonardo Moraes. O espaço na/da arte e na/da educação como (Re)existência. Educação & Realidade, Porto Alegre, v. 44, n. 3, e84913, 2019.
• ZANELLA, Andrisa Kemel; PERES, Lúcia Maria Vaz. No entrecruzamento de linguagens...: a arte e o corpo para pensar a educação e a formação do humano. Revista Brasileira de Educação, Rio de Janeiro, v. 22, n. 68, p. 101-121, 2017.

• *
  English version translated by Helen Davis Gomes da Silva. The authors take full responsibility for the translation of the text, including title of books/ articles and the quotations originally published in Portuguese.
• 1
  Data availability: The dataset supporting the results of this study is publicly available at SciELO Data: https://doi.org/10.48331/SCIELODATA.EEJTXK.
• 2
  Capoeira Angola is an Afro-Brazilian embodied practice that integrates ritualized combat, musicality, and dialogical movement within the communal space of the roda, the circular formation in which participants gather to sing, play instruments, and witness the embodied exchange.
• 3
  Suspensive listening is a term used in Brazilian academia meaning listening within a phenomenological stance characterized by the suspension of presuppositions.
• 4
  All translations from Portuguese sources are by Helen Davis Gomes da Silva.
• 5
  The roda is the circular formation in capoeira in which participants gather to sing, play instruments, and witness the embodied exchange.
• 6
  The Portuguese term mestre, literally “master” in English, is a title used in capoeira to designate a highly experienced practitioner who has attained the highest level of recognition within a lineage and is authorized to teach, transmit tradition, and guide students.
• 7
  The interviews were conducted after participants received information regarding the ethical procedures of the study and provided written informed consent. Confidentiality of personal information and participant anonymity were ensured throughout the research process.
• 8
  Four participants were involved in theater. E1 is a 58-year-old woman who works as a theater teacher in a regular school (formal education). She holds training in film and has more than 40 years of experience in theater practice. E3 is a 48-year-old woman who teaches at a theater school and has 30 years of experience in the field. E8 is a 35-year-old man trained in performing arts at the university level who teaches theater in a regular school; he has 20 years of experience in the practice. E5 is a 21-year-old man enrolled in a vocational theater program, with 6 years of experience. Four participants were engaged in dance. E2 is a 60-year-old woman who teaches oriental dance at a dance academy and has 50 years of experience in dance practice. E4 is a 45-year-old woman who works as an educator and psychologist and is also a dancer, with 35 years of experience across various dance styles and embodied practices, including somatic education, with particular emphasis on contemporary dance. E6 is a 45-year-old woman who works as both a dancer and a classical ballet teacher at a ballet school; she has 40 years of experience. E7 is a 46-year-old woman and occupational therapist who studies belly dance at a dance academy and has more than 10 years of experience as a student. Two participants were engaged In Capoiera Angola. E9 is a 35-year-old man who teaches in community spaces and has 20 years of experience in the practice. E10 is a 42-year-old woman who participates as a student in community-based classes and has 5 years of experience.
• 9
  The Portuguese term corpo vivo may be translated into English as “living body.”
• 10
  The Portuguese term corpo vivido may be translated into English as “lived body.”

• Editor:
  Profa. Dra. Ana Luisa Paz

Data availability

Data availability: The dataset supporting the results of this study is publicly available at SciELO Data: https://doi.org/10.48331/SCIELODATA.EEJTXK.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  27 Apr 2026
• Date of issue
  2026

History

• Received
  25 Feb 2025
• Reviewed
  09 June 2025
• Accepted
  02 Sept 2025