“Corpo Atuado”, or acted body, is a shamanic practice that has been happening for thousands of years in the Amazonian nights in the context of the “Pena and Maraca” ritual. Being acted is to work towards the expansion of the senses, the oxygenation, the materialization of the invisible, all in search of the presence of the Charmed. The Charmed is an entity that can belong to the vegetable, mineral or animal domains; being in human soil or in a soil that is not known by human. The main characteristic of the Charmed is to belong permanently to the Life domain. The Charmed do not dies, it enchants itself. In the broad invisible, it is up to the shaman, by means of its own body in performance – moment which is said to be acted – to make itself visible to the eyes of the non-shaman so that the encounter between the Charmed and Non-charmed can happen – which is the biggest desire of the ritual. This lecture-performance is found between the tension between the “acting” of the scenic artist and the “acted” of the shaman. It is circumscribed to the practice of the shaman woman, as it has its starting point in the relationship with Benvinda, my paternal grandmother. Me, scenic artist. Her, a “Pena e Maraca” cabloca shaman (in the original language, “xama cabloca de pena e maraca”).

Stage director, actress/performer, playwright and researcher of the performing arts (“Artes da Cena”). She is a doctoral student and holds a bachelor degree in Performing Arts in the School of Communication and Arts of the University of São Paulo (USP). She holds a master degree in Performing Arts from Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO). As a stage director, she creates, since 1995, plays for many types of venues and public, such as: the Amazon Forest, mangroves, beaches, sheds, patios, parks and secular theatrical buildings, having held presentations in Mexico, Portugal and Brazil. In 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, she created the lecture and performance “Corpo Atuado”, that investigates some possible overlapping between shamanism and performing arts.