Poetic manifestation in performance: vocals, body and inscriptions in the popular urban narrative

Abstract

Trough the dynamic frame of performance, the research analyses urban oral naratives, as spontaneous manifestation of a poetics in the context of everyday acts. This frame enables the comprehension of the dynamic change among the different levels of human expression, which carry on them a manifestation of a poetics, moving object of legitimate interest to the study of literature. In the discussion of poetics, as opposed to scriptocentric thinking, one seeks a collective creativity that can reflect the social dynamics. The field of research focuses on the neighborhood called Restinga, in the outskirts of Porto Alegre, Brazil, place marked by the social fragmentation. The methodology takes the shape of life report, but the narratives expand freely and make their own way, without the centrality of personal memory, with focus on imagination, rising to a poetics. Central subject on the network of references in the neighborhood, José Carlos dos Santos, a.k.a. Beleza, offers a narrative of increased performativity. He seeks thus to constitute an identity for Restinga; he wants to change the image (and self-image) of the neighborhood, built by negative external speeches. Based on the frame of performance, different levels and poetic objects constituents of the poetic manifestation are spoted, rising to vocality, gestures and inscriptions, which, in a process of individuation, come to form a poetic unit.