Body as Text: Challenging Marginalized Identities through Literary Performance in Contemporary Brazilian Saraus

Abstract:This article explores contemporary literary saraus in São Paulo, Brazil. Although saraus can be traced back to the nineteenth century with the arrival of the Portuguese court to Brazil, today they often occupy botecos (bars) in peripheral neighborhoods and create completely new relationships between author, audience, living space, and literary creation. During these open-mic nights on the margins, the embodied word offers a visceral way of knowing and interpreting literature. This article explores performance in the space of Brazilian saraus as a component of the literary text offering visual, auditory, and kinesthetic knowledge. Conflict, emotion, and corporeal manifestation are the foundations of sarau literature, and individual and cultural knowledge housed in the body as memories in the senses becomes civic consciousness when writing moves from the page, the tablet, or the cell phone to the body of the author.