Brazil
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Dramatic arts include some of the country’s most popular expressions: theater, circus and dance. Brazil’s initial contacts with the theater arts were in the sixteenth century with father José de Anchieta, a priest who used the art to catechize the indigenes. In the following century it was diversified with the introduction of plays brought from Spain and Portugal, and the erection of large theaters.

In the 1940’s, East-European actors took refuge in Brazil and introduced the Stanislavski method at Workshop Theater (Teatro Oficina). In 1948, Italian Franco Zampari founded the Brazilian Theater of Comedy (TBC) in São Paulo.
Christian Knepper/Embratur Stage with several dolls at the International Puppet Theater Enlarge

    Stage with several dolls at the International Puppet Theater

The social issues began to be discussed in Brazilian plays in the 50’s. The Arena Theater, an icon of the period, closed down in 1971 because of the military censorship.

In the 1980’s, it received the post-modernism influence. In the years that followed the experimental theater, which was a vanguard trend that privileged social, moral and political themes, became a success with the public and critics in the spectacles of Lost Paradise (1992), the Book of Job (1995), written by Antônio Araújo, and staged in a hospital and a church. The circus technique was also adopted by several groups of the period.
Dance

Dance has several origins and influences from other nations, especially African, Portuguese, European in general, and Indigenous.

They differ in each region of the country and the most popular are: samba, maxixe, xaxado, baião, frevo and gafieira. There are also folkloric and traditional dances such as forró, axé, among others.
Circus

The older Brazilian circuses became organized in the second half of the eighteenth century. Brazil today is estimated to have 500 circuses, from small to medium and large size. These include from family companies with about 20 employees, to large groups of 150 professionals.

The National Circus School (ENC), the only educational institution directly sponsored by the Ministry of Culture, offers regular formation and refresher courses for artists and creates the means to protect and share this art’s millenary tradition.
Visual Arts

Visual arts are the combination of artistic manifestations that includes the entire field of language, the perspective and the feelings of the human being. Visual arts include drawing, painting, carving, photography and cinema, in addition to sculpting, installation architecture, fashion, decoration and landscaping.

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