Considering that the body is locus for production of knowledge and, just as colonisation processes happen through the body, it is through the body itself that one can decolonise.

Since art is one of these possibilities for reflecting on the body and its corporealities, this performance-seminar aims to stage the researcher's body to present a dance show that addresses issues such as racism, negritude, whiteness and anti-negritude.

‘Restituting the Mirrors’ is an aesthetic experiment in dance that is being developed for the artist-researcher's doctoral thesis. Metaphorically, the work raises the hypothesis that mirrors are technologies of seduction brought on caravels by the colonisers to reflect their own image. In the mirror, instead of seeing the image of the self, one sees the desire for predilection for the white-narcissistic world forged in the colonial wound opened in the colonised countries.

The work points out ways for the colonised to recognise their self-image in their own community in order to promote the deconstruction of castrating oppressions that manifest themselves in different aspects: aesthetic, political, spiritual, intellectual or other forms of performing ancestry. The first step in this process may be upon realising they have been captured by the white world through the discreet theft of their dance, their culture, their very existence.

The work has considered Afro-Atlantic corporealities, more specifically what we have experienced in Brazil. The restitution of mirrors must be a denunciation of oneself, an internal revolution of giving back what one didn't ask for. And thus, recover the images of oneself.

The work is part of the author's methodology, which combines performance and writing experiences, calling this process Essays on the Thesis. The work dialogues with the writings of Silva (2023), Boakari (2023), Fanon (2008; 1968), Icle (2019), Gilroy (1993), Mbembe (2018), Mignolo (2013), Nascimento (2007) and Lacan (1998).

The event will be organised around a 45-minute performance of the show A Devolução dos Espelhos (Restituting the Mirrors), followed by a debate lasting about an hour. These two moments are part of the methodology of the doctoral thesis in progress.

Performance  A Devolução dos Espelhos (Resituting the Mirrors) by Kácio dos Santos Silva - PhD candidate in Education at the Federal University of Piauí - UFPI and sandwich PhD student at the Centre for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra - CES/UC, followed by a debate.

Moderators: Silvia Rodríguez Maeso and Lúcia Fernandes

Bio note

Kácio Santos is a dance artist. He is a PhD candidate in Education at the Federal University of Piauí - UFPI, Brazil, and is currently a sandwich PhD student at the Centre for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra - CES/UC, Portugal, through the programme Programa de Doutorado Sanduíche no Exterior da Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior – PDSE/CAPES. He is a university lecturer at the State University of Piauí - UESPI and the Santo Agostinho University Centre - UNIFSA and vice-coordinator of the Roda Griô/Geafro - Gender, Education and Afro-descendants research group. This performance is part of the author's doctoral thesis.