Street Theater against AIDS - State of Ceará, Brazil

This programme seeks to impact both the audience - by informing them about one of the most serious current health problems in a creative and fun way - and the artists - by stimulating them to undertake social action with the less privileged in a rights-based militancy against an epidemic that has also severely affected the artistic population throughout the world.

The project began with a Sensitization Seminar in 1997 on STD/AIDS for directors, actors, and actresses participating in the Northeastern Theater Festival in Guaramiranga, Ceará, a municipality located 90km from the capital, Fortaleza. Since then, 20 theatre groups from the capital and the interior have been monitored and trained as "information multipliers" about STD/AIDS and reproductive health with support from the State STD/AIDS Program. Two statewide meetings (April and September 1998) took place that brought together more than 150 directors, authors, actors, actresses, and technical staff. Five new scripts were written dealing with different aspects on themes related to sexuality and STD/AIDS, including Jose Mapurunga's play "Auto da Camisinha", which in less than one year involved 28 theatre groups across the interior of the state. Two other street plays have been created ("Pink Condom" and "Picture on the Wall"). There have been more than 600 presentations in at least 80 different municipalities of Ceará, reaching an estimated audience of 150,000 in public squares and fairs. The project has produced a book entitled "TheaterXAIDS" and a documentary video entitled "Street Theater vs AIDS".

HIV/AIDS, Health.

From the perspective of project coordinators, some of the lessons learned through this project are reflected in the following statement (provided by the coordinator of the project): "The enthusiasm, the dedication, the contagious passion, the energies awoken and put into activity by the movement of "Theater against AIDS" show that the theater can turn the concepts stuck to the AIDS epidemic - this "apocalyptic monster", "the plague of the end of the millenium" - into a ridiculous, laughable scarecrow. AIDS brings back an authoritarian and castrating morale, that seemed buried since the 1960's. It brings panic to youth, blocked from releasing its desires and stigmatizes its victms. It seems that this is still the predominant perception of AIDS, especially in the Northeast of Brazil, but not only by a conservative elite, but by most of the public. Thus arises the logic to use theater, more specifically, street comedy, the laugh, to overcome it. As a result, what one sees is a movement that, educating against AIDS, doesn't repress. To the contrary, it works in favor of the freedom of habits, as well as treating with affection and respect the sexual act, dealing with the theme in a "carnavalized" way."