THE RELEVANCE OF ASJA LĀCIS’S KINDERTHEATER TODAY: A BRAZILIAN PERSPECTIVE

The goal of the article is to show that Asja Lācis’s theatre programme, which was based on her reasoning about historical, practical and political issues in the theatre for children and adolescents, can be significant in the development of modern youth theatre in Brazil. Walter Benjamin’s Programme of the Proletarian Children’s Theatre, which included and explained Asja Lācis’s ideas, enhanced a better understanding of the involvement of art and theatre in politics, as well as the education based on emancipated artistic experience. The article views these ideas from a historical perspective by studying the case of “Casa do Teatro”. This institution is an heir to the tradition of education theatre, whose political dimension is associated with the resistance to Brazilian dictatorship (1964– 1984). Through emphasising theatre activities as a type of conscious education, certain aspects of Asja Lācis’s ideas gain the kind of significance that Brecht’s and Benjamin’s works have possibly lost in the context of contemporary politics and the latest trends in theatre development.