Violets in Disassembly

Going Back to Talking is Going Back to Living

Abstract

This article is part of my doctoral research at the State University of Santa Catarina, supervised by Prof. Dr. Daiane Dordete Steckert Jacobs. In this research, I share the process of disassembling Violetas, involving the report and reflection on the creation of this theater play, encompassing the sewing of a new dramaturgy, both written and corporeal-vocal, as well as the writing of the thesis itself. All these dimensions are considered in this work as a “self-writing” (Rago, 2013). This article, or small excerpt, aims to treat the voice from a feminist perspective, as the ability to be one’s own author and to narrate one’s own story. The voice as your personal power, as your place in the world and your pleasure in life. For centuries women have been silenced and oppressed to a place of inferiority and subalternity. The book A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf is used as a reference, as well as writings by historians Letícia Milan and Michelle Perrot. I draw a parallel with the concept of “Self Writing”, by Margareth Rago. I observe harmful effects of silencing on the physiological and communicative aspects of the voice through the authors Anna Alice Almeida and Naomi Wolf. I seek a conceptualization of the voice through the works of Freya Jarman-Ives and especially Adriana Cavarero. Through the writings of Leonor Arfuch and bel hooks I find and reflect on the urgency and importance of freeing one’s voice. Finally, I present the invitation and appeal to raise our voices together, in the struggle to end gender violence and for a fairer society.