We Move Forward Together: A Prison Theater Exchange Program Among Three Universities in the United States and Brazil

Published date01 September 2019
Date01 September 2019
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1177/0032885519861061
Subject MatterArticles
https://doi.org/10.1177/0032885519861061
The Prison Journal
2019, Vol. 99(4S) 84S –105S
© 2019 SAGE Publications
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/0032885519861061
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Article
We Move Forward
Together: A Prison
Theater Exchange
Program Among Three
Universities in the United
States and Brazil
Ashley Lucas1, Natalia Ribeiro Fiche2,
and Vicente Concilio3
Note: A video link is available for viewing the program highlights:
http://global.umich.edu/newsroom/escaping-with-theater/
Abstract
In 2013, the Prison Creative Arts Project at the University of Michigan and
Teatro na Prisão at the Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro
began an international exchange of university-based prison theater programs.
The theater faculty at the Universidade do Estado de Santa Catarina joined the
exchange in 2016 and began a new prison theater program at a women’s facility
in Florianópolis, Brazil. Together, these three universities not only share best
practices and resources but form a community of support and understanding
as they engage in a highly specialized and challenging creative process inside
prisons.
Keywords
prison, theater, international exchange
1University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA
2Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
3Universidade do Estado de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil
Corresponding Author:
Ashley Lucas, Department of Theatre & Drama, Residential College, University of Michigan,
East Quad, 701 E. University Ave., Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
Email: lucasash@umich.edu
861061TPJXXX10.1177/0032885519861061The Prison JournalLucas et al.
research-article2019
Lucas et al. 85S
Introduction
In a theater on the University of Michigan (UM) campus in Ann Arbor, fac-
ulty and students from three universities played theater games in English and
Portuguese. We spent four hours introducing one another to games, songs,
and exercises that we use to build community across difference and open
opportunities for creative growth. As each group introduced their work to one
another, we shared our languages and cultures and engaged with one another
in ways that defied translation; we rapped in gibberish, told stories with our
bodies, and danced a traditional Brazilian ciranda. This moment of exchange
on an afternoon in March 2018 took place as part of an international exchange
among prison theatre programs, during a visit to Michigan of groups from
two Brazilian universities—the Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de
Janeiro (UniRio) and Universidade do Estado de Santa Catarina (UDESC). A
few months later, in May and June 2018, a group from Michigan traveled to
Florianópolis and Rio de Janeiro to continue our ongoing collaborations.
Our three programs share much in our missions to build community across
prison walls between university faculty and students and incarcerated partici-
pants. Our exchange began in 2013, and at the time of this writing, we remain
committed to continuing our work together for the foreseeable future. As the
directors of these university-based prison theater programs—Ashley Lucas
of the Prison Creative Arts Project (PCAP) at UM, Natália Fiche of Teatro na
Prisão at UniRio, and Vicente Concilio of Teatro na Penitenciária Feminina
de Florianópolis at UDESC—we write this article to describe the history of
our programs and the exchange among them. We also reflect on what we have
learned from one another and how our programs are now shaping the work
that we do inside prison walls. We find that our ongoing contact with each
other opens up opportunities for more and better work in our individual pro-
grams, enriches our understandings of the nature and purpose of our work,
and makes us feel less alone in our struggles to continue. Our unique and
separate histories have enabled us to bring decades of experience to the work
we share with one another today.
The History of the PCAP at UM
Our story begins inside the only women’s prison in Michigan. In 1977, a
group of incarcerated women in the state of Michigan won a class action
lawsuit called Glover v. Johnson, in which the court ruled that the Michigan
Department of Corrections (MDOC) had failed to provide women equitable
access to higher education and employment inside the prison. As a result of
more than a decade of continued noncompliance on behalf of the MDOC, in

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