The theater game and the construction of symbolic knowledge: from playing to a meaningful experience

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the practice of the theater game by Viola Spolin (1906-1994) in her construction of the symbolic and as a driver of meaningful experience (Dewey 1859-1952). The definition of symbolic will be based on the writings of the philosopher Ernst Cassirer (1874-1945) and the philosopher and educator Susana Langer (1895-1985). For these thinkers, the symbolic is presented as a fundamental element of knowledge and structuring of human culture in myth, religion, language, history, and art. The central problem of this research is based on theater-educational studies experienced by the authors, taking the practices of the theater game as a way of expanding knowledge for an integration of the being, as a cultural, social, and symbolic being, in the construction of practices of significant acts in the world. Thus, the methodology used is the bibliographic review of the fundamental concepts of theater games in correlation with the construction of symbolic knowledge. We aim to understand art in the production of the symbolic context so that we can base the embodiment as a symbol. Such studies aim to promote the consummate experience of game practitioners in the theater-educational context, supported by the principle that the aesthetic experience played will enable the expansion of the player’s experience so that they can re-signify their world, building autonomy and knowledge of/in the aesthetic experience in a constant process of living and learning, forged in the webs of culture.