Magdalena BOURNOT

Project at the MaCI

October 2023 - September 2025

"Through an archive and research-as-creation work, I intend to analyze the classical reception in the theoretical writings of Afro-Brazilian artist and intellectual Abdias do Nascimento, and in the stagings he made with the Black Experimental Theater company, founded by himself in 1944 in Rio de Janeiro.

The first stage of the project methodology involves a research trip to Brazil, the main aim of which is to compile archive data and personal accounts from former T.E.N. members. Nascimento founded the Instituto de Pesquisa e Estudos Afro-Brasileiros (IPEAFRO, Institute of Afro-Brazilian Studies), whose aim is to preserve and disseminate black Brazilian history and culture. This organization is still active today, and holds a very large archive on Nascimento's work and especially on the T.E.N."

For this research, Magdalena will be affiliated to Litt&Arts and will be working closely with Professor Malika Bastin-Hammou. As a specialist in Greek theatre and its reception, Malika Bastin-Hammou has worked on the history of translations and productions of Aristophanes. Since 2020, she has been coordinator of the ANR project IthAC, dedicated to the study of the reception of ancient theatre in Europe in the 16th century. She is also director of the Translatio research centre (part of the UMR Litt&Arts), which focuses on the transmission, translation and reception of ancient and medieval texts, and the cultural transfer phenomena that surround them.