As a Design Cultures & Creativity (DCC) senior and dance and biology double major, Beatriz “Bia” Moreira Leite ’26 has spent the past year exploring what it means to make art under the shadow of power. Through UMD’s dance program and as this year’s DCC Creative-in-Residence, Bia has created “Art Under Authority,” a yearlong project that audiences can now explore through performance footage, a project website, and an interactive digital flip book.
The first iteration of Bia’s work was presented last October through the School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies’ Experimental Performance Series. Her piece, “Caminhando e Cantando,” provided an evocative glimpse into the period of Brazil’s military dictatorship (1964-1985) through movement, relevant song choices, set design, costumes, and projections of archival footage. The work depicted a group of friends from that era discovering the power of community and art, in response to a “big brother”-like force that tried to restrict and censor their creative freedom. This semester, Bia returned to those themes in “Plato’s Cave,” a dance and puppetry piece presented at this year’s Jim Henson Award for Puppetry Showcase that probed how propaganda shapes what people see and believe. In the performance, dancers were tethered to each other with carabiners and velcro, physically “puppeting” one another as looming paper puppets—some life-sized—embodied unnamed, authoritarian villains.
For Bia, DCC has been an important impetus behind this growing body of work. “I wouldn’t be able to do the project without DCC—not just because of the creative-in-residence funding I received, but especially the mentorship and the skills I learned in my first and second years about how to create meaning and change the world through design,” she said. She traces that influence back to her earliest DCC projects, where blending design, history, and storytelling helped her introduce audiences to new cultures and perspectives.
“Bia’s work this year has underlined the necessity of artistic expression in authoritarian times,” said DCC program director Damien Pfister. “Her historical research on the ancient Mediterranean World and 20th-century Brazil shows how reanimating the past offers new vantage points to think about our current moment.”
Bia’s Creative-in-Residence showcase, presented for the DCC community last weekend, brought these elements together in an exhibit-style installation, with looping performance video and displays of costumes, props, and puppets. Now, she hopes to expand “Plato’s Cave” into an evening-length production and continue to build on the questions first raised in “Caminhando e Cantando.”
If you missed the live showings, you can still enter this universe online and consider how art can expose, challenge, and reimagine authority in today’s world. Check out Bia’s Art Under Authority website and digital flip book, which walk you through the histories and theories that shaped her project, including archival photos, research, sketches, and reflections on censorship and resistance.
—
Design Cultures & Creativity (DCC) is a dynamic, social, and rigorous living-learning Honors College program at the vibrant intersections of arts and technology. DCC has carved out a special place for driven, creative, and artistic-minded students to simultaneously enjoy the access and comforts of a small, liberal arts college experience and the resources and privileges of a large research campus. Learn more about the DCC program at dcc.umd.edu.
Photo credit: Katelynn Callaghan.
