Body culture as a driver of catharsis: for learning that forms human potential

Abstract

The category of art is inserted in the most complex human activities, which are guided not only by the need for survival, but by the need for expression and creation. Among these human activities, there are those that were produced as bodily expression and that characterize more or less complex artistic creative activities. In this way, this article aims to demonstrate that body culture has an intimate relationship with art and its cathartic potential. Starting from historical-cultural psychology, historical-critical pedagogy and historical-dialectical materialism, the text discusses, at first, the essence of body culture, as a historical-social activity and continues analyzing aspects that characterize the formation of higher structures and its relationship with artistic creation. Throughout the text, there is a view of art as an essential phenomenon for understanding man, as a way of finding his own subjectivity. Body culture, due to its artistic bias, follows a cathartic path as a qualitative leap, which provides an intellectual, educational, political and ethical transformation. The appropriation of body culture, through the mediation of intentional activities, makes it possible to understand the meaning of art and its cathartic potential. Therefore, reflection on the relationship between body culture and art allows the identification of the potential for its appropriation in order to boost individuals' self-awareness through artistic content.