Body Territory - QUEER
The term Queer was used pejoratively for many years to refer to sexual and gender minorities. Starting from a literal translation – peculiar, strange -, it encompassed in its spectrum all those who did not fit into a standard imposed by society. It was in the late 80s that activists took possession of the term politically to demand respect, rights, and recognition of a culture that broke with heterosexual normativity and the well-known homosexual stereotype.
The political bias of queer, therefore, has artistic consequences, whether in fashion, cinema, photography, and in various languages. Understanding the creative breadth that queer encompasses, the Vale Maranhão Cultural Center presents the new edition of the Body Territory program, with Queer culture as its theme, bringing to the institution’s spaces a program with artists from Maranhão and other Brazilian states.
From November 8 to 19, 2022, the CCVM will be occupied by workshops, a course on the origin of queer, parade, debates, shows, performances, and a ball room-style dance. We chose queer as a theme so that we can think of it as the broad arc that governs a type of behavior, of aesthetics, of occupation of public space, imbued with a sexual orientation and with gender identities referred to as dissidents. In addition, it is necessary to recover the origin of queer in popular thought, as a production of lower, marginal, and urban classes, who propose a way of counteracting what is happening, says Gabriel Gutierrez, director of the Vale Maranhão Cultural Center and who curates the Body Territory alongside Calu Zabel and Ubiratã Trindade.
Check out the schedule:
Textile Transmutation Workshop, with Vicenta Perrotta
From 8 to 11/11, from 15:00 to 19:00
Opening the program of the QUEER Body Territory, the artist and stylist Vicenta Perrotta invites all people referred to as dissidents, be they black, trans, fat, indigenous, peripheral, people with disabilities, artisans, seamstresses, artists or sewing adventurers, to participate together in the Workshop Textile Transmutation.
There will be 4 meetings where an artistic process based on social technologies constructed by Transgender people will be developed – such as the Pedagogy of Waste, the Resignification of Consumption and the Textile Transmutation -, which, through sewing techniques, stimulate an awareness that consumption is also a mechanism of construction of stereotypes.
Queer Show, with Enme, Fuega, Butantan & Frimes
8/11, at 19:00
They are back at the CCVM. Enme, Fuega, Butantan and Frimes come together again to present the show QUEER. The project brings together the 4 artists from Maranhão who gained fame in 2017 after the release of their music on streaming networks.
The show exalts art regardless of color, race, gender, or sexual orientation, to break barriers in the musical environment and promote the role of characters formerly marginalized by the media. Hits like Boy, Sarrar, Fadinha, Close Errado, plus original songs and songs by a mix of artists who identify with the queer movement will be on the setlist.
Mulundus performance, with Pepê Poeta Marginal
9/11, at 19:00
Mulundus is a poetic performance by PP Poeta Marginal that tells the story of São Raimundo Nonato dos Mulundus, patron saint of the municipality of Vargem Grande (MA). Among the carnaúba leaves, the performance rescues the African diaspora, which was subsequently erased by Eurocentric history, and brings in its language the social and historical intersections of the Northeastern black people. PP transcends the public eye to a trans body, which on stage becomes the body of a black saint and cowboy.
Performance Mysterious Peacock, with Ivan Bernadelli from Cia.
Dual
10/11 at 19:00
Pavão Misterioso is a Brazil-Mexico co-production between Cia. Dual and Mexican director Luis Rubio — inspired by the “Mystery Peacock Romance”, one of the most famous texts in string literature. The work mixes dance and animated puppets based on the story published in the cordel in 1923: the character, Evangelista, intends to rescue a countess, Creuza — considered the most beautiful woman in the world — who lived trapped in a townhouse. To do this, Evangelista builds a flying peacock, manages to free it, and the two fly away. In this film, however, the novel by Cordel is confronted and Evangelista’s plan doesn’t go as planned.
Open Talk + Fashion Show Clothing – queer subversion and fashion in Brazil, with Erika Palomino and Vicenta Perrota. Mediation by Gabriel Gutierrez
11/11, at 19:00
The open conversation Clothing – queer subversion and fashion in Brazil will bring together Vicenta Perrotta and Erika Palomino to discuss Brazilian fashion based on queer bases – connected to the popular, the urban and the marginal -, addressing the creation of clothing as a device for cultural renewal and the suspension of customs.
Vogue Class, with David Blyndex and Negroni Blyndex
14/11, from 14:00 to 18:00
One of Territory Corpo RUA’s most successful programs returns to the QUEER Body Territory: Vogue Class!
Dancer David Blyndex and performer artist and model Negroni Blyndex return to the CCVM for an afternoon of knowledge, body expression, and voguing dance from the Ballroom culture, which was born in the United States in the 60s. We are waiting for all those passionate about voguing who want to perfect their movements to shine on the city’s balls!
Show of Performances
12/11, at 19:00
Corparte, from Nebraska Diamond, praises the non-binary body in all its artistic possibilities. A documentary about the existence and resistance of these bodies in São Luís will be followed by a dance and dubbing performance from Nebraska, bringing to the scene a process of transformation and purification.
Alma Negrot will perform Androginism, a song composed by Kleiton and Kledir Ramil in the 70s, which poetically tells the story of a young man who transvestites himself in an anarchic way. In 2021, the song is part of the repertoire of the audiovisual show “Metamorphoses”, by Filipe Catto with the participation of Alma Negrot, Maria Alcina and Ciro Barcelos. The show is inspired by Madalena Schwartz’s photographic exhibition that portrays the queer scene of the 70s and 80s in Brazil.
Vyper will bring together Hera Vyper and Baby Vyper, members of House of Vyper, the first vogue house in Maranhão, who are willing to break everyday time with performances that use the body as a manifesto, in the midst of the routine of a cisgender society that invisibilizes and eliminates dissenting bodies. The performance brings the idea of a trans and transvestite nanotechnology, which deals with ways of existing and making oneself perceived.
Sweetie, madness! Between the acid and the comic, the citrus and the sweet, the body, the dance, the presence, and the performance of the most schizophrenic fruit girl take place! Glamour Garcia brings Lokomia to the Queer Body Territory stage. A ritual dance flavored with Tutti-Frutti.
Queer Cinema Course: Theory, Aesthetics, and Degenerated Semiotics, with Marina Costin
November 16 to 19, from 14:00 to 18:00
One of the new features of the Corpo Territory this year is the Queer Cinema course, taught by the social scientist and PhD in cinema Marina Costin. The course covers the new aesthetic arrangements and compositions that give visibility to subjects who were outside the film space — people outside the heteronormative standard, who intersect with other screens, such as race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation. In each class there will be a film and readings of basic texts that will instigate discussions among participants about issues such as epistemologies of the body and the production of subjectivities.
Workshop The Body as a Moldable Space: Hybrid Creation Processes, with Alma Negrot
November 16 to 19, from 15:00 to 19:00
The workshop aims to refine the sensitive look at the body and its infinite possibilities of becoming through creative makeup. Rejected materials such as scrap, paper, threads, buttons, lace, and pens are used. In Immersion, we will build a poetic laboratory where we try to change the value of things to reconstitute bodies through stories
It is a place to assert the body as a battlefield, to rescue memories and amulets that connect us to our marginal identities.
Open Talk The queer, the outcast, and the scene, with Glamour Garcia and Ronaldo Serruya
16/11, at 19:00
The moment will put into perspective the queer body as a creative individual, bringing to the debate challenges, experiences, and studies of the participants based on their experiences in the performing arts.
The Other’s Disease Show, with Ronaldo Serruya
17/11, at 19:00
Ronaldo Serruya, actor and playwright from the theater group XIX, will present the manifesto play The Other’s Disease, which proposes a lecture-performance format, based on concepts drawn from black feminism and queer theory to bring them closer to the idea of “another” that permeates positive bodies and rubbing them with autobiographical accounts of the author and the performer, who has been living with HIV since 2014.
Transpofagic Manifesto Show, with Renata Carvalho, at the Arthur Azevedo Theater
18/11, at 20:00
Actress Renata Carvalho will present the Transpophagic Manifesto, where she dresses in her transvestite body to narrate the historicity of her corporeality. The show will take place at the Arthur Azevedo Theater, with tickets picked up 1 hour in advance at the box office.
Afroball, featuring Negroni Blyndex and DJ Gabi Leão
19/11, at 19:00
Closing the Queer Body Territory, Afroball will bring together music, dance, parade, and voguing titles.
The categories will be: Vogue Performance, Vogue Beginners, Runway with Best Dressed and Femme Queen Perfect 10’s
The event is a queer tradition born in the American suburbs in the 1960s, as a form of gathering, protesting, and belonging to the LGBTQPIA+ black and Latino community in the United States.
