Preta do Maranhão Performing Arts Festival (Year I) has an exclusive program at the CCVM

The Preta do Maranhão Performing Arts Festival, which celebrates its first edition, has the Vale Maranhão Cultural Center (CCVM) as one of its spaces. The CCVM hosts the official launch of the festival and, throughout the program, a workshop, two performances by artists from Maranhão and a storytelling for children, which closes the festival. All activities are free of charge.

The launch takes place this Friday, October 9, at 6:30pm. The evening includes a performance by Ninho, by the Maranhão artist Leônidas Portella, DJ KL’s discotheque and speeches by the project’s creators, Júlia Martins and Larissa Ferreira, and by sponsors and supporters.

On October 13 and 14, from 14:30 to 17:30 p.m., the Minas Gerais group Teatro Negro e Atitude conducts the workshop Aesthetics of Attitude and Poetics of Negrura. It is a practical workshop that treats the black body as a territory of presence, creation, and affirmation. With body exercises, movement, and scenic presence, the activity works on memory, ancestry, orality, and black narratives as paths to artistic creation. Founded in 1994, the Black and Attitude Theater is a reference in the valuation of Afro-Brazilian culture, with research based on the “decolonization of the body”, the fight against racism and on popular African-based demonstrations.

On October 15, the CCVM will host two performances. At 15:30pm, Ruan Francisco (MA) presents Oculto, a set of “brief games” about genotype and phenotype, about being and law, and about music and body, with the collaboration of Erivelto Viana, Ricardo Marinelli and Yuri Azevedo. At 16:00 Tâmia Machado (MA) presents Insatiable. In a space dominated by the image of a mannequin, which represents the idealized body, clothes in sizes accepted by society are scattered on the floor. The performance critically analyzes the invisibilization of female, fat, and black bodies in aesthetic and social spaces. Tâmia is an actress, illuminator and performer, a graduate with a degree in Theater from UFMA and a member of the Baixada Collective.

On the last day of the festival, October 17, at 17:00 p.m., Grupo Baquetá (PR) presents Stories on Earth, a telling of Afro-indigenous stories and songs for children. Directed by Marcel Malê, the artist Kamylla dos Santos conducts the presentation with her feet firmly set on the Bakongo Cosmogram and her hands on the ground. The main scenic element is a circular piece of furniture filled with earth, a symbol of life, ancestry and memory. The children circle around it, they can interact with the earth and, in the end, they plant sunflower seeds. The presentation delves into the knowledge of the African diaspora and the indigenous peoples of Brazil, talks with Laws 10,639/03 and 11,645/08, which determine the teaching of Afro-Brazilian and indigenous history and culture in schools, and reflects on the climate crisis and the preservation of land, water, and Creole seeds.

Founded in Curitiba in 2009 by Kamylla dos Santos, Baquetá is comprised of black and indigenous people. The group has seven shows in its repertoire that mix music, theater and dance. He joined the Sesc Swivel Stage in 2025, participated in Sonora Brazil in 2022 and 2023, and received awards such as Leda Maria Martins and Pretas Potência.

Dedicated to the appreciation and circulation of black, Afro-indigenous, and aphrodiasporic performing arts, the festival takes place from October 13 to 17. The free program includes the Arthur Azevedo, Napoleão Ewerton and Luiz Pazzini theaters, squares and schools in São Luís, with artists from Maranhão, Minas Gerais, Ceará, São Paulo, Paraná and Bahia.

The festival is organized by Afrodite Produção and is presented by the Ministry of Culture. It is master-sponsored by Vale, through the Federal Culture Incentive Act.

The full schedule is on the Instagram profile @festivaldeartescenicaspretama.

Preta do Maranhão Performing Arts Festival at CCVM

📆 9/10 (Friday)
🕒 6:30pm: launch, with the performance Revoada (Leônidas Portella/MA) and discotheque

📆 October 13, 14/10 (Tuesday and Wednesday)
🕒 14:30 to 17:30: Aesthetics of Attitude and Poetics of Negrura workshop (Teatro Negro e Atitude/MG)

📆 15/10 (Thursday)
🕒 15:30pm: Hidden performance (Ruan Francisco/MA)
🕒 16:00: Insatiable performance (Tâmia Machado/ MA)

📆 17/10 (Saturday)
🕒 17:00: storytelling Stories on Earth (Grupo Baquetá/PR)

📍 Vale Maranhão Cultural Center — Rua Direita, 149, Praia Grande, São Luís Historic Center
🎟️ Free entry