Rodrigo Severo 2021-22 Mellon Fellow

Born in the Brazilian city of Natal, Rodrigo Severo is a multidisciplinary artist and professor of Theater, Performance, and Urban Intervention. He is currently completing his PhD in Performing Arts at the University of Saõ Paulo (ECA-USP). Rodrigo is a founding member of Preta Performance, a collective of multidisciplinary Black artists that investigates ethno-racial relations in Brazil with the aim of creating decolonized and anti-racist aesthetic actions using audiovisual and performance-based vocabularies. With the Collective, he has directed and participated in numerous works, among them Negrotério (2016), created for the 32nd São Paulo Biennial. His scholarly work appears in Sankofa (São Paulo), Ephemera (U FOP), interFACES (UFRJ) and, most recently, in Entre Atlânticos: protagonismo, política e epistemologia (Dialética, 2021). From 2011-2017, he was a member of the Collective Deviation Creators Network, and has performed and directed works throughout Brazil. He has also taught courses on performance and urban intervention, in numerous institutions.

Land Acknowledgement

The Hemispheric Institute at New York University acknowledges with respect the Lenape nation, whose traditional homelands NYU now occupies. We recognize the longstanding significance of these territories for Lenape nations past and present. We acknowledge that we work in a city with the largest urban Native population in the United States. Even as we work to increase the historical awareness of Indigenous exclusion and erasure, we acknowledge the effect of that legacy in educational institutions, at NYU, and across the hemisphere. We are committed to work revealing Indigenous history and life-worlds and to the inclusion of Indigenous voices and participation, in allyship with Indigenous makers and communities across the Americas.

About Us

The Hemispheric Institute gathers artists, scholars, writers, learners, and activists from across the Americas. We focus on social justice and research politically engaged culture and performance. We share this work in digital archives and amplify it through dialogues and public scholarship, residencies, publications, and gatherings. Our dynamic, multilingual network traverses disciplines and borders and is grounded in the fundamental belief that artistic practice and critical reflection can spark lasting cultural change.