Events

Cries of Resistance: Defying Necropolitics

October 5, 2023 | 5PM EST

The Hemispheric Institute is proud to present Insurgent Bodies: Black Performance in Brazil, a series of virtual conversations about contemporary Black Brazilian performance curated and hosted by scholar and performance artist Rodrigo Severo. For the series, Severo has invited the artists Priscila Rezende, Ana Musidora, Lucimélia Romão, and Renata Felinto to exhibit selections of their work, which they will discuss in the context of the racial regimes of visibility and exclusion that both ground and animate their practice.

This series celebrates the publication of the Performance Negra no Brasil (Black Performance in Brazil) collection in the Hemispheric Institute Digital Video Library (HIDVL), which was curated by Severo during his Mellon residency at Institute in 2021-2022. This extraordinary archive brings together signal works of some of the most important contemporary Black Brazilian performance artists, including the participants in the series as well as Ayrson Heráclito, Castiel Vitorino Brasileiro, Luanah Cruz, Tina Melo, Micaela Cyrino, and the Preta Performance Collective. As part of HIDVL, these videos will be preserved in perpetuity and made publicly available for streaming.

All conversations will be in Portuguese with simultaneous English translation.

Events
Bios

Events

Cries of Resistance: Defying Necropolitics

Rodrigo Severo in Conversation with Lucimélia Romão
Thursday, October 5, 2023 | 5 PM EST

The racist violence of the State towards Black, poor, and peripheral people is a persistent, daily phenomenon in societies across the globe. The police, as an arm of the State, have been responsible for the physical and symbolic extermination of certain kinds of bodies. Taking this context as a jumping off point, the artist Lucimélia Romão will discuss with Severo how her performance-installation MIL LITROS DE PRETO: O LARGO ESTÁ CHEIO [A THOUSAND LITERS OF BLACK: THE PLAZA IS FULL] (2019) creates gestures of resistance and acts of solidarity that publicly denounce the genocide of the Black population of Brazil.

Bios

Lucimélia Romão

Lucimélia Romão is a visual artist, playwright, and performer. She is simultaneously pursuing degrees in Arts from the Federal University of Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul, and in Visual Arts from the Federal University of Recôncavo da Bahia. She has a degree in Theater from the Federal University of São João Del Rei in Minas Gerais, where she researched Black theater and performance. She is also an actress, having completed her training in 2013 in the Technical Theater course at the Maestro Fêgo Camargo Municipal School of Arts in Taubaté, São Paulo. She’s won awards at the 9th Showcase of Dramaturgy in Small Theatrical Formats at the São Paulo Cultural Center (2023); the 8th Edition of the Foco ARTRio Award in Rio de Janeiro (2022); and the 3rd Leda Maria Martins Award for Black Performing Arts in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais.

Rodrigo Severo

An artist, researcher, and teacher, Rodrigo Severo operates at the intersections of performance, theater, and the Latin American movement (es)cena expandida. He holds a doctoral and master's degree in Performing Arts from the School of Communications and Arts at the University of São Paulo and a degree in Theater Education from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte. He is part of the Laboratory of Performative Practices at the University of São Paulo and is a founding member of Coletiva Preta Performance, which investigates ethnic-racial relations in Brazil and creates decolonized and anti-racist aesthetic actions. His research interests encompass Black performance studies, the African diaspora, the Black body, decolonized aesthetics, Black authorship, and the contemporary stage.

Events

Cries of Resistance: Defying Necropolitics

October 5, 2023 | 5PM EST

Events

Cries of Resistance: Defying Necropolitics

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