Drainage - decolonial paths

Action - trance|to - ebó-Performance, 2019

2 black bodies, beige dress, scissors and seam ripper

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A long, voluminous dress, a style reminiscent of mid-19th century aristocratic Victorian fashion, unraveled. The fashion of this period represents the colonial tradition in Brazil — a former colony of Portugal. The act of unsewing a dress resembles the removal of layers and symbolic loads from the European culture imposed by the colonizing society, and, consequently, from our bodies. The movement is one of liberation from the weights and the many thin layers, but which weigh,  sedimented by a slaveholding and racist past. Drain the land for another sowing.

Two black bixas, originally from the northeastern hinterland, resemble each other in stories and identities, while their subjectivities direct them to a new circular, a path, albeit a dystopian movement, a walk.  

João Pedro has dark skin, is a stone that turns to dust when moved, a productive and promising artist, created and surrounded by women, but not only that. Our cities are part of a submerged history, just like ours—untold. The Sobradinho dam may be our dam, made of reinforced concrete and teary waters. Pau-a-pique and Arcado Pestle.

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I am black with lighter skin, and enough other characteristics to make me a racialized body, although in the sertão — a territory formed by native peoples who were largely unknown and blacks who settled here.

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Our encounter is also diaspora, and it is quilombo.

In the action, I walk slowly through the people — wearing an aristocratic model dress — the show has the intention of drawing the public's attention to such issues — following to a place where João Pedro stands - a stage  with a wooden bench where I sit static — João Pedro in a repeating action, slowly unsews the dress, respecting the necessary time — indeterminate — draining — layer by layer — unsewing thread by thread. In a slow but necessary process for the freedom of our bodies.

Dress designed by João Pedro

Sewing: Luiz Marcelo (Skirt), Dona Vanda (Camisu)

Terreiro frame petticoats

Photos: Fernando Pereira and Juliano Varela

Performance performed during the cultural market at Aldeia do Velho Chico 2019.

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