Preto Amparo’s solo proposes the decolonization of the look towards the black body – that is, a change on this viewing that historically ratifies violence. The show appropriates this violence as an aesthetic and creative device to erase, pierce and reconfigure them. Using elements such as a toy police vehicle, a bag of coffee and a packet of popcorn, the scenes are shaped by the journey of a young black man in society, affected by police approaches, the ongoing genocide and the hypersexualization of his body. In addition to it, urban elements and contemporary rites of passages. Offering a dialogue between the ancestry and the life of the young urban black, the performer bears an experience that seeks new chances for thinking about black aesthetics in the scenic, artistic and cultural domains.

The artists Preto Amparo, Alexandre de Sena, Grazi Medrado and Pablo Bernardo do not define themselves as a group or a company, but as an ancestral reconnecting aiming to nationally strengthen black networks, such as Segunda PRETA (MG), Segunda Crespa (SP) and Segunda Black (RJ). The research which violent. derived from started when Preto Amparo in a short scene presented it at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), during an artistic occupation. After some gigs, Alexandre de Sena begun directing, Grazi Medrado got into the production and Pablo Bernardo arrived to take over the records. The play was performed at theatre and dance festivals in Minas Gerais, Bahia, São Paulo and Piauí. In 2019, the solo was awarded the Prêmio Leda Maria Martins de Artes Cênicas Negras de Belo Horizonte as the best long-lasting play.

CRITICS

violent. is silently synesthetic … We can physically feel the presence of that naked black body. And I am not referring to that fetish look, which can only see and interpret the black body in place of desire. I am not talking about the male body, the blackness that only “offers” fear or violence. No. At least not for me. I am speaking of a black body that refutes the official history and the ordering of knowledge, resulting from the social hierarchy. Of a body mapped by racialized individual and collective identity practices and marked by gender. And mainly there, of a trimmed body, in performance and that is performance that protects, nourishes and creates a violent and sweet challenging aesthetic.

SORAYA MARTINS, Horizonte da Cena

The play goes in the opposite direction to the “long texts” verbiage of the identity discussions in recent times, betting on subtlety for a grim and, as its title says, violent theme: Brazilian structural racism.

MIGUEL ARCANJO PRADO, UOL

TECHNICAL SHEET

PERFORMANCE: Preto Amparo
DIRECTION: Alexandre De Sena
DRAMATURGY: Alexandre de Sena and Preto Amparo
PRODUCTION: Grazi Medrado
PHOTO AND VIDEO REGISTER: Pablo Bernardo
LIGHTING: Preto Amparo
PHYSICAL PRACTICE: Wallison Culu / Cia Fusion De Danças Urbanas
SOUNDTRACK ADVISOR: Barulhista