EXHIBITION
FAZ QUE VAI, Bárbara Wagner & Benjamin de Burca
Curatorship by Moacir dos Anjos
Opening: June 13 at 9:30 p.m., until July 28
Guided tour of the exhibition with the curator at 10:00 p.m.
Where: Sala de exposições | Maus Hábitos


Faz que Vai (2016) is the first film made in collaboration by Barbara Wagner (Brazil, 1980) and Benjamin de Burca (Germany, 1975), both residents in Recife, Brazil. The artists investigate on this film and others – such as “Estás vendo Coisas” (2017), “Terremoto Santo” (2018), “Swinguerra” (2019) - the ways as collective practices linked to music and dance are absorbed and transformed by the bodies of young people living in the outskirts of cities in Northeast Brazil. For this purpose, they use the audiovisual syntax that weakens distinctions between documentary and fiction. Besides that, they examine how the processes of continuous reinvention of those practices affirm differences of race, class and gender, defying the distribution of bodies that prevails in the social space of the country. The distribution of bodies in places of work, housing and leisure that seek to frame – or even exclude – any fact or person that violates supposedly universal norms or standards, although they are only (and by uncertain time) dominant.

“Faz que vai, mas não vai” is the name given to one of the many steps of frevo, a form of music and dance invented in Recife between the end of the 19th and 20th Century. For the historians, the origin of frevo can be traced to the articulation made between various rhythms (military marches, maxixes, bends, gangs) that might coexist in a period of accelerated urbanization and important social changes in Brazil, such as the abolition of slavery and the institution of the Republic. Born during the carnival festivities, using fret and percussion instruments, frevo congregated, at its beginning, agitated crowds in processions usually headed by black men - ex-eslaved or descendants of those who had lived under that condition. These men, with the use of capoeira movements created in a context of resistance to colonial violence, opened space for the passage of his group, intimidating others they encountered in the streets. From these defiant movements of bodies finally released, stimulated by the nervous and hurried rhythm that the orchestra was touching, footsteps of frevo are born and consolidate themselves with the passage of time.

Throughout the 20th century, Frevo was gradually adopted by the most affluent and influential residents of Recife as their most typical form of music and dance, becoming an important part of the symbolic invention of the city. As a crowning part of this process of distinction, in 2012 frevo becomes Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, a title granted by Unesco. The work of Bárbara Wagner and Benjamin de Burca confronts this domestication of frevo, claiming for him – even if inevitably spectacular – the possibility of being a place of affirmation of alterity and dispute for the visibility of black, peripheral and not conformed to watertight classifications of gender. Also, they are complaining for the frevo of the 21st Century its creative power and initial criticism.

Moacir dos Anjos


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OPEN CLASS
Saco Azul and Maus Hábitos in partnership with FBAUP* present:
Distribuição de corpos e representação das sobras no Brasil contemporâneo
Panelist: Moacir dos Anjos (curador)
Presentation and moderation: Filipa Cruz (artist and researcher)
When: 11/6, às 17 horas
Where: Aula Magna, FBAUP | Av. de Rodrigues de Freitas 265

Brazil is a country founded on acts of violence committed by the European settlers against the indigenous people and against the black population brought from África by force and enslaved. It's a country that establishes itself anchored in racism. This violence, which is constantly updated, promotes an asymmetric distribution of white, black and mestizo bodies in places of leisure, housing and work, in which the first possess the power of movement and control, while the others are subjected, by various means, to a regime of regulated circulation and obedience to the orders given. Hegemonic distribution of bodies for a long time reproduced and confirmed in the production and composition of the field of visual arts in Brazil. Recent creations suggest, however, that a representation of the leftovers, which names damages and claims the condition of part for what is considered leftovers, is redistributed, in that excluding field, and in tune with transformations in progress in other corners, in new symbolic places, the bodies that inhabit the country.

* support from I2ADS, with the organization of Rute Rosas (artist and researcher)


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WORKSHOP
Frevogue com Edson Vogue

Working on Frevo's movement principles with its social cut-outs that lead to the step, and its conjunction with voguing through the organizational bases and the five elements of voguing femme, the workshop aims to broaden the femininity, urban pretitude and promotion of ALGBTTIQ individuality.

- Target Audience: The workshop is aimed at professionals and non-professionals who are interested in exploring new ways of moving and learning new techniques.
- Age range: 18 to 50
- Duration: 3 days, each class lasting 2 hours (with theoretical basis)
- Dates: 9, 10 and 11 July, 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. | + info: sacoazul.org
- Where: Showroom | Maus Hábitos
- Address: Rua Passos Manuel, 178, fourth floor
- Application form