By Vanessa Munhoz • LISA Communication
Published: 09/17/2025
Between September 24th and 26th, 2025, the Center for Afro-Brazilian Arts of the University of São Paulo (NECAAB) will hold the Afro-Brazilian Arts Meetings, with support from the Image and Sound Laboratory in Anthropology of the University of São Paulo (LISA-USP), Postgraduate Program in Social Anthropology (PPGAS-USP), group “Research in Musical Anthropology” (PAM-USP) and Center for Anthropology, Performance and Drama (NAPEDRA-USP).
This year's edition is themed "WITHOUT GROUND, THERE'S NO ANGOLA," and activities include artistic expressions, traditional knowledge, decolonial practices, and ancestral technologies cultivated over nearly three decades at USP. It will be an opportunity to learn from masters and mistresses who are guardians of this knowledge and to discuss the centrality of territory in preserving memory, transmitting knowledge, and strengthening Black struggles. The program will be free and open to the public. Check it out:
Day 24 - Axé, word and presence. The foundation of our culture interpreted by masters
6 PM | Open House!
6:30 PM | Artistic presentation by the Guerreiros de Senzala Capoeira Angola Group
7 PM | Performance: Water Puts Out the Fire, with @aya.danca
7:30 PM | Opening remarks by Mestre Pinguim @pinguindabahia
Discussion circle with capoeira and samba de roda masters
Samba Chula with @mestrazeliadoprato and @mestreaurinodemaracangalha
Day 25 - Images and Experiences
2:30 PM | House Workshop, with @aliwmartins
4 PM | Audiovisual Exhibition "Images and Experiences," moderated by @aline_fatimarte
5:30 PM | Workshop: Artisanal Fabric Printing: Poetics of Ancestry, with @robertosantosarteoficial
7 PM | Performance: The Fire I Give You, Naflá @flaflefli
Open stage!
Day 26: Caruru from Cosme and Damião
10 AM | Open House! Caruru Making
6 PM | Children's Caruru
7 PM | Abassá da Capoeira
Samba Chula with Mestra Zélia do Prato and Mestre Aurino de Maracangalha
9 PM | Closing Show with @aryanimarciano
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One of the highlights of the event will be the Audiovisual Exhibition "Images and Experiences," on September 25, 2025, from 4 to 8 p.m. Curated by Aline Fátima and Rose Satiko Gitirana Hikiji, the selected films reveal the power of Afro-Brazilian cultural practices in the production of meaning, the invention of worlds, and the everyday resistance to attempts at erasure, aiming to open a space for the intersection of memory, body, and territory.
PROGRAM FOR THE AUDIOVISUAL EXHIBITION "IMAGES AND EXPERIENCES IN AFRO-BRAZILIAN ARTS"
Curated by: Aline Fátima and Rose Satiko Gitirana Hikiji
Images and Experiences in Afro-Brazilian Arts is an audiovisual installation that is part of the 2025 Afro-Brazilian Arts Meetings program, in partnership with the VIII USP Ecofalante Exhibition and LISA.
In a year marked by institutional challenges involving the historic space of the Afro-Brazilian Arts Center within the University, this edition, themed "No Ground, No Angola," proposes a debate on the centrality of territory in preserving memory, transmitting knowledge, and strengthening Black struggles. This installation aims to open a space for the intersection of memory, body, and territory. The selected films reveal the power of Afro-Brazilian cultural practices in the production of meaning, the invention of worlds, and the everyday resistance to attempts at erasure.
September 25 (Thursday) from 4:00 PM to 8:00 PM
Talk 7:00 PM (Room 1) - Moderator: Aline Fátima
Anyone who wants to see me, come to São Braz tomorrow (2021)
Directed by: Eliany Funari
Running time: 10'14''
Guided by the narratives of master samba dancer Dona Zélia do Prato, the camera allows itself to be guided by the sounds and affections that sustain generations in the Recôncavo Baiano, resonating the fertile ground of ancestry.
Caruru do Núcleo (2024)
Directed by: Aline Fátima
Duration: 15'
The sharing of food becomes a ritual and a pedagogy, a gesture of permanence that reaffirms NECAAB as a space for encounter and community building.
Tabuluja (Wake Up!) (2017)
Directed by: Shambuyi Wetu, Rose Satiko Hikiji, Jasper Chalcraft
Running time: 11'25''
Shambuyi Wetu, an artist from the Democratic Republic of Congo who has taken refuge in São Paulo, uses his performances to create narratives about the diaspora experience and the situation of homme noir (black man) around the world.
Everything has Kusiwa (2016)
Directed by: André Lopes and Dominique Tilkin Gallois
Running time: 25 minutes
The Wajãpi of Amapá have their Kusiwa graphic patterns recognized by IPHAN as intangible cultural heritage of Brazil. In 2015, young Wajãpi researchers decided to share a video of the characteristics of these marks and their owners, the care and effects of their use, and their concerns about the practice of these paintings in new generations.
Montando a Baiana (2024)
Directed by: Aurélio Prates and Kelwin Marques
Running time: 12'32''
In the royal processions of the Maracatu Nations, in the mid-20th century, the figure of the Baiana began to be occupied by transvestites, chickens, and other bodies for which femininity was not assumed.
The Signs Are Invisible (2024)
Directed by: Gabrielle Ferreira
Running time: 24 minutes
Five Black students reveal what it's like to be inside the University of São Paulo, one of the most elite institutions in the country, in 2015, at a time when the pro-quota movement was at its height. (VIII USP Ecofalante Exhibition)
Adó, Master of Sounds (2025)
Directed by: Jorge Vasconcelos (Lampa)
Running time: 33'
Delves into the rich history of Ediney de Sena, known as Mestre Adó, an emblematic figure of capoeira angola in Santo Amaro, in the Recôncavo region of Bahia. Among his many skills and abilities, his mastery of sounds and musicality occupies a prominent place.
CURATORIAL TEXT
by Aline Fátima
Images and Experiences in Afro-Brazilian Arts is an audiovisual installation that is part of the 2025 Afro-Brazilian Arts Meetings, held biannually by the USP Center for Afro-Brazilian Arts. The films screened are curated in partnership with the VIII Mostra USP Ecofalante and LISA.
Aiming to open a space for the intersection of memory, body, and territory, the selected films reveal the power of Afro-Brazilian cultural practices in the production of meaning, the invention of worlds, and the everyday resistance to attempts at erasure.
Each work presents a unique entry into this field of disputes and celebrations. In "Quem quer me ver vai lá em São Braz amanhã," guided by the narratives of samba master Dona Zélia do Prato, the camera allows itself to be guided by the sounds and affections that sustain generations in the Recôncavo Baiano, resonating the fertile ground of ancestry. In "Caruru do Núcleo," the sharing of food becomes a rite and pedagogy, a gesture of permanence that reaffirms NECAAB as a space for encounter and community building.
Transnational shifts and dialogues emerge in Tabuluja (Wake Up!), where bodies, performances, and voices cross borders, revealing the power of connections between Africa and the diaspora. Montando a Baiana (Mounting the Baiana) inscribes, in clothing and ornamentation, the symbolic force that guards collective memories and ways of existing that challenge cultural homogenization.
The gesture of writing, painting, and marking is revealed in "Tudo tem Kusiwa," in which the knowledge of Indigenous peoples asserts its cosmology in line and aesthetics, reminding us of the plurality of matrices that make up the Brazilian experience. The signs are invisible, highlighting the struggle for space in public universities, which becomes truly fertile when permeated by Black and peripheral experiences. In "Adó, Mestre dos Sons," the power of musicality and sonority reaffirms the centrality of masters and mistresses as pillars of continuity in Afro-Brazilian popular culture.