O Grito/The Shout, 2019

Video installation with sound, TRT: 11:30 minutes

Participants: Soraia Alves, Nilza anjos, Camila Q. de Castro, Maria Clara Cintra, Omara s. da Conceição, Tereza Coelho, Luciana S. de Jesus, Rosemeire de Jesus, Valdiria Lopes, Carmen L. Rebelo, Cristiana M. Reis, Gleicy Santos do Sacramento, Lavínia de S.F. Santos, Robertina M. dos Santos, Ana Claudia S. Souza

Music: Luiz Gayotto and Rovilson Pascoal

Voice-over: Mafalda Pequenino

Text: Lynne Thompson

Post-production: Takashi Takeoka and Alison Fisher

This collaborative project is inspired by Maria Felipa de Oliveira, a pioneer black women who fought against the Portuguese colonizers for Brazil’s independence in Itaparica Island, Bahia in 1823. Through multiple perspectives and points of view, the video shows a group of women performing at the Convento Beach where Maria Felipa lived and fought. These resilient women belong to non-profit organizations that actively work to preserve her memory in Itaparica Island and Salvador. The sequences interweave staged and improvised corporeal  movements, with selected sites and natural elements used by Maria Felipa and other women to fight against the Portuguese invaders, including fire, wind, coconut fibers and native plants. In this collective performance the women play real and fictional roles, paying homage to a black heroine who was at the forefront of the feminist and #BlackLivesMatter movements in Brazil. "The Shout" celebrates these women's spirit of resistance.