Black Performance and Body Dramaturgy in the Batuque

Abstract: The expansion of what can be considered as a scene, show or performance is a major contribution of Ethnoscenology and Performance Studies to the field of the Performing Arts, breaking borders that are based on the colonialism of knowledge, which radically separated art from grassroots culture, putting creation and tradition in different poles. This shift of paradigm opens the possibility of thinking the body dramaturgy of the African-Brazilian rituals as a construct of the relationship between body and ancestry. It is in this perspective that this paper presents a discussion on the black performance of batuque, more specifically the Suça, from Natividade (TO/Brazil).