Aesthetics of resistance and the documentary (document 02): The Dance of Friendship - Stories of Urucungos, Puiat and Quijengues

Abstract

The “Afro-Campineira Trilogy” contains three documentary achievements, in which I directed and participated in different stages of production. There are three short films focused on protagonists of cultural, religious and artistic processes, all defenders of manifestations of African origins and their potent hybridization, located in the metropolitan region of Campinas-SP. The films are Diário de Exus (2015), The Dance of Friendship, Stories of Urucungos, Puítas and Quijengues (2016) and The Rainbow House Woman (2017/2018). In the films, it is developed  what I call “the aesthetics of resistance”, prioritizing Afro-diasporic narratives, in a creative process in which aesthetics and politics converge. Aesthetically, the documentary converges the processes of observation, participation (interview), performance and poetry, in a set of images and sounds centered on people and spaces that are organized communally around Afro-centered codes. Politically, the role of culture and religion in the affirmation and identity construction of the black people in Brazil is emphasized, which thickens the understanding of the role of culture in the resistance of a people. This text documents the process of making the second short film in the trilogy, it is The Dance of Friendship - Stories of Urucungos, Puítas and Quijengues.