Afropolitan – Afrodiaspora in Transit in Out of the Dark Night
DIDI
- 25.11 2022
- Arroz Estúdios
- Free entry for Arroz Estúdios menbers. Non-members can join the Arroz Estúdios Membership at the door of the event for 3€ (annual fee).
- 23H - 5H
A queerative intervention by DIDI to celebrate Afrodiasporic artistic expression, through the medium of a party and the history of artistic and cultural representations including images, sounds, tastes, wisdom and traditions.
Afropolitan is Africa as a meeting point of different migratory movements. “By maintaining their ancestral cultures, the symbolic territories that the Afrodiaspora travels through become centres for African (re)existence – a locus of combat against the global societal (cis)tem grounded in Eurocentric colonialism – or, otherwise, they promote the expansion of the idea of the African diaspora throughout the world.” (MBEMBE, 2018)
“AFROPOLITAN – The Party – Afrodiaspora in Transit” aims to reaffirm and propagate the theme of Afrodiasporic identities in contemporary European territories. It is part of a strategy of Black artivism, in which artistic expression contributes to the fight for the political and cultural emancipation of Black people and people of African descent in the territories of the Afrodiaspora.
Emancipatory struggles, conducted through the lens of recognition and affirmation of identity, are fundamental to the strengthening of the body-existence of people of African descent. These struggles take place in spaces of collective and ritual artistic expression, such as the temples of the candomblé or quilombo, and include: samba, afoxés, bailes funk, kizomba, funana, kuduro, afro house, Azonto Afrobeat, hip hop battles and the ballroom community, among others.
These sociocultural and artistic knowledges/activities have shown and continue to show potential for thinking through identity in globalised times. Their primordial function is to encourage the development of an ethical, questioning conscience within a reality that is masked, silenced or relativised in most spaces of sociocultural, educational and political training and practice.
DIDI
To make Afropolitana with them, DIDI invited the artists antonyo omolu, Batukaderas Bandeirinha da Boba, Danykas DJ, Indi Mateta, Petra.Preta and ROD.
PROGRAM
Início - DIDI
23:00 - 23:30
Batukaderas Bandeirinha da Boba
23:30 -00:15
Antonyo Omolu - performance
00:15 - 0:30
Indi Mateta
00:30 -02:00
Danykas DJ
02:00- 03:45
DIDI
3:45 - 5:00
Di Candido, aka DIDI, is a transdisciplinary artist whose work integrates research and artistic-cultural production, curating, art-performance, and DJing. With a law degree from Universidade Candido Mendes and a master's in Communication, Culture, and Technology from ISCTE – IUL, their journey addresses themes such as (re)territorialization, cyberculture, ecology and queer mythologies, identities, and anti-racist activism, focusing on queer, Black, and migrant communities in the diaspora. They co-founded UNA – União Negra das Artes, the Afrontosas Collective, and...
Based in Casal de São Braz in the council of Amadora in Lisbon, the batucada group Bandeirinha was formed in 2016 by a group of female domestic workers from Cape Verde, with the aim of building an intimate space for exchange through batucada. This Cape Verdean cultural genre is profoundly influenced by the methodology of Griot oral tradition, where words are sung, danced and performed through Cape Verdean language. The group creates its space as a territory of “respiration” where each member can address the problems of their working life, giving their bodies the...
tony omolu, Black and non-binary artist, has started a PhD in Artistic Education at the University of Lisbon. They hold a Master's in Arts, where they conducted research on the dramaturgy of the Orixás dance of Master Augusto Omolu, at UFU/MG. They have a postgraduate degree in Theatrical Interpretation from UFU/MG and a Bachelor's degree in Philosophy from UFU/MG. They are a professor and Artistic Director of the Extension and Culture Programme – Corpoencena (performing arts) and have training and aesthetic experience in artistic-cultural and pedagogical production...
Danykas DJ was born and raised in Lisbon, Portugal. The love of music has been a constant in her life, a feeling she has known since her earliest years at home. Her musical spirit was cultivated by her mother and father, who, in her own words, are an entire encyclopaedia of African, Arab, Latin and Portuguese music. Her musical luggage is thus always packed ready for voyages without borders. This shared family love for music led to her first interest in the world of DJing, at 11 years old, when she witnessed the parties thrown by the group ‘BlackProject, created by...
Indi Mateta is a multidisciplinary artist born, raised and now living in Luanda. She is a visual artist, music enthusiast and a fan of music festivals — one of those people who fall asleep listening to music and wake up singing. An unexpected turn of events in 2017 saw her first experience as a selector, since when she has dedicated herself increasingly to DJing as another artistic expression of her Black African identity. Her multifaceted DJ sets are full of African and Afrodiasporic rhythms from various eras, ranging in intensity and danceability depending on the...
ROD is a researcher and visual artist, Black and queer. They hold a postdoctoral degree from CECS at the University of Minho and a PhD in Sociology from ICS at the University of Lisbon. As a visual artist, they develop work focused on decolonial critique. They have participated in several group exhibitions and solo displays, such as the Lisbon Graphic Fair (2020), Casa do Capitão (2021), Espaço Damas (2021), Bairro em Festa Festival at Largo Residências (2021), Not a Museum Gallery (2021), MAAT – Museum of Art, Architecture, and Technology (2022), Lisbon Municipal...
With a degree in theatre from ESTC, she is a pluridisplinary artist and art educator. From her place of speech, she questions issues of identity and social systems and the power relations that operate as an inheritance from a colonial past. Besides her artistic work, she is co-creator of Invisible Stories, an educational project, supported by CMA, which aims to reflect on the concepts of Identity, Historical Memory and Human Rights through the Arts. She expresses herself mainly in the techniques of painting, illustration, performance and writing, although the form of...