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Paper short abstract:

Focusing on the Bloco Afro Ilú Obá de Min's performance, this paper reflects on the questions it raises, "breaking the boxes" into which Western thought is divided. Is it art or religion? Is it a political practice? A rite? Does it enact a historical past, an imagined future or the present moment?

Paper long abstract:

The present paper focuses on the Bloco Afro Ilú Obá de Min, a Brazilian street carnival group based in the city of São Paulo. Today the group is formed by 430 Black and white women, working to preserve and to diffuse the "Black culture"; and to empower women in Brazilian society through the "afro-descendant performances" - rhythms, songs, dances and corporealities of African matrix - that become ways of revindication of its African ancestry and resistance against racism and sexism.

Nevertheless, experiencing a bloco's live performance means, first of all, "to break the boxes" into which Western thought is divided. Is it art or religion? Is it a political practice? A rite? Does it enact a historical past, an imagined future or the present moment? And what if it is all these things at the same time.

This paper, particularly, starting from these questions, reflects on the bloco's performances as expression of a "way of being and staying in the world", that is, as practices based on specific ontological and epistemological conceptions. By the way, these performances are also understood as expression of its "ancestralidade", a fundamental concept in Afro-Brazilian religions, that reflects a "spiral time" conception, as well.