Faz que vai

Faz que Vai [Set to Go] is a video rehearsal in four acts, each presenting the performance of a frevo dancer, a folk dance of the carnival of Pernambuco. We invite the dancers to interpret frevo according to other dances that they practice professionally during the rest of the year. A fusion of frevo with funk, swingueira, electro and vogue is staged for the camera through choreographic variations that operate unpredictable gestural articulations in the social space of each rhythm. As a series of notes on the relationship between body, camera, and movement in the scope of a dance from the northeast of Brazil, Faz que Vai comments on the meaning of carnival in the preservation of frevo as an image, heritage, and product. Originally linked to the idea of ​​resistance inherent to the movements of capoeira performed in front of military bands in the carnivals of the early 20th century, frevo today is an almost acrobatic cultural expression celebrated as an authentic tradition of Pernambuco. Recognized in 2012 by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, the dance definitively leaves the streets and takes to the stage, and its representation becomes strongly promoted by the local government as the greatest spectacle of the region's economy. Apart from the deconstruction of this celebratory form, Faz que Vai articulates the ways in which new subjectivities imply this form of popular tradition in regards to race, class, and gender.