LARGO DAS ARTES : DAY 79

Today it was Tiradentes holiday in Rio de Janeiro. Tiradentes literally means a 'tooth puller', a pejorative denomination adopted during the trial against him. He practiced several professions — cattle driver, miner and dentist. But Tiradentes became a special character for the Brazilian people. Joaquim José da Silva Xavier, known as Tiradentes (November 12, 1746–-April 21, 1792), was a leading member of the Brazilian revolutionary movement known as the 'Inconfidencia Mineira' whose aim was to obtain independence from the Portuguese colonial power and to create a Brazilian republic. When the plan was discovered, Tiradentes was arrested, tried and publicly hanged. Since the 19th century he has been considered a national hero of Brazil.(source by Wikipedia) 

What I found very interesting was the research of the Brazilian painter Adriana Verajao based on a particular painting called 'Tiradentes Esquartejado', by Pedro Americo, 1893, illustrating Tiradentes' martyr. I believe that this painting was the starting point for Adriana to dig even deeper into the issue of Portuguese colonialism working with symbolisms such as hanging meat, layers of pain and History and Portuguese tiles.

For such a reason Largo das Artes was closed so I stayed home editing 'Barato' performance I did last week. The stories are taking shape, I love revisiting all the street and local people that took part of it, selecting and editing videos and photographs... it took a huge amount of time!