Can a travesti be a master? Gender f(r)ictions in the guerreiro tradition in Juazeiro do Norte (CE)

Abstract

Between art and anthropology, I discuss performativity and performance based on the experience of Mestra Mellysa Giselly in the tradition of the Beija-Flor in the city of Juazeiro do Norte, Cariri region, in Ceará. Thus, I bring the passage in which the brincante participates for the first time in the official procession of the 2021 Kings Cycle as a key moment to relate between life and work. In this way, this proposal seeks the kaleidoscopic movement between body and brincadeira in the splintering of these images of the popular that erupt through f(r)ictions of gender. By betting on a queer micro-utopia, I see how affect can be central to the discussion of travestilidade in culture, taking into account the fabulation of transgenerity and its ability to fray tradition and its cisgendered beam.

Keywords:
popular culture; guerreiro; gender performativities; sexual dissidences