Chica Machado: performance e cinema no sertão goiano

Abstract

This thesis investigates the enduring memory of Chica Machado - an enslaved African woman who, according to oral narratives from northern Goiás, became a liberator of enslaved people and a community leader - through the interweaving of orality, performance, and audiovisual language. Situated within the field of Cultural Performances, the research examines orality as a mode of knowledge transmission and as a practice that mobilizes body, voice, and gesture in the continual reactivation of the past in the present, highlighting its significance in preserving memories that have historically been scarcely recorded in institutional archives. Methodologically, the study articulates written research and audiovisual production. Its sources include interviews conducted in Cocal, Tupiraçaba, Niquelândia, Uruaçu, Jaraguá, the region of the former settlement of Ouro Fino, and Goiânia, in addition to a bibliographic review and consultation of documents in public and private archives. In dialogue with the thesis, the short documentary Chica Machado – Rainha de Goyaz (2025) was produced and is conceived as part of the research’s conceptual and methodological development. The study examines the relationship between orality and the construction of images in cinema, particularly with regard to the tension between archive and repertoire in the representation of Black women. Within this framework, the research reflects on how memory that resides in and persists through orality may be translated into image, and how narratives transmitted through voice and performance can stimulate the creation of cinematic imagery. It seeks to understand how memories that are often absent from or fragmented within written documents can mobilize processes of audiovisual creation, thereby contributing to alternative ways of narrating history. In this sense, the documentary is conceived not as a mere illustration of the written text, but as a mode of inquiry that articulates experience, sensibility, and relationality. The analysis of the narratives surrounding Chica Machado highlights the strength of oral tradition in the transmission of transgenerational memories and in the construction of meanings about the past. By bringing together academic writing and cinematic language, the thesis explores the possibilities of dialogue between different modes of knowledge production, emphasizing the role of orality in the creation of images and narratives about Black women in Brazilian history.