From Theater to Social Movement

During its military dictatorship's toughest years, Brazil witnessed the emergence and meteoric rise to (inter)national fame of the theater and dance group/family Dzi Croquettes in the 1970s. Their queer performances were so contagious that an increasingly visible entourage began to adopt the Dzi way of being and “philosophy of life.” This article examines the Dzi movement based on the existing literature and primary data generated through archival research and oral history interviews. It begins with an overview of the state of affairs surrounding the Croquettes's emergence and proceeds with two thematic sections where the primary data are presented and examined: the first one regarding the multidirectional identifications that formed between/among performers and spectators before, during, and after performances; and the second, focused on the enhanced but “costly” sense of freedom and transgression in/as the aftermath of the Dzi performances. Lastly, the article elaborates on the notion of the Dzi contagion and charts its affective and sociopolitical potentials by analyzing the articulation and dissemination of ontologies, subjectivities, and vocabularies (such as freedom, difference, and equality) beyond/against the liberal episteme. This piece contributes, both empirically and theoretically, to broader debates about the world-making and political powers of queer performances and utopias in/from the global South.