Renata Carvalho (Brazil)
In partnership with Buddies in Bad Times Theatre

Transpofagic Manifesto is a courageous and thought-provoking work that challenges commonly-held views around gender diversity. Renata Carvalho, a Brazilian human rights activist, reclaims the term “travesti” to describe a distinct transfeminine identity with a history of marginalization and resilience in Latin America. Embracing her travesti identity, she invites the public to behold her, stripped of gender-enforcing constraints, and engage in a conversation on how harmful perceptions of trans people are constructed and reproduced.

“My body came before me, without my asking,” she reflects, describing her journey of gender self-affirmation and bodily autonomy as a rebirth. She offers herself and her story in a radical expression of empowerment that subverts the obsessive scrutiny and hypersexualization of trans bodies, distilling this gaze and transforming it into art, literature and education.

Renata Carvalho

Renata Carvalho is the founder of Monart (National Movement of Trans Artists) and of the “Trans Representativity Manifesto”, which aims to include travesti/trans bodies in the spaces of art creation and calls for a break from the practice of Trans Fake/cisgender artists playing trans/travesti characters. As a transpologist (trans anthropologist), Renata has studied the travesti/trans body since 2007 when she became a volunteer prevention agent for STIs, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and hepatitis. As a prevention agent, she worked with travestis and transsexuals in prostitution–it was the same year of her travesti perception. Renata Carvalho places her travesti body as subject and object of research, debating/denouncing the absence of these bodies in art spaces.

Waterfront Theatre
1412 Cartwright Street, Granville Island, Vancouver

Feb 7 8:00 pm
Feb 8 7:00 pm