ABSTRACT
In 1972, during the most violent phase of the Brazilian military dictatorship, Dzi Croquettes emerged in Rio de Janeiro. Dzi Croquettes were a group of 13 dancers, poets, singers and designers that formed after a smaller circle had started carrying their impromptu livingroom performances into night clubs in Rio de Janeiro in the fall of 1972. They were (mostly gay) men from different racial and class backgrounds, living together as a self-declared ‘family’ in varying amorous and cohabitation arrangements, often together with friends and followers. In their frenetic, multilingual performances, they rescripted poetic verses, interpreted popular Brazilian and international music, staged elaborate dance performances and daily street scenes, and dressed themselves in and out of flamboyant costumes. Their style was marked as much by the use of make-up, glitter and drag as by the experimental mobilization and fusing of vastly differing genres, including vaudeville, tropicália, travesti shows, underground, carnival or umbanda. While their style resonated with the North Atlantic cultural movements of the 1960s and 1970s, it also connected to Brazilian movements and expressive traditions. Instantly hitting a nerve, especially among young people who suffered from the repressions of the military regime, in 1973-74 the group entered the theatres of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, provoking intense public media coverage. While Dzi Croquettes’s expressive world gravitated around gender transgression and irreverent eroticism, it simultaneously involved issues of class, race or region and instilled a broader sense of imminent liberation.
