A biography on the Samba Runway: the Paraíso do Tuiuti parade and the history of Xica Manicongo from a queer temporal perspective (2025)

Abstract

The article analyzes the samba plot (“samba enredo”) “Quem tem medo de Xica Manicongo” (Who’s Afraid of Xica Manicongo), presented in 2025 by the Rio de Janeiro samba school Paraíso do Tuiuti. The African woman Xica lived in Salvador as an enslaved person in the late 16th century. She is regarded by Brazil’s contemporary movement of trans and travesti people as the first non-Indigenous travesti in the country to have been recorded. The analysis focuses on how this plot departs from the chronological linearity of traditional biographies, approaching queer ways of thinking and narrating temporality, summarized in the notions of critique of chrononormativity, anachronism, and erotohistoriography. The article concludes that the samba plot has the potential to inspire the production of historical biographies that seek to move away from conventional ways of conceiving and shaping temporality.