Ze Pelintra's Interactive Altar: Praying and Playing with an Afro-Brazilian ancestor/ El altar interactivo de Ze Pelintra: oraciones e interacción con un ancestro afrobrasileño

Zé Pelintra multicultural ambivalent figure is adored in Umbanda religion as both, a street-life spirit and a wise old black ancestor. He is a master who can be simultaneously a rogue and a healer. Zé uses the lure of earthly pleasures as means to attract practitioners to his wise teaching and therapeutic goals. Visitors will be invited to enter in Ze Pelintra´s environment and ask protection and advice in matters such as gambling, quarrels with enemies or love affairs.

Biography

Zeca Ligiero is the founder and coordinator of NEPPA at UNIRIO, Brazil. He is a theater director, artist, writer and director of the graduate and the doctorate programs in theater at UNIRIO where he has taught since 1989. He is the author of the essay "Candomblé is a religio-life-at" published in the book Divine Inspiration by New Mexico University Press. He is also the author of Iniciação ao Candomblé (Initiation to the Candomblé), Umbanda: Paz, liberdade e cura (Umbanda: Peace, freedom and healing) and Carmen Miranda: An Africa-Brazilian Paradox (to be released soon). An expert in both Brazilian and Afro-Indigenous performance studies, he received his Doctorate in Performance Studies from NYU.