ABSTRACT
Between 17 and 20 August 2017, in Lebon Regis, a small agricultural town located in the south of Brazil, a commemoration was held for the Contestado War. The territory formed by the municipalities of Lebon Regis and Matos Costa was the stage of a bloody war between local farmers, the caboclos, and the military union forces. The historian Paulo Pinheiro Machado explains that the military believed that the death of José Maria would end the conflicts, just as had occurred in the Canudos War, with the death of Antônio Conselheiro in Bahia, north-eastern Brazil. The Contestado musical was an initiative of the youths, Alan Lopes, Fabiano Perozzo, and Geovane Grabovski. The three participated in the Agrarian Residence for Youth, a training programme for cultural agents of peasant youth, in which they presented the proposal for a musical. Fabiano played the melody of the song “Menino da Porteira” on the guitar.
