The thesis presents an affective ethnography of Boato, a collective of artists who during eleven years performed in Rio de Janeiro, from 1989 to 2000. Starting out with spoken poetry and evolving to perform in a variety of artistic expressions and segments, the Boato group is an unique case in Rio de Janeiro s cultural scene. While playing a key role in the creation process of CEP 20000 - Poetical Experimentation Center of Rio de Janeiro, which has held poetry events since 1990, Boato extended their artistic experimentation to several languages, such as theater, film, music, video, dance and performance. This thesis reconstructs the history of Boato in a critical manner, trying to analyse it and find new meanings therein, the causes and consequences in Rio de Janeiro s cultural panorama. The history of the group punctuates main issues of the research: spoken poetry, its origins in Rio, its historical groups, occupation of public places, artistic collectives, collective experience and creation, politics and culture, performance, friendship and sharing. The author, a former founding member of Boato, presents a self-ethnographic outlook, introducing different dictions to the text, such as the concept of oral thesis.