Constructing Verbal Art: Performance and Ethos in Popular Culture of the Brazilian Hinterland
2008; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 28; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/10462930802413565
ISSN1479-5760
Autores Tópico(s)Public Spaces through Art
ResumoAbstract This study is based on the verbal art of a musical group “Cordel do Fogo Encantado” (CFE) from Arcoverde, hinterland of Pernambuco, Brazil. From an ethnographic inquiry on CFE's performance recorded in video and observed in loco, this group constitutes itself as an interpreter/translator of a partner-cultural dimension of hinterlander in Brazil. By observing the self-evidence of CFE's performance, it is possible to verify the emergence of an ethos of symbolic elements that constitutes the Brazilian hinterlander's social imaginary. Keywords: EthosPerformancePopular CultureSelf-evidenceVerbal Art Notes 1. Arcoverde is a town in Pernambuco, northeastern hinterland of Brazil. It has 60,000 inhabitants. Old population and headquarters of the District of Olho D’Água, situated in then the city of Cimbres, Arcoverde passed for other denominations as Olho D’Água of the Bredos and Rio Branco, while it was part of the city of Pesqueira. In 1812, already references meet the population Olho D’Água, where the existed farm Saint Rita, with a small church under the invocation of Ours Lady of the Release. On July 1, 1909, the town Water Eye of the Bredos, by the State Law N° 991, was raised the category of Village, passing in December 11, 1912 to appear as District of the city of Pesqueira, through Municipal Law. (http://www.answers.com). 2. In Brazil, the hinterland region, called Sertão, (Portuguese term for backcountry or backlands) refers to the semi-arid region in Northeastern Brazil comprising parts of the states of Alagoas, Bahia, Pernambuco, Paraíba, Rio Grande do Norte, Ceará and Piauí. The term “sertanejo” is similar to the generic use of “cowboy” in the United States. Sertão is high, stony, and dry, and frequently devastated by prolonged droughts (secas). The climate is characterized by hot days and cool nights. There are two clearly defined seasons, a rainy season from March to June, and a dry season for the remaining months. The interior of the state is covered mostly by the dry thorny scrub vegetation called caatinga. The Rio São Francisco is the main water source for this area. The Moxotó River is a tributary of the São Francisco River in northeastern Brazil, which originated the hinterland (Sertão) of Moxotó. The Moxotó originates on the Borborema Plateau in Pernambuco state, and flows southwest to join the São Francisco. The lower portion of the river forms the border between Pernambuco state to the west and Alagoas state to the east. Geographically, the sertão consists mainly of low uplands that form part of the Brazilian Highlands. Most parts of the sertão are between 200 and 500 m above sea level, with higher elevations found on the eastern edge in the Planalto da Borborema, where it merges into a subhumid region known as agreste, in the Serra da Ibiapaba in western Ceará and in the Serra do Periquito of central Pernambuco. In the north, the sertão extends to the northern coastal plains of Rio Grande Do Norte state, whilst in the south it fades out in the northern fringe of Minas Gerais. Two major rivers cross the sertão, the Rio Jaguaribe and the Rio Piranhas further east. Apart from the Rio São Francisco which originates outside the region, other rivers dry out after the rainy periods end. (http://www.answers.com). 3. Pernambuco (IPA: [pεx.nã.'bu.ku]), state (1991 pop. 7,127,855), 37,946 square miles (98,280 square kilometers), NE Brazil, The capital is Recife. Pernambuco is a state of Brazil, located in the Northeast region of the country, on the Atlantic Ocean. To the north are the states of Paraíba and Ceará, to the west is Piauí to the south are Alagoas and Bahia, and to the east is the Atlantic Ocean. Pernambuco comprises a comparatively narrow coastal zone, a high inland plateau, and an intermediate zone formed by the terraces and slopes between the two. Its surface is much broken by the remains of the ancient plateau which has been worn down by erosion, leaving escarpments and ranges of flat-topped mountains, called chapadas, capped in places by horizontal layers of sandstone. (http://www.answers.com). 4. I assume the point of view of Duranti (Citation1997:15), Linguistic Anthropology, for whom, performance in this sense refers to a domain of human action where special attention is given to the way in which communicative acts are executed. 5. According to Bauman (Citation1977:11), the concept of performance is fundamentally a mode of spoken verbal communication that consists in the assumption of responsibility to display for an audience a communicative competence. This competence rests on the knowledge and ability to speak in socially appropriate ways. Performance involves on the part of the performer an assumption of accountability to an audience for the way in which communication is carried out, above and beyond its referential content. From the point of view of the audience, the act of expression on the part of the performer is thus marked as subject to evaluation for the way it is done, for the relative skill and effectiveness of the performer's display of competence. Additionally, it is marked as available for the enhancement of experience, though the present enjoyment of the intrinsic qualities of the act of expression itself. Performance thus calls forth special attention to and heightened awareness of the act of expression and gives license to the audience to regard the act of expression and the performer with special intensity. Thus conceived, performance is a mode of language use, a way of speaking. 6. Among some existent conceptions of popular culture, I assume the point of view of Cuche (Citation1999:149), for who, the popular cultures show nor dependents entirely, nor entirely independent, nor pure imitation, nor pure creation. This corroborates, according to author, so that each particular culture is “a meeting of original elements and imported elements, proper inventions and loans.” 7. The coconut samba group Raízes de Arcoverde appeared in 1996 under the leadership of Luis Calixto Montenegro, the coquista master who passed away in 1999. This samba group is a legacy of all the coquistas that incorporated coconut in their art throughout twentieth century in Arcoverde-PE. In Arcoverde, the group is one of the most respected and well-known in the State of Pernambuco. Coconut samba involves chanting and dancing that was first seen in Brazil in the states of Alagoas and Pernambuco, possibly in the Quilombo de Palmares. It was brought by slaves and began to spread to the Brazilian Northeast. The master, who sings the songs, is called tirador or coquista and counts on the aid of a choir that answers the utterance of the coconut. The dance consists of slow steps (called parcela in Arcoverde-PE) and a form of tap-dancing called trupé. Despite elaborate costumes that appear in other popular festivities, the coconut is overall a vibrant and engaging dance (http://www.cocoraizes.hpg.ig.com.br/coco.htm). 8. The community of Caraíbas is a town that is part of the city of Arcoverde in the Hinterland of the Moxotó in Pernambuco, Brazil. It consists of a few streets with a church in the center and is surrounded by typical houses of the northeastern countryside. The community is composed largely of peasants, who use their agricultural yields for survival. Caraíbas presents a strong religious connection with a messianic condition that is characterized in the ritual of the reisado. The ideology of the reisado originated by the party of kings is a mixture of faith, festivity and dances, in which groups of joined shepherds go to visit the houses of the most hospitable people of the region, where they sing and dance. According to informants, this is an ancestral religious festivity. The dance is a form of pantomime in which the rhythm of the steps is free without directed marking. The reisado is, at the same time, an ideology of life and an amusement to the members of the community. 9. The Xucuru indigenous tribe comes from Pesqueira, a place that was formerly known as Cimbres and is currently located at the foot of the mountain called Ororubá. Toré is a ritual dance in this tribe in which a group of six men form a circle. The bacurau, a member of the group, is responsible for initiating each song of toré. He shakes a rattle (maraca) to help maintain the rhythm. The other men, women and children follow closely behind in a single-file line. In addition, there are zabumbeiros and flautists that play along with each song. The slow rhythm of toré is also marked by the strokes of the jupagos on the ground. During tore, only the Xucuru men carry jupagos, long pieces of wood with roots that have bases shaped like balls. According to an informant, jupago is made of the wood candeeiro, which in the past was abundant in the region, but is now scarce. To make jupago, the wood must be cut on the night of the full moon. Otherwise, it will crack easily (http://www.revista.cultura.pe.gov.Br/junho_2000/cen_situação.html). 10. SESC—Social Service for Commerce is a non-profit privately held Brazilian institution of national scope. It was created in 1946 as an initiative of the Brazilian trade and service entrepreneurship, who support it and manage it, and its main goal is to promote the country's cultural and artistic development and social welfare, as well as improve the quality of life of workers in the trade and service industry, their families and the Brazilian community as a whole. SESC's social and cultural actions are undertaken so as to enrich life and its symbolic experiences through the combination of refinement and sensitively, physical well-being and commitment social work. SESC's permanent mission is to include and integrate people and groups of different ages and walks of life into the universe of culture, here conceived in its broadest sense, thus encompassing artistic manifestations, dance and body expression, sports, tourism, environmental education among other forms of human expression. Ultimately, SESC's activities are aimed at ongoing informal education, which seeks to improve people and encourage their personal autonomy and self-reliance, while also enhancing their social interaction and contact with different expressions and ways of thinking and perceiving (http://www.sescsp.org.br/sesc/sos/index.cfm?forget=99&L=ingles). 11. It is mentioned in the CFE's CD that the Pajé Cauã's prophecy was taken from the book Lampião Its Time and Its Reign, Vol. 1, written by Frederico Bezerra Maciel. 12. Third epistle of the apostle John, Book of Revelation, chapter 6.12. 13. Second Book of Moses—Exodus, chapters 3:8 and 33:3. 14. Book of Revelation 6:13. Additional informationNotes on contributorsJorge F. de Farias Jorge França de Farias Jr is a Doctor in Linguistics from UNICAMP (State University of Campinas—Brazil). He was a Visiting Scholar in Philosophy of Language at UCLA (University of California—Los Angeles), affiliated with the Department of Anthropology/CLIC (Center for Language, Interaction, and Culture) during August 2006 and September 2007. In addition, during his tenure at UCLA his study was awarded and sponsored by a Brazilian government agency CAPES Foundation (Foundation for the Coordination of Higher Education and Graduate Training), no. 147406-5. His research covers the areas of Popular Culture, Subaltern Studies and Discourse of Exclusion, Political Representation, Media and Globalization, and Studies of Identity. He has published articles in journals in Brazil on topics such as Verbal Art, Performance, Ethnography Studies, Ethos, and Identity in the Brazilian Popular Culture. Also he has published articles in newspapers regarding social aspects involving university education, science, and financial investments made by the Brazilian Government in Education in general. He also worked for the Department of Spanish and Portuguese as an instructional assistant during the winter quarter of 2007 with Professor Ted Young in the Brazilian Society and Civilization course. He published two articles in the Los Angeles Journal as in the sequence: Pop Goes the Culture (http://www.losangelesjournal.com/new/articles-view-18-468) and Breaking the Silence (http://www.losangelesjournal.com/new/articles-view--480). In the SLAPC (Studies in Latin American Popular Culture) from Arizona University he published an article titled, Cultura Popular no Nordeste do Brazil: Narrativas de Identidade Social. Further information can be checked by the link (http://w3.coh.arizona.edu/slapc/current.htm). He is guaranteed a publication in the Encruzilhadas/Crossroads Journal
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