In the spirit of keeping this blog updated, I have a few things to share. Last year was busy and productive. It is amazing that I had just arrived in Recife two years ago, and now the articles about that research are finally being published. What a process!
- A Dance of Resistance from Recife, Brazil: Carnivalesque Improvisation in Frevo, Dance Research Journal, 51, no. 3 (2019): 28-46.
- Dancing Between Pedagogy and Performance: Guerreiros do Passo and the Case of Brazilian Frevo, Dance Chronicle. March 2020. (forthcoming)
I have been sharing my frevo research with many people, including at the Popular Culture Association in Washington, DC in April and at the International Council for Traditional Music in Bangkok, Thailand in July. But perhaps the most fun has been doing mini-workshops in my classes at the University of Maryland, and in my colleague’s classes as guest workshops. (I taught eleven guest lecture/workshops in 2019 at UMD and other universities in the area!) I try my best to convey both the buoyancy and urgency of frevo.
I’ve also enjoyed receiving feedback and interest from people in other fields—for example, in psychology and in social health. I’ve started some really interesting conversations that seem to be leading me down other paths, which I think will be important in broadening our definitions of “dances of resistance.” More on that soon!
I was also excited to publish a second article about my research on Montserrat in the Irish Migration Studies in Latin America journal, published by the Society for Irish Latin American Studies. IMSLA the perfect journal for this research and I was able to distill my thoughts on my initial research question for this project: What’s so Irish about Montserrat? Spoiler alert: It’s complicated.
- Locating Montserrat between the Black and Green, Irish Migration Studies in Latin America, 9, no. 2 (2019): 1-14.
Pablo and I started a new initiative last summer and we are happy to report that our new 501(c)3 non-profit organization, EducArte, was approved at the beginning of this year. From our mission statement: EducArte aims to build a vibrant cultural arts community through educational programs, bringing together artists, students, and audiences in music and dance. We have a talented board of directors and we are navigating this new project with care and excitement. Stay tuned for more!
Samba Jig is plugging along, with a brand new logo and website that I designed this year. (It was time.) We are thrilled to be co-presenting Djavan with Strathmore on Thursday, May 7. Djavan is a Brazilian music icon and one of our personal favorites.
Finally, we have been hard at work with Sinclair Ogaga Emoghene on our NextLOOK Artist Residency project, Ainihi e Alteridade (Performing Otherness). Our conversations have been fruitful and challenging, and we are looking forward to getting in the studio very soon. Our work-in-progress showing will be on Friday, May 8!
Photo: José “Ferreirinha” da Silva Irmão. Photo credit: Kelvin Andrade.