Samba: resistance in motion

Abstract

Browning (Princeton Univ.) employs her perspectives as a dancer and literary theorist in this very readable book on various dance forms in contemporary Brazil. The four chapters focus on samba, dance aspects of candomble (the African religious practices in Brazil), capoeira (the Afro-Brazilian dance/fighting form), and carnaval in Bahia, Brazil. Each chapter provides a brief historical look at the form, an analysis of the dance, and a discussion of the author's experience with that form. Most significant is Browning's ability to draw relationships between the forms: she articulates individual and collective ways these dances can provide insights into the political, religious, and social realities of Brazilian life. Fairly extensive endnotes, a series of black-and-white photos, and selective music notation are further aids to the reader. This volume, another in the series "Arts and Politics of the Everyday," is a significant contribution to the fields of dance and ethnography (see Yvonne Daniel's Rumba: Dance and Social Change in Contemporary Cuba, CH, Mar'96, also in this series). Upper-division undergraduate; graduate; faculty.

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