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Ilê Aiyê's unifying identity politics through Afro-Carnival performance, is embedded in its dialectical relationship with the rest of Brazil as it takes ownership of its oppressed status by striving for racial equality and economic empowerment. Against this complex background, performative theory offers significant new meanings. In ritualistically integrating Bakhtinian categories of free interaction, eccentric behavior, carnivalistic misalliances, and the sacrilegious, Ilê Aiyê anchors its social discourse on showcasing the black race as a critical agency of beauty, pride, wisdom, subversion, and negotiation. Ilê Aiyê carnival is not only racially conscious, it heightens the conflicts by dislocating the very establishment that invests in its cultural politics. In fusing the sacred, the profane, the performative, the musical, with the political, Ilê Aiyê succeeds in indicting racism, ironically sacrificing the very power it pursues. Despite these limitations, Ilê Aiyê creatively engages alternative dialogues on Brazilian politics through sponsored performances across transnational borders.
Wlamyra Albuquerque, Professor, Federal University of Bahia, Brazil
'Africa in Brazil: Ilê Aiyê and the Re-invention of Africa' is a book that chooses IlêAiyê, an important and active cultural and political group in Bahia, as its research subject. It is a contribution to the analysis about African Heritage, racism, and anti-racism in Brazil. The bibliography used (both Brazilian and non-Brazilian) is quite selective and relates to topics such as carnival, Afro-Brazilian culture and identity. Although other authors are mentioned, only are of them are discussed throughout the book.
Perhaps a broader interaction with Brazilian bibliography would have avoided what appears to be naivety - in the choices of literature fragments about carnival from the first half of the 20th century, for instance. Quotes, such as the following one about Olavo Bilac is worth mentioning to illustrate, 'In his attempt to typologize the reveler, Bilac creates a dialectical structure between the authentic reveler in general and those who become victims of Carnival through death.' Both academic and political work by Olavo Bilac have been studied by many authors, helping all remember how scholars from the beginning of the 20th century disputed projects of national identity that focused on the representation of Afro-Brazilian in the public realm1. In one of his most well-known texts, Olavo Bilac states that 'the real, the legitimate, the authentic, the only true Carnival is that from Rio de Janeiro2.' Therefore, he did not take into account the Carnival from Bahia. In addition, the reader is not adequately presented to some important authors, such as Clarice Lispector, Jorge Amado, Ruy Castro e Antonio Risério, nor are they acquainted with the contexts in which these writers 'works were produced.
1See, amongothers, Pereira, Leonardo Affonso de Miranda.' O Carnaval de Letras.'Prefeitura do Rio de Janeiro; Rio de Janeiro, 1993.
22 Olavo Bilac, ' Carnavalesco' apud Cunha, Maria Clementina Pereira. Ecos da folia - uma história social do carnaval carioca, São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2001, p. 254.
In Africa in Brazil: Ilê Aiyê and the Re-Invention of Africa, one can perceive a vivid interest in the analysis of overlaps of Carnival, culture, and the exclusion of the Afro-Brazilians as announced by the author in the first chapter, 'This chapter interrogates the relationship between the rituals of Carnival, the interfacial myths of celebration and renewal, and the complex dynamics of inclusive exclusion that the event represents for Afro-Brazilian marginalized populations.' The author also discusses the diversity of Carnival in countries with great population of Afro-descendents, such as Barbados, Jamaica, Haiti, and Cuba, as well as important places in the US like New Orleans, Brooklyn, Miami, Harlem, and San Francisco. In addition, the author considers the relationship between Carnival and the Yoruba celebrations with its masks and egungun, without losing sight of the fact that, 'Afro-Bahian Carnival means different things to different people.'
In midst of all diversity brought in Ilê Aiyê and the Re-Invention of Africa, issues that remain in discussion among experts are presented as resolved. One example can be found in chapter 1, when the author argues that, 'Struggling to express their own voices, many blocos afros or Afoxé such as Ilê Aiyê and Filhos de Gandhy associate with Candomblé, the Afro-Brazilian religion in Bahia, as well as capoeira, the martial art/dance brought from Angola, West Africa.' There are several studies about the origins and cultural and historical dynamics that link 2
Angolan dances and martial art rituals with capoeira and Bahian Afoxé3. By ignoring this fact, the author loses some good opportunities that he had built to explain how Carnival is immersed in historical and symbolic paths which are quite complex and also include other cultural practices.
Series Editor Review, Toyin Falola
Endorsemen
'Africa in Brazil: Ilê Aiyê and the Re-invention of Africa' is a book that chooses IlêAiyê, an important and active cultural and political group in Bahia, as its research subject. It is a contribution to the analysis about African Heritage, racism, and anti-racism in Brazil. The bibliography used (both Brazilian and non-Brazilian) is quite selective and relates to topics such as carnival, Afro-Brazilian culture and identity. Although other authors are mentioned, only are of them are discussed throughout the book.
Perhaps a broader interaction with Brazilian bibliography would have avoided what appears to be naivety - in the choices of literature fragments about carnival from the first half of the 20th century, for instance. Quotes, such as the following one about Olavo Bilac is worth mentioning to illustrate, 'In his attempt to typologize the reveler, Bilac creates a dialectical structure between the authentic reveler in general and those who become victims of Carnival through death.' Both academic and political work by Olavo Bilac have been studied by many authors, helping all remember how scholars from the beginning of the 20th century disputed projects of national identity that focused on the representation of Afro-Brazilian in the public realm1. In one of his most well-known texts, Olavo Bilac states that 'the real, the legitimate, the authentic, the only true Carnival is that from Rio de Janeiro2.' Therefore, he did not take into account the Carnival from Bahia. In addition, the reader is not adequately presented to some important authors, such as Clarice Lispector, Jorge Amado, Ruy Castro e Antonio Risério, nor are they acquainted with the contexts in which these writers 'works were produced.
1See, amongothers, Pereira, Leonardo Affonso de Miranda.' O Carnaval de Letras.'Prefeitura do Rio de Janeiro; Rio de Janeiro, 1993.
22 Olavo Bilac, ' Carnavalesco' apud Cunha, Maria Clementina Pereira. Ecos da folia - uma história social do carnaval carioca, São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2001, p. 254.
In Africa in Brazil: Ilê Aiyê and the Re-Invention of Africa, one can perceive a vivid interest in the analysis of overlaps of Carnival, culture, and the exclusion of the Afro-Brazilians as announced by the author in the first chapter, 'This chapter interrogates the relationship between the rituals of Carnival, the interfacial myths of celebration and renewal, and the complex dynamics of inclusive exclusion that the event represents for Afro-Brazilian marginalized populations.' The author also discusses the diversity of Carnival in countries with great population of Afro-descendents, such as Barbados, Jamaica, Haiti, and Cuba, as well as important places in the US like New Orleans, Brooklyn, Miami, Harlem, and San Francisco. In addition, the author considers the relationship between Carnival and the Yoruba celebrations with its masks and egungun, without losing sight of the fact that, 'Afro-Bahian Carnival means different things to different people.'
In midst of all diversity brought in Ilê Aiyê and the Re-Invention of Africa, issues that remain in discussion among experts are presented as resolved. One example can be found in chapter 1, when the author argues that, 'Struggling to express their own voices, many blocos afros or Afoxé such as Ilê Aiyê and Filhos de Gandhy associate with Candomblé, the Afro-Brazilian religion in Bahia, as well as capoeira, the martial art/dance brought from Angola, West Africa.' There are several studies about the origins and cultural and historical dynamics that link 2
Angolan dances and martial art rituals with capoeira and Bahian Afoxé3. By ignoring this fact, the author loses some good opportunities that he had built to explain how Carnival is immersed in historical and symbolic paths which are quite complex and also include other cultural practices.
Series Editor Review, Toyin Falola
Endorsemen