dancing around the world

[helena nilo]

Fado?

The most recent wave of publications which deal with fado’s early incarnation (Tinhorão 1994; Brito 1994; Carvalho 1994; Castelo-Branco 2000; Fryer 2000; Nery 2004) agree on the Afro-Brazilian foundation of fado’s danced form, underscoring the additional influence of other music and dance traditions to varying degrees. Recent publications also generally agree that the first written mention of fado music/dance appeared in the 1820s. Many scholars (Tinhorão 1994; Carvalho 1994; Brito 1994; 1999; Nery 2004) also now acknowledge that fado’s early diffusion in Lisbon was catalyzed by the Portuguese Court’s journey back to the capital in 1821, after a 13 year relocation to Rio de Janeiro.

Tinhorão dates the first arrival of African dances in Lisbon, for example, in the late 1600s with the appearance of the gandu, batuque, cumbé and the banzé Recent histories detail the evolution of fado, first as dance form in Brazil, then later as a sung form in Lisbon. In its earliest appearances in Brazil at the end of the eighteenth century, fado emerged as a fusion of older dances such as the African-derived fofa and lundu and the Iberian fandango. The lundu, a dance so similar to fado as to be interchangeable in the accounts of foreign travelers (Tinhorão 1994; Nery 2004), often featured a pair of dancers who approached one another seductively, sometimes pressing abdomens together, in what was called an “umbigada”, then backing away. The dancerly alternation between approach and retreat was performed to the sounds of vocal and instrumental music structured into choruses and refrains. Fado distinguished itself from the lundu by combining “the ‘castanholado’ of the fandango with the ‘umbigadas’ of the lundu . . . [amplifying] the role of the song, substituting the refrains marked by clapping for the sung intermezzo . . . accompanied by the guitar” (Tinhorão 1994, 29). This vocal “intermezzo” accompanied by guitar constituted the seeds of what would evolve into the sung fado we know today.

Almeida describes several different types of danced fado performed in early nineteenth century Rio de Janeiro; one where a single performer dances alone, executing difficult steps and lofty poses; and another where a pair of dancers play a seductive game of approach and retreat. And across the ocean in early nineteenth century Lisbon, fado’s diverse array of expressions not only replicated the song/dance vocabularies developed in Brazil, but also initiated a new local
offshoot called “fado batido,” spawned within Lisbon’s community of transplanted Africans (Carvalho 1984 [1903], Tinhorão 1994). Fado batido featured an intense balance game where one standing dancer remained grounded with feet firmly planted while the other tried to unbalance him through tricky advances and retreats and kicks or “pernadas” ideally resulting in the standing player’s spectacular fall (Tinhorão 1994, 64). Apprehending the formal diversity observed in Rio de Janiero against the backdrop of fado’s early development in Lisbon allows for a more complex historical trajectory replete with side steps, sapateados and other complicating historical choreographies.

How could a Brazilian dance characterized as “joyful, sensual and fun” evolve into a Portuguese song characterized as “sorrowful and heavy” (Carvalho 1994, 23)?

- Rui Nery makes a very detailed case, based on the consultation of primary sources and period dictionaries, for the complete absence of reference to fado as a musical form prior to the late eighteenth century, early nineteenth century. He states, “in the Portuguese lexicon until the turn of the nineteenth century, the term “fado” did not designate any reality of a musical nature—be it popular, erudite, urban or rural, religious or profane (2004, 17). Such a statement implicitly responds to the debate concerning the appearance of the word ‘fado’ many centuries earlier. As Nery and others explain, however, sixteenth and seventeenth-century mention of “fado” refers to the word’s Latin root “fatum”meaning fate or destiny and does not indicate that fado music/dance appeared during this period.

In:
http://www2.let.uu.nl/solis/PSC/P/P%...oriography.pdf

Nery's book
http://www2.fcsh.unl.pt/inet/publica...efadonery.html

[helena nilo]

http://www.entusbrazos.fr/

sad but beautiful