Book shows how carnival clubs were a space for affirming identity for Rio workers.
Published in a partnership between Editora da Unicamp and EdUerj, The city that dances – Black clubs and dances in Rio de Janeiro (1881-1933) is a book that invites the reader to discover the dancing associations formed by Rio workers at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century. The work seeks to highlight that the balls were more than just a place for fun, they were a space for workers to express themselves and consolidate their world views. The author explores various nuances of this subject that has received little attention from scholars about/from the First Republic, analyzing topics such as the emergence and rise of clubs, the ethnic and social formation of guilds, the relationship between the press and the boards, internal disputes and with other associations, the granting of licenses for the operation of the headquarters and the importance of the phenomenon in the formation of Brazilian musicality.
Check out the interview with social historian Leonardo Pereira, author of The city that dances.
Unicamp publisher: The city that dances invites the reader to enter the clubs and dance parties formed in Rio de Janeiro in the last decades of the 19th century and reveals that these associations were more than just places for men and women to move their bodies to the rhythm of music. What was the point of these clubs at the time?
Leonardo Pereira: The research that forms the basis of this book came from my discomfort with many of the usual analyzes of the First Republic, which tend to define it as a period in which there was no possibility of action for workers – especially those who had left the experience of slavery. , who supposedly would not be able to assert themselves as relevant subjects in the new republican order. Based on this belief, even historians attentive to the experience of workers in the period used to emphasize only the forms of struggle for rights linked to political ideologies of European origin. As these were often associated with newly arrived immigrant workers, the conceptions and forms of articulation of enslaved workers, whose strength was well demonstrated by the historiography of slavery, ended up forgotten in analyzes of workers of the period. It was with these questions in mind that I arrived at recreational clubs, especially the dancing clubs. Faced with a Republic that tried to hinder the possibilities of participation and affirmation of citizenship of these black and brown workers, it was in clubs of this kind that they tried to affirm their networks of solidarity and difference, constituting their own channels of expression and participation. In the same movement in which they promoted a new musicality with a strong black and cosmopolitan brand, which helped to legitimize their own leisure in the face of the modernizing impulses of men of letters and police authorities, the members of these groups thus tried to make them a space for expression and valuing their own experiences in the face of a republican order that tried to control them. It was as a result of this process that the first years of the Republic marked the moment of greatest proliferation of this type of association, which quickly spread throughout all neighborhoods inhabited by workers.
Unicamp publisher: The city that dances is the result of research that began in 2007, in the United States. What was the process of surveying sources and establishing a research problem like? To what extent did your international experiences influence the development of this work?
Leonardo Pereira: The research that gave rise to the book had as its starting point the police documentation kept by the National Archives. At a time when the police were trying to control the activity of the city's workers, all societies formed in the federal capital had to present their statutes and list of members to the chief of police, which were subjected to a small investigation by delegates and commissioners. of police. Such documents thus presented themselves as a privileged means of understanding the operating logic of these clubs – especially those organized for carnival and dancing purposes, which constituted the majority of recreational groups formed in Rio de Janeiro throughout that period. It was from these sources that I began the investigation, which later opened up to several other types of sources. At that point, however, attachment to dance was far from being a singular characteristic of Rio workers – as I realized during a period as a visiting researcher at the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program at Northwestern University, in Chicago. The contact with the historiographic production of other countries provided by this experience made it clear that the proliferation of syncopated rhythms, such as tango, foxtrot and maxixe, fueled, in different cities across the Atlantic world, the organization of dances and clubs of the kind. To understand what was happening in Rio de Janeiro, it was essential to think about this process in a broader perspective, looking for connections between the city's black workers' dances and other forms of expression of that Atlantic musicality. That's what I tried to do in the book: even though I focused on the Rio case, I tried to understand it based on the broader cultural flows that fed dance associations in the city. This procedure made it clear that it was these transnational networks that the members of these small clubs relied on to build their legitimacy, which was, to a large extent, a result of the modern and cosmopolitan character they asserted for their groups.
Unicamp publisher: We saw, in your book, that the phenomenon of carnival associations was described by the Rio press as a “dancing fever”. What is behind the use of this metaphor?
Leonardo Pereira: The image of fever to characterize the proliferation of dancing clubs in Rio de Janeiro during the First Republic was not accidental. At the same time that these clubs were spreading throughout all the neighborhoods inhabited by workers, the republican authorities were promoting an urban intervention effort in the federal capital which, among other objectives, aimed to combat epidemics such as smallpox and yellow fever, which harmed the image of modernity that was trying to assert for the city. In this context, concepts and ideas originally linked to medical thought began to be used to think about different dimensions of social life, in the affirmation of an illusion of objectivity on the part of public authorities, already well analyzed by authors such as Sidney Chalhoub. By defining the devotion of Rio's workers as a fever, many men of letters tried to point not only to the strength of the phenomenon, which spread quickly like an epidemic, but also to its danger - given the strength with which the Enthusiasm for dancing associations spread among subjects usually defined in the period as the “dangerous classes”.
Unicamp publisher: The book also shows the conquest of space for working women within the small unions in Rio. This achievement was affected by the double role that the press had in the social validation of these groups, as, at the same time as it helped in the recognition of these groups, it also reproduced prejudices. Can you tell us more about the relationship between the small guilds, the press and the social place of poor women at the time?
Leonardo Pereira: This was one of the most surprising findings of the research. At the beginning of the investigation, the male preponderance in these groups was clear. Its boards used to be exclusively male, and even the membership lists generally only included men's names, with women admitted to the club due to family relationships with them. As the investigation progressed, however, it became clear that these clubs were not just a space for affirming points of unity between their members: they were also a space for dispute over their differences, including those of gender. As the 20th century progressed, reports published about these clubs in newspapers began to record with increasing frequency not only the central role played by women in organizing dances and parties, but also the organization of formal female groups that tried to assert their strength in each society. In some cases, this resulted in the creation of women's guilds in different societies, which began to promote their own activities. In others, the aspiration for female participation resulted in the definition of two parallel boards, one for men and the other for women, while some even asserted themselves as societies entirely run by female boards. Although apparently a mere formality, such changes in standards were the result of a growing process of female affirmation in these guilds, the result of internal disputes between their members.
Unicamp publisher: Dancing societies were spaces for affirming the cultures of the Afro-descendant population. Are there relationships between these environments and the practice of religions such as Umbanda and Candomblé?
Leonardo Pereira: Even though they were organized to promote dances and parades, these small recreational clubs did not fail to incorporate into their activities many other elements that were part of the experience of black men and women in the city. Among them was religiosity of African origin, which was present in many of these societies to varying degrees. In some cases, the dances they promoted were accompanied by celebrations of a religious nature that occupied the back of their headquarters, as happened at Rosa Branca – which had among its directors some important leaders of black religiosity, such as Miguel Pequeno and Tia Ciata. At other times, however, the club's organization itself constituted an expression of the solidarity networks forged around Afro-Brazilian religions. This was the case of the African League: in addition to being presided over by João Alabá, an important religious leader of Rio's black community at the time, the club had its headquarters in the same house where he held his services, and had as members the same people who used to frequent it. Cases like these made it clear that religiosity was a fundamental factor in the establishment of solidarity networks that helped shape dance associations at the time.
Unicamp publisher: One of the chapters focuses on mobilizing club boards to guarantee freedom of expression of recreational and cultural practices, especially by the Afro-descendant population. It can be said that the persecution and repression of peripheral cultural manifestations, for example, dances funk?
Leonardo Pereira: The parallel between the dances promoted by these black clubs at the beginning of the century and the current dances funk It's very appropriate. Despite the obvious differences that separate the two types of parties and the moments in which they spread, they are often targets of the same type of prejudice, largely due to the social and ethnic profile of their attendees. As is currently the case with the funk, black dances at the beginning of the 1930th century were criticized by the press for the supposed lack of artistic value in their syncopated musicality, prejudicedly associated by many critics of the period with jumping monkeys. At the same time, they were associated by many journalists and the police themselves with violence and promiscuity, even though, in practice, the dances organized by these small clubs were much more moralized than the parties promoted by elite carnival groups. It was by facing this type of objection that the members and frequenters of these black clubs managed to assert their legitimacy, giving shape to a musicality that, from the XNUMXs onwards, would be associated with their own nationality. It is significant, therefore, that today many of those who claim to be admirers of samba use this same type of argument to delegitimize the dances. funk, in which the city's black youth continue to have fun.
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The city that dances: black clubs and dances in Rio de Janeiro (1881-1933)
Author: Leonardo Affonso de Miranda Pereira
Unicamp Publisher
ISBN: 9786586253515
Year of Publication: 2020
Edition: 1
Format: 23,00 x 16,00 x 2,00 cm.
Number of pages: 360 pp
Weight: 300 g.
