Performing Folklore

Kimberly Dacosta Holton

Description

Investigates the importance of revivalist folklore to national identity in the face of globalization.

Through the lens of expressive culture, Performing Folklore tracks Portugal's transition from fascism to democracy, and from imperial metropole to EEC member state. Kimberly DaCosta Holton examines the evolution and significance of ranchos folclóricos, groups of amateur musicians and dancers who perform turn-of-the-century popular tradition and have acted as cultural barometers of change throughout 20th-century Portugal. She investigates the role that these folklore groups played in the mid-twentieth-century dictatorship, how they fell out of official favor with the advent of democracy, and why they remain so popular in Portugal's post-authoritarian state, especially in emigrant and diasporic communities. Holton looks at music, dance, costume, repertoire, venue, and social interplay in both local and global contexts. She considers the importance of revivalist folklore in the construction and preservation of national identity in the face of globalization. This book embraces "invented tradition" as process rather than event, presenting an ethnography not only of folkloric revivalism but also of sweeping cultural transformation, promoted alternately by authoritarianism, democracy, emigration, and European unification.

Contents
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations

Introduction
1. Choreographing the Spirit: Fascism, Folklorization, and Everyday Resistance
2. Battling the Bonitinho: Revolution, Reform, and Ethnographic Authenticity
3. From Intestines into Heart: The Performance of Cultural Kinship
4. Festival Hospitality: New Paradigms of Travel and Exchange
5. "We Will Not Be Jazzed Up!": Lisbon 94 and Ranchos' Festival Absence
6. Dancing along the In-between: Folklore Performance and Transmigration in Newark, New Jersey
Conclusion

Appendix: Musical Notation of Select Modas from the Repertoire of the Rancho Folclorico de Alenquer
Notes
Works Cited
Index

Sujets

• Social Science
• Popular Culture
• Sociologie, société et politique
• Folclore
• American Music
• Ethnomusicology
• Mythology
• Anthropology
• Music
• Folklore
• Europe

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 20 octobre 2005
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9780253027733
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

PERFORMING FOLKLORE
PERFORMING
RANCHOS FOLCLÓRICOS
FOLKLORE
FROM LISBON TO NEWARK
KIMBERLY DACOSTA HOLTON
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS Bloomington & Indianapolis
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press 601 North Morton Street Bloomington, Indiana 47404-3797 USA
http://iupress.indiana.edu
Telephone orders    800-842-6796 Fax orders    812-855-7931 Orders by email    [e-mail]
© 2005 by Kimberly DaCosta Holton All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses’ Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Holton, Kimberly DaCosta.   Performing folklore : ranchos folclóricos from Lisbon to Newark / Kimberly DaCosta Holton.         p. cm.   Includes bibliographical references and index.   ISBN 0-253-34631-2 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 0-253-21831-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Folklore—Performance.—Portugal. 2. Portugal—Social life and customs. I. Title.   GR72.3.H65 2005   398’.09469—dc22
2005011536
1 2 3 4 5 10 09 08 07 06 05
IN MEMORY OF DWIGHT CONQUERGOOD
 
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
1. Choreographing the Spirit: Fascism, Folklorization, and Everyday Resistance
2. Battling the Bonitinho: Revolution, Reform, and Ethnographic Authenticity
3. From Intestines into Heart: The Performance of Cultural Kinship
4. Festival Hospitality: New Paradigms of Travel and Exchange
5. “We Will Not Be Jazzed Up!”: Lisbon 94 and Ranchos ’ Festival Absence
6. Dancing along the In-between: Folklore Performance and Transmigration in Newark, New Jersey
Conclusion
Appendix: Musical Notation of Select Modas from the Repertoire of the Rancho Folclórico de Alenquer
Notes
Works Cited
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This project has involved the generous efforts and energies of many people on several continents. First, I would like to thank all the folklore performers and enthusiasts in Estremadura, Portugal, and Newark, New Jersey, for their patient answers to my questions and for sharing their wisdom and warmth over the course of many years. I am forever grateful to Olinda, Carlos, and Ricardo Pereira; Fátima, Luis, Joana, and Filipa Carvalho Santos; Helena Marques dos Santos; Isidro and Manuela da Cruz; António Luís and Ana Pereira; Aníbal and Fátima Salvador; José Hermínio Carvalho; António Reis; Vítor, Fátima, Claudia, and Ana Luís; Crispim Luís; João and Vina Murteira; Luís and Lídia Ventura; João and Lourdes Mendes; Joaquim and Tiago da Costa; Manuel, Dulce, Ana, and Teresa Anacleto; Fernando, Maria do Carmo, and Glória Rodrigues; Miguel Oliveira; Manuel Martins; Luís Rema; Tony Cardoso; Joe, Mena, and Jeff Cerqueira; Jessica Moreira; Melissa Gonçalves and Brian Santos; and especially Armindo, Fátima, Lucília, Fernando, Acácio, and Alexandre Rodrigues, who became my adopted Portuguese family in Alenquer.
I am thankful for the unflagging support of several teachers and mentors who guided this project to fruition. Dwight Conquergood, to whom this book is dedicated, was an unfailing source of inspiration and a dear friend. He read and commented on endless drafts of this manuscript, gently pushing me to cross disciplinary borders and to situate ethnographic readings within broader ideological contexts. His ebullient spirit has profoundly marked this project. I would also like to thank Margaret Thompson Drewal, Tracy C. Davis, and Paul Berliner for their critical advice and encouragement in the early stages of fieldwork and writing. Tremendous thanks to Caroline Brettell, who reviewed this manuscript with care and offered me incisive critiques and support throughout many rounds of revision. Finally, heartfelt thanks to Salwa Castelo Branco, who initially suggested the topic, critiqued the manuscript, helped facilitate contact with Portuguese academics, and offered me many uplifting afternoons of tea and company in Portugal.
In the beginning stages of my research, I spoke with several scholars who were instrumental in focusing my work. I would like to thank Barbara Kir-shenblatt-Gimblett, Diana Taylor, Fernando Rosas, Tomaz Ribas, Nélia Dias, Rubem de Carvalho, António Firmínio Costa, and António Costa Pinto. I would also like to thank João Soeiro Carvalho, Susana Sardo, and Francisco Melo, who shared their unpublished manuscripts with me.
At the Instituto Nacional para Aproveitamento dos Tempos Livres dos Trabalhadores , I am grateful to Henrique Rabaço for sharing his knowledge and for furnishing me with key primary documents and rare books. I am also grateful to Augusto Gomes dos Santos, of the Federação de Folclore Portuguese , who spent many days captivating me with accounts of FFP history and his vast knowledge of Portuguese folklore. I thank Luís Rema of the Câ-mara Municipal de Alenquer for his assistance in accessing primary documents in the Câmara archives and for sharing his knowledge of the Feira da Ascenção. Thanks to Rita Galo in Lisbon 94’s promotional department for her inside view of the L94 ad campaign. Finally, I am grateful to Fernando dos Santos and Maria do Carmo Pereira of the LusoAmericano newspaper in Newark for their help in accessing back issues and for their interest in this project.
During the writing stage, several friends and colleagues offered moral support and insightful commentary on chapter drafts: thanks to Dorothy Noyes, Nélia Dias, Helena Correia, Catherine Cole, Regina Bendix, Elizabeth Traube, Bela Feldman-Bianco, João Leal, João de Pina Cabral, Mary Fonseca, David Jackson, Anna Klobucka, Liza MacAlister, Maureen Mahon, Joyce Powzyk, Elpidio Laguna-Diaz, Rick Shain, Alan Sadovnik, Margaret Campbell-Harris, Josephine Grieder, Nancy Diaz, Fran Bartkowski, Clem Price, Charles Russell, Edward Kirby, Annette Juliano, Steve Diner, Max Herman, Beryl Satter, Jamie Lew, Sherrie-Ann Butterfield, Laura Lomas, Jenifer Aus-tin,Anna Stublefield, and especially Marcy Schwartz, António Joel, Asela La-guna-Diaz, Andrea Klimt, and Mara Sidney for their affection and humor and for keeping me afloat during the ups and downs of writing. Finally, I am forever grateful to Luís and Amy Vasconcellos e Souza and Kevin and Cuca Rose, who opened their hearts and homes to me and my family in Lisbon over the course of many months.
I also appreciate the efforts of Sofia Silva and Ana Fonseca in Portugal and Susete Cesário and Jessica Moreira, my dedicated student assistants at Rutgers–Newark, for meticulously transcribing hundreds of hours of taped interviews. I am grateful to Catarina Dias for helping secure foreign copyright permissions. Thanks to Mike Heffley, who transcribed my field recordings into musical notation. Many thanks to Colin Campbell-Harris, Robert Holton Jr., Antonío Joel, Martin Elbl, Tim Raphael, and R. Scott Taylor for helping prepare the visuals for this book.
I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Michael W. Lundell, Richard Higgins, and Elisabeth Marsh at Indiana University Press for believing in this project and for the gentle prodding which enabled its completion.
A different version of chapter 6 was published as “Dancing along the Inbetween: Folklore Performance and Transmigration in Portuguese Newark,” Portuguese Studies Review 11, no. 2 (2004): 153–82. Excerpts from chapter 5 appeared in “Dressing for Success: Lisbon as European Cultural Capital,” Journal of American Folklore 111, no. 440 (1998): 173–96. And a short excerpt from chapter 3 was published as “Fazer das Tripas Coração: O Parentesco Cultural nos Ranchos Folclóricos” in Vozes do Povo: A Folclorização em Portugal , edited by Salwa Castelo Branco and Jorge Freitas Branco, 143–52 (Oeiras: Celta Editora, 2003).
This research was made possible through generous grants from Northwestern University’s Alumnae Fellowship, from the Joint Committee on Western Europe of the American Council for Learned Societies and the Social Science Research Council with funds provided by the Ford and Mellon Foundations, from Wesleyan University’s Center for the Humanities, from Rutgers–Newark Joseph C. Cornwall Center for Metropolitan Studies, and from Rutgers–Newark’s Institute on Ethnicity, Culture and the Modern Experience. I am extremely indebted to these institutions for support of my research and writing.
Lastly, I would like to thank my wonderful family, who has provided me with an abundance of humor, good food,company, and love—the late Marguerite and Robert V. Holton, Beatrice DaCosta and the late António Da-Costa, Laurie and Roland Pritchett, Rob and Christa Holton, Elizabeth DaCosta Ahern, Tom Ahern, Caitlin Ahern, Linda DaCosta, Ann Wiener, Chad Raphael, Betty Achinstein, Dan and Jennifer Getz, and Moniq