An Investigation of Hybridity Through a Local Australian Samba De Gafieira Dance Community
TRANSCULTURAL IMPROVISATIONS: AN INVESTIGATION OF HYBRIDITY THROUGH A LOCAL AUSTRALIAN SAMBA DE GAFIEIRA DANCE COMMUNITY Rachel Ann Mathews BA Dance QUT, MA Dance Studies (Distinction) Surrey Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Faculty of Creative Industries Queensland University of Technology 2019 Keywords Australia, Brazil, dance, hybridity, mimicry, samba de gafieira, scapes, transculturalism Transcultural improvisations: An investigation of hybridity through a local Australian samba de gafieira dance community i Abstract This research is an intrinsic case study of the process by which hybridity operates in the transculturation of samba de gafieira through a local Australian dance community. Samba de gafieira is a Brazilian partner dance executed in an embrace to urbanised music styles (Béhague, 2013). It was a popular dance during the 1940s in Rio de Janeiro, its birthplace, and the first example of its sustained instruction in Australia began in 1998 at Rio Rhythmics Latin Dance Academy, Brisbane (Arôxa, 1996; Teatini-Climaco, 2009, p. 13). Australia, Brisbane in particular, is now the major centre for samba de gafieira outside of Brazil. The study addresses the question: How does hybridity operate in the transculturation of samba de gafieira through a local Australian dance community? This involved exploring the relationship between two sites (with their associated social agendas, discourses, and politico-economic structures) and the scapes that link them (Appadurai, 1996; Kraidy, 2005, pp. 153, 156; Marcus, 1998; Saukko, 2003, p. 178). Rio Rhythmics, located in Brisbane, was the ‘local Australian dance community’ addressed – the source of most of the data – however other practitioners in Brisbane and across the country were also consulted.
[Show full text]