LAFEVERS-DISSERTATION-2018.Pdf (9.135Mb)

The Dissertation Committee for Cory James LaFevers Certifies that this is the approved version of the following Dissertation:

EMBODYING BRAZILIANNESS: PERFORMING RACE AND PLACE IN AUSTIN TEXAS

Committee:

Robin Moore, Supervisor

Sonia Seeman

Lorraine Leu Moore

Christen Smith

EMBODYING BRAZILIANNESS: PERFORMING RACE AND PLACE IN AUSTIN TEXAS

by Cory James LaFevers

Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

The University of Texas at Austin May 2018 Dedication

This one’s for you, Dad. James B. LaFevers, Jr. 1959 – 2014

Acknowledgements

This project would never have been completed without the support and encouragement of many people. First, to all of the musicians who contributed to this project, thank you for your friendship, for letting me play music with you, and for entertaining my questions. I greatly appreciate the enthusiastic interest and insightful suggestions of committee members Sonia Seeman, Lorraine Leu Moore, and Christen Smith, without which this project would never have gotten off the ground. I benefited from great professors, colleagues, and friends throughout my education. At the risk of forgetting people, thanks are due to Charles Carson, Steven Slawek, Ted Gordon, Maria Franklin, João Costa Vargas, Juan Agudelo, Andrés Amado, Heather Buffington Anderson, Sidra Lawrence, Christina Hough, Myranda Harris, Eddie Hsu, Martina Li, Leo Cardoso, Sandra Olsen, Joel Zigman, Brian Griffith, and many other fellow students at UT; to my friends and family in Austin, Laíse, Bryant, Bruno, Devon, Jacaré, Frank, Michael, my cousins Sara, Caleb, Cricket, and Zaiden, Adrian, and the members of Forró de Quintal; to Rose Lange, Paul Bertagnolli, Howard Pollack, James Conyers, Malachi Crawford, Carol Poindexter-Sylvers, Gerald Horne, Tyron Tillery, and all of my colleagues at the University of Houston. I am indebted to Bill Cole, Kwame Dixon, John

Burdick, Joan Bryant, and all of my fellow students and the professors in the African American Studies department at Syracuse for providing a solid foundation. I also greatly appreciate my students, whose energy, curiosity, and enthusiasm were a source of rejuvenation. Special thanks are due to my advisor, Robin Moore, who supported this project since the beginning, provided invaluable advice and impeccable editing at every step, and v who maintained an abundance of much needed patience throughout the long journey. Robin, I am truly grateful. None of this would have been possible without my family. Special thanks to my mom, Lynn and to my sister, Kayla, for their love, encouragement, and for hanging out with Bernardo so I could write an extra paragraph. I am also grateful for my dad. I wish he could see the final product, but memories of him provided encouragement. I would not have finished without Bernardo, whose love, energy, wit, and humor where a constant source of joy and inspiration. Finally, to Viviane, for your contributions, insights, and critical attention to the project, for sacrificing so much to support me, for never let me quit, for never let me doubt myself, for always pushing me to be better, and providing all of the love and strength I needed to keep standing…I cannot thank you enough. I love you.

vi Abstract

Embodying Brazilianness: Performing Race and Place in Austin Texas

Cory James LaFevers, PhD The University of Texas at Austin, 2018

Supervisor: Robin Moore

The number and variety of musical groups performing and teaching Brazilian music in

Austin Texas expanded considerably since 2010, making it one of the largest and most diverse Brazilian music scenes outside of Brazil. This dissertation investigates the racial meanings generated in the embodied performances of Austin’s Brazilian music groups. I argue that Brazilian performance ensembles outside of Brazil are not mere products of globalized cultural flows but rather contemporary manifestations of a long-standing transnational racial formation that links Brazil to the United States and Latin America more generally. Chapter 2 focuses on the history of segregation and racially exclusive social spaces in Austin that continue to accentuate divisions between Blacks, Whites, and

Latinxs, and that have contributed to the formation of racially exclusive performance practices. In chapter 3, I engage with critical Whiteness studies, performance theory, racial interpellation, and the broader (trans)national historical context of blackface minstrelsy to investigate the extent to which performing Afro-descendant music and

vii dance constitutes a form of racial drag on the part of the majority-White American participants. Chapter 4 extends this analysis into the realm of material culture, considering how the embodied experience and spectacle of Brazilian music performance occurs through particular interactions between bodies and musical instruments that enact notions of race and gender. Chapter 5 considers the discursive dimension of racial drag by tracing how descriptions of samba and maracatu in Austin (re)articulate three interconnected transnational narrative tropes of Blackness—alegria (joy, happiness), hot/infectious rhythm, and community. Taken together, the multiple layers of racial drag suggest that despite attempts to celebrate Brazilian culture and even potentially challenge racial stereotypes, Brazilian music and dance performances in Austin tend to unintentionally (re)produce and reinforce views that both circumscribe the possibilities of

Blackness while simultaneously reifying the power of Whiteness. The final chapter of the dissertation proposes new approaches to world music pedagogy that mitigate against race and gender stereotypes while simultaneously optimizing the potential of music for fostering cross-cultural understanding and anti-racism education.

viii Table of Contents

Table of Contents ...... ix

List of Tables ...... xiii

List of Figures ...... xiv

INTRODUCTION ...... 1

Methodology ...... 8

Ethical Concerns ...... 12

Chapter Breakdown ...... 15

PART I: RACE AND SPACE ...... 20

Chapter 1 ...... 21

Brazilian Racial Democracy and (Trans)national Racial Formations: ...... 21

Rethinking Race in Brazilian Performance Ensembles in North America ...... 21

Trem do Samba at Boteco Food Truck #1 ...... 21

Music and (Trans)National Racial Formations ...... 27

Trem do Samba Rehearsal ...... 37

Brazilian Racial Democracy Abroad: Cosmopolitanism and Racial Silences ...... 39

Trem do Samba at Botecto Food Truck #2 ...... 48

Exoticist Desire and (Trans)National Whiteness ...... 49

Chapter 2 ...... 65

Racialized Space in Austin ...... 65

Brazil Day at the Historic Scoot Inn ...... 65

Liberal Progress and Producing a Racial-Spatial Divide in Austin ...... 71 ix Spatial Production, Heterotopias, and Racial Formation ...... 75

Deepening the Divide: from Post-War to the 1980s Tech Boom ...... 78

Keeping Austin Weird (and White?): Austin as a Palimpsest ...... 82

#KeepAustinGentrified: Race, Space, and Disembodied Consumption ...... 87

Alice in Austinland: the Mad Spectacle of Samba in Austin ...... 96

Keeping it Weird with Bossa Nova and Kayaks: Race, Space, and Embodiment ...... 102

Ch. 2 Appendix ...... 108

PART II RACIAL DRAG ...... 118

Chapter 3 ...... 119

Embodying Brazilianness: Performance, the Body, and Racial Drag ...... 119

Maracatu Texas at Sahara Lounge ...... 119

Feeling the Inexplicable ...... 122

Knowing Brazil and Race through Bodily Movement ...... 127

Embodying Brazilianness in North America ...... 130

Are you Brazilian? Embodiment and Racial Drag ...... 137

Samba and Racial Drag: Linking Brazil and Austin ...... 141

Sounding Brazilian, Racial Drag, and Authenticity ...... 150

It’s still Missing Something: Authenticity, the body, and Spatio-Racial Formations ...... 155

Racial Drag: Embodying Brazilianness and Weird Whiteness in Austin .. 158

Chapter 4 ...... 160

Musical Instruments and the Materiality of Racial Drag ...... 160

Forró de Quintal at Sahara Lounge ...... 160

Revisiting Organology ...... 165

Musical Instruments and Thing Theory ...... 167

Instruments and Social Networks ...... 169

Drums and Marketing Brazil ...... 175

On “Paper Drums”: The Materials and Physicality of (Racial) Authenticity in Maracatu-Nação ...... 177

Instruments and the Body ...... 187

Black Drums, White Hipness, and Masculine Power ...... 192

Chapter 5 ...... 203

Infectious Joy: Performing Narratives of Blackness ...... 203

Pure Alegria ...... 206

Irresistible Rhythm ...... 211

Community ...... 218

PART III PEDAGOGY ...... 225

Chapter 6 ...... 226

Toward Community-Engaged Anti-Racist Pedagogy ...... 226

What am I doing? ...... 226

From Community Groups to Ethnomusicologists in Universities ...... 227

Critiques of Multiculturalism ...... 230

Whiteness and Music as Aesthetic Object ...... 237

Multiculturalsim and Education for Social Justice ...... 241

Anti-Racist Music education ...... 244

Toward a Community-Engaged and Embodied Anti-Racist Pedagogy ..... 247

xi Conclusion ...... 261

Austin is Exhausting ...... 261

Samba on We Are Austin: ...... 262

Embodying the Mulatas: Samba and Women’s Empowerment...... 268

Asking Permission: Orixás and Veneers of Authenticity ...... 270

Bibliography ...... 276

xii List of Tables

Table 1- Racial Composition of the Population of Austin, Texas 1890-1930. Source:

Tretter 2012...... 115 Table 2: Partial List of Venues where Brazilian Ensembles perform in Austin ...... 116 Table 3 “Alice in Austinland” ...... 117

xiii List of Figures

Figure 1. Members of Austin Samba School performing “Texas! A Horse Opera” at

Zilker Hillside Theater, April 2, 2016...... 3 Figure 2: Facebook event advertisement for Brazil Day Austin 2017 ...... 11 Figure 3: Trem do Samba performing at Boteco Food Truck, Austin Texas...... 25 Figure 4: Trem do Samba performing at Brazil Day 2015, the Historic Scoot Inn,

Austin Texas ...... 67 Figure 5: Trem do Samba performing at Brazil Day 2015, the Historic Scoot Inn,

Austin Texas...... 68 Figure 6: A Facebook user posted this image with the statement: "Austin American- Statesman should be ashamed of themselves for publishing this shit! Thanks for doing your part to #KeepAustinGentrified...assholes!” July 1,

2017...... 91 Figure 7: “Rhapsody” by John Yancey. 2003. Photo from: Fun Free Austin, 2014...... 92 Figure 8: Austin Samba School performing Texas! A Horse Opera...... 100 Figure 9: Latino Moonlight Serenades. Austin Tx. July 31, 2015. Right to Left: the

author, Ana, and João. Photo: Laíse Viana...... 103 Figure 10: Cover and Reverse of Daniela Mercury’s album Feijão com Arroz (1996). . 144

Figure 11: Claudia Leitte as “a NegaLôra.” ...... 145 Figure 12: Daniela Mercury performing during Salvador’s Carnaval in 2017...... 146 Figure 13: Still from a video that an Austin-based Brazilian musician posted to their

Facebook...... 157 Figure 14: Advertisement for Carnival Brasileiro 2018 posted to Facebook...... 163

xiv Figure 15: Surdos, caixas, repeniques, chocalhos, bells, and members of Austin

Samba School...... 168 Figure 16: Forró de Quintal performing with an accordionist at the Sahara Lounge,

Austin, Texas...... 172 Figure 17: "Noite de Cavaco!!” post on Facebook. 4 men, 3 cavaquinhos, 1 abê, 2

Brazilians, and 2 Americans...... 174 Figure 18: Advertisement for samba dance classes posted to Facebook ...... 176 Figure 19: A newly constructed alfaia, soon to be shipped to customers in New

Orleans...... 179 Figure 20. Promotional photo of alfaias, djembe, and conga drum from Maracatu

Texas Facebook page, 25 April, 2016 ...... 180 Figure 21. Dudu leading Maracatu Texas rehearsal...... 184 Figure 22: Maracatu-Nação Estrela Brilhante do Recife. The dark macaíba wood is clearly visible in the alfaias. Compare with the “paper drum” alfaias

(made from laminated wood) in figures 19 and 20...... 186 Figure 23: Austin Samba surdo section posing for a picture posted to Facebook...... 195 Figure 24: The Austin Samba chocalho section poses for a photo posted to Facebook. 197 Figure 25: Still image of video of Austin Samba promoting Carnaval Brasileiro 2016 on Austin television channel KTBC. Posted to a Austin Samba

member’s Facebook page...... 201 Figure 26. Austin Samba promoting their performance, “A Night in Rio” on We Are

Austin, April 13, 2018...... 264 Figure 27: Official flyer for Austin Carnaval Brasileiro 2018...... 269 Figure 28: Baianas performing with Austin Samba at Carnaval Brasileiro 2014...... 274

xv List of Maps Map 1: 1880 Black and Latinx distribution. Historical data plotted on contemporary

map of Austin. Source: Austin-American Statesman, Zehr 2015...... 108 Map 2: 1910 Black and Latinx distribution. Historical data plotted on contemporary

map of Austin. Source: Austin-American Statesman, Zehr 2015 ...... 109 Map 3: 1940 Racial Identification in Austin. Data from US Census which only registered two racial categories: White (which included “Hispanic”)

and Black. Source: Tretter, 2012...... 110 Map 4: 1980 Racial Identification in Austin. Data from US Census. “Hispanic”

registered for 1st time in Austin...... 111 Map 5: 1990 Racial Identification in Austin. Data from US Census. Source: Tretter, 2012. Note the increase in White population in both Black and

Hispanic eastside neighborhoods...... 112 Map 6: 2000 Racial Identification in Austin. Data from US Census. Source: Tretter,

2012. Note that the concentration of Whites in the eastside is roughly consistent with the 1990 map 5. However, by 2010 (map 7),

the White population in East Austin increases dramatically...... 113 Map 7: 2010 Racial Identification in Austin. Data from US Census. Source: Tretter,

2012...... 114

xvi

INTRODUCTION

Recently, scholars have investigated the rapid proliferation of Brazilian music ensembles around the world, producing studies on samba, capoeira, and tambor de crioula in such cities as Toronto, Montreal, New York, New Orleans, as well as in Wales and New Zealand.1 Home to at least fifteen active Brazilian music and dance ensembles,

Austin is clearly part of this global trend. However, it remains absent from the scholarship, a significant oversight given Austin’s branding as the “Live Music Capitol of the World,” the expansiveness of its Brazilian music scene, and its unique characteristics, discussed below.

Beyond turning scholarly attention to Brazilian music performance in Austin, this dissertation is about how racial meanings are constructed, performed, and negotiated in

(trans)national settings. I explore what Austin’s Brazilian music scene can tell us about race, multiculturalism, and cosmopolitanism. In marked contrast to existing studies of

Brazilian music outside of Brazil, this analysis investigates the phenomenon in Austin from the perspective of critical Whiteness studies. I shift focus from understanding the ensembles as a product of globalized cultural flows to viewing/hearing them as contemporary manifestations of a longstanding (trans)national racial formation that links

Brazil and the United States. Such an approach provides much-needed contributions to

Whiteness studies, an area underrepresented in ethnomusicology, by paying particular attention to the (trans)national narratives of Whiteness and Blackness that accompany

1 Mercier 2013; Pravaz 2010; Pravaz 2013; Robitaille 2014; Stanyek 2004; Stanyek 2011; Gibson 2012, Eisentraut 2001; Courteau 2007.

Afro-diasporic cultural exchange. Further, this approach enables a more nuanced understanding of the role music plays in how people construct themselves as racialized individuals in a society structured in racial hierarchy and marked by racial tensions.

Austin offers unique aspects for studying Brazilian music performance outside of

Brazil. First, unlike New Orleans (Gibson 2012), Austin doesn’t have a large Brazilian population. Brazilian music in Austin is mostly performed by and for non-Brazilians.

Further, unlike Toronto and Montreal where Pravaz and Mercier indicate the majority of performers of Brazilian repertoire are recent non-Brazilian immigrants to Canada (Pravaz

2010 & 2013; Mercier 2013), the majority of participants in Austin’s Brazilian music scene are White Americans.2

Any Brazilian musical performance outside of Brazil raises questions regarding

(re)presentations of national identity, the articulation of Brazilianness or Latinness, the perpetuation of stereotypes through spectacle, as well as issues of cultural appropriation, exoticization, and cosmopolitan desire for the Other. These issues are further complicated when the music performed is also almost entirely derived from—and in many cases still closely associated with—Black Brazilian musical practices.3 Austin, where the majority of the participants are neither Brazilians nor individuals that are marginalized in society

(as suggested by Pravaz and Mercier) but representative of White, middle-class America, highlights these issues further.

2 As such, it draws strong resemblance to the Balkan music and dance scene in the US. Mirjana Laušević (2007) documents a surprising absence of participants (performers and dancers) from the Balkans, just two percent. 3 Examples of musical forms frequently heard by Austinites include those with strong racial associations such as maracatu, coco, and afoxé, as well as more nationalized Afro-Brazilian forms like samba or capoeira music/dance.

Another unique aspect of Austin’s Brazilian music scene is that it is considerably larger than those of other cities. For example, Natasha Pravaz indicates that the Toronto’s

Samba School includes around 40 drummers (Pravaz 2010: 211). In contrast, Austin’s

Samba School has nearly 200 members, including dancers who make up the fastest- growing segment of the ensemble.

Figure 1. Members of Austin Samba School performing “Texas! A Horse Opera” at Zilker Hillside Theater, April 2, 2016. Photo by John Gutierrez.

Austin also boasts a dizzying variety of other Brazilian music groups. In addition to the samba school, there are three smaller ensembles, Trem do Samba, Samba Bamba, and

The Sambagators that play pagode-style samba. Artists/bands such as Paula Maya,

Gabriel Santiago, Morena Soul, and Os Alquimistas perform fusions drawing from samba, bossa nova, MPB, and jazz. Austin is also home to the Brazilian rock bands Fusca

XR3 and Suns of Orpheus, the fusion band Tio Chico, as well as the funk band

Macaxeira Funk, and three independent capoeira academies. Additionally, Austin

supports a surprising number of ensembles performing and teaching musical styles from the northeast of Brazil. There are currently two forró bands, Forró de Quintal and Seu

Jacinto, Maracatu Texas, a percussion ensemble specializing in maracatu, coco, and afoxé,4 and finally Trio Massa that performs forró-funk-jazz fusion.

It is important to briefly consider the broader context of race relations and racism in Austin in order to evaluate the significance of the dissertation project. Austin is the only one of the top-ten fastest-growing U.S. cities with a declining Black population, apparently the result of a combination of factors including segregation, gentrification, disparities in public education and employment opportunities, a history of discrimination and abuse by the Austin Police Department, and other forms of racism.5 The situation is especially alarming and puzzling given “Austin’s reputation as a ‘tolerant’ city, one celebrated for its progressivism, cultural dynamism, and emphasis on sustainability”

(emphasis added, Tang and Ren 2014: 6). Black Austinite Virginia Cumberbatch argues that young Black professionals and graduates are leaving because “they realize there's this liberalism that people [keep] talking about, and this music scene that's supposed to be so awesome [but it is] apparently is only reserved for a certain [kind] of people. 'I don't feel a part of that social network. I don't feel like there's a cultural space for me’.… That's when you start seeing people leave” (cited in Spearman 2016).

Indeed, it is striking that the Brazilian scene in Austin is experiencing a sharp rise in the number, variety, and popularity of bands at exactly the same time that Austin’s

4 Previously, there were two separate ensembles Maracatu Austin and Batuque Raíz that merged to form Maracatu Texas. A third group, Origens, was active from 2011 until 2015, when it also merged with Maracatu Texas. 5 Between 2000 and 2010, Austin experienced a general population growth of 20.4%. The African- American population declined 5.4%, whereas Whites, Latinos, and Asian-Americans grew in population (Tang and Ren, 2014) Also see Sweets 2015, Spearman, 2016, and Buchele, 2016.

Black population is in a sharp decline. What insights into Austin’s current racial situation can be gleaned by examining the production and performance of race in Brazilian music and dance groups? To what extent, if at all, does the Brazilian scene, as part of a larger

Latino and world music scene, map onto policies, ideological positions, or practices of multiculturalism in Austin? I ask in what ways, if any, this scene contributes to Austin’s

“cultural dynamism” that masks racial inequalities. In other words, how might explicitly non-racist spaces of multi-cultural encounter work to unintentionally perpetuate racial divisions or tensions?

The Brazilian music scene is uniquely situated within the broader context of world music performance in Austin. Depending on the group, genre, venue, or event, local performers tend to present Brazilian music as a distinct and unique category while simultaneously drawing upon associations with Latin dance music (some liken samba and forró to salsa and cumbia) or with Afro-diasporic music (some connect maracatu, afoxé, and coco with notions of “African drumming”) in order to promote their music to a largely non-Brazilian audience. I am especially interested in how embodied practices of performing and consuming Brazilianness—a concept that in a U.S. context simultaneously signifies both Blackness and Latinness—contributes to articulations of

Whiteness that intersect with broader ideologies of race, multiculturalism, and liberalism in Austin.

I argue that Brazilian musical performances contribute to the construction of a

White identity that views itself as alternative and progressive. For audience members as well as performers, this is consistent with the branding of Austin as a utopian space of hip cultural diversity, sounding out a liberal cosmopolitanism that ultimately masks Austin’s

racial inequalities via the exotic and erotic spectacle of race. Because the pedagogy of the groups does not directly engage topics like race, racism, and gender, and because such performances tend to represent what Eric Lott (2013: 53) might call sites where racial/sexual “freedom and play meet,” these spaces tend to reinforce rather than expose and critique White privilege and racial stereotypes. As a result, they unintentionally perpetuate certain aspects of racial bias and exclusion while simultaneously attempting to create moments of cross-cultural encounter and understanding. We must therefore reevaluate recent scholarship that stresses the potential of Brazilian music ensembles in global cities to challenge racial stereotypes and momentarily disrupt social power structures (Robitaille 2014; Pravaz 2010 & 2013).

The goal of this project is not to criticize U.S.-based performers or ensembles of world music, or other musical avenues of cross-cultural encounter. Rather, it is to develop a deeper understanding of how, in the name of apparently benign multiculturalism and rejection of racism, such actions can contribute to overarching systems of racism, and what interventions might be required to alter such dynamics. I do not view any racist outcomes that result from the musical practices I study here as intentional by any means.

Racism is more than simply individual prejudice; rather, it is a systemic form of oppression manifested institutionally as well as interpersonally (Bradley 2006: 13).

Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (1997) argues that racism is often simplistically defined as

“a set of ideas or beliefs” that … may induce individuals to real actions or discrimination against racial minorities” (466). He suggests an alternative definition in which racism is defined as a “normal” part of the “larger racialized social system.” According to this view

(aligned with my own), racism is the ideology that emerges from a racialized system to

become the organizational map that guides actors in society (474). Bonilla-Silva’s framework is helpful in conceptualizing the multiple forms that racism can take, frequently of a subtle or unconscious nature. Under his model, all of the ways in which racism manifests itself—whether overtly or covertly, intentional or not, and whether or not social actors have conscious awareness of the racial implications of their actions—are understood “as the ‘normal’ outcome[s] of the racial structure of society” (Bonilla-Silva

1997:475).

The dissertation project emerges from my own personal engagement with such music scenes—I perform in many of these ensembles myself—and from my previous work and ongoing discussions with Black Brazilian activists. Those interested in applied ethnomusicology such as myself might most effectively help the communities we work with by also examining ourselves and our interactions with them. Brazilian music in

Austin offers a forum in which to reflect on racial projects and how best to teach world music in order to increase the potential that cross-cultural musical encounters will contribute to the dismantling of racism. The primary goal of this dissertation is to contribute to our understanding of the role of Brazilian music and space in local-global constructions of Whiteness. However, in the concluding chapters I also explore how ethnomusicologists might teach and perform Brazilian music in the United States, working in collaboration with scene participants to suggest changes and interventions that can potentially reduce the unintended racism of the scene, make it more inviting and inclusive, and facilitate the kinds of positive cultural exchange that participants desire.

Methodology This project is primarily about racial discourse and the ways in which Brazilian music ensembles in Austin Texas reinforce or challenge dominant racial attitudes. I focus primarily on racial attitudes and discourses as perceived or interpreted by particular ensemble members rather than broader structural and sociopolitical aspects of racism in

Austin for two reasons. First, when discussing Austin’s declining Black population, writers often cite experiences of racism that stem from colorblind mechanisms of liberal tolerance (Buchele 2016; Sanders 2015; Spearman 2016; Sweets 2015). Second, proponents of world music argue that its performance functions as a vehicle for education, changing attitudes, and fostering tolerance and even encouraging socio- economic transformation. An analysis of the ways in which musicians and dancers discuss race in both the United States and in Brazil allows us to assess the influence of

Brazilian music ensembles on broader racial attitudes.

To this end, I focus on three clusters of objectives and research questions. My first objective is to document and develop a greater sense of the Brazilian music and dance scene in Austin. Who are the participants and what drives them? What is the appeal of

Brazilian music performance for Austinites, how did they first become involved, and what do they gain by participating? What are the common themes that emerge from discussions with participants about their involvement? How is the music taught, and who does the teaching? Where is it performed? What sorts of networks and communities are being established? How is the music situated within the broader world and Latino music scenes in Austin?

The second cluster analyses the racial discourse and attitudes of the groups and their members. How do the ensembles understand, discuss, and teach the racial origins of

the traditions and repertoires they perform? How is race articulated in regards to traditional versus contemporary performance? To what extent are group members aware of broader racial politics in Brazil and in Austin? In what ways, if any, does performing

Brazilian music alter group members’ attitudes toward race? To what extend do these groups and their pedagogy map onto multicultural ideologies? How do group members describe their own identities and participation? Do the experiences of Latinx, Black, or

Brazilian members differ from those of Whites? Do women’s experiences differ from men’s, and if so in what ways?

The final cluster of questions asks in what ways the Brazilian scene in Austin can inform ethnomusicological approaches to world music curricula and pedagogy. What pedagogical and methodological insights can be drawn from the experiences of Austin’s

Brazilian performance groups and applied to teaching Brazilian music to non-Brazilians, both in the classroom and on the stage via university and community ensemble presentations? What interventions might be required to create a more racially inclusive environment for music making that simultaneously guards against the potential dangers of multiculturalism?

To address these questions, my research design involved twelve months of ethnographic interviews and participant observation. In addition, I have drawn on numerous informal interviews and observations made as a musician in the scene since

2011. The ethnographic data is further supported by historical and contemporary analyses of demographics and racial dynamics in Austin in order to situate Brazilian ensembles within the broader context of spatio-racial formations in the area.

The Brazilian music scene in Austin is far too large and diverse to be analyzed in its entirety; for this reason, my research centered around four performance groups: Austin

Samba School, Trem do Samba, Samba Bamba, and Maracatu Texas. Samba is the most widely known Brazilian music and often the point of reference for novice participants in

Austin’s Brazilian music scene. The Austin Samba School is officially named “Os

Acadêmicos da Ópera,” but following the nomenclature of its members, I refer to the group as “Austin Samba” and occasionally “the samba school.” Austin Samba is the largest and most visible (in the sense of number of and type of performances) group in the city, and the oldest. Thus, any study of Brazilian music in Austin must consider

Austin Samba. Pagode-style samba is growing in popularity, and for that reason I also closely observed Samba Bamba and Trem do Samba. Finally, one element that sets

Austin apart from other cities is the prominence of musical groups performing

Northeastern Brazilian music. I therefore dedicated considerable time to examining these ensembles as well, focusing on the group Maracatu Texas (and to a lesser extent the forró bands Seu Jacinto, Forró de Quintal, and Trio Massa).

Both the Austin Samba School and Maracatu Texas are open to the public, but my access is further facilitated because I currently perform with smaller ensembles that are side projects of the larger groups: Trem do Samba, the pagode-samba offshoot of Austin

Samba, and Forró de Quintal, a forró band lead by the leader of Maracatu Texas. I also occasionally perform with Samba Bamba, subbing in when the principal guitarist is unavailable. Additionally, the Brazilian music scene is a close-knit community with many of the more experienced musicians performing in multiple groups. For example, it is quite common to encounter drummers performing with Austin Samba, Trem do Samba,

Maracatu Texas, and Forró de Quintal. As a result, I have close ties with many members of Austin Samba, Maracatu Texas, and the Brazilian music community more broadly. My relationship with these musicians enables me to have frank conversations with them about the potential implications of our performances, as well as contextualize observations from one group within the scene as a whole.

Figure 2: Facebook event advertisement for Brazil Day Austin 2017, described in the event details (not pictured) as “the biggest Brazilian showcase and part of the year…enjoy six hours of continuous entertainment featuring acts from across the broad spectrum of Brazilian culture.”

In addition to conducting dissertation research in the context of rehearsals, performances, and through face-to-face discussions, I also undertook a significant amount of virtual or electronic fieldwork, including interviews conducted over the phone or internet (Skype, Facebook Messenger), email communications, and social media platforms. As Cooley, Meizel, and Syed point out, “if e-mail is a part of how our consultants interact with others, perhaps it should also play a part in our own ethnographic relationships (Cooley et al. 2008:106). Indeed, social media platforms are important spaces where members of the Brazilian music community—as individual users, bands, and community groups like “Brazilian Music in Texas”—socialize, advertise for shows, share and comment on videos, or post pictures and news articles relating to

Brazilian music. Figure 2 depicts a typical advertisement for a Brazilian music concert posted to Facebook. It proved an important site for communicating with members and participating in the Brazilian music scene in Austin.

Ethical Concerns My analytical focus raises potential methodological and ethical concerns.

Characterizing research participants’ actions as unintentionally racist not only questions their behavior but also appears to be at odds with our field’s stance on ethical research practices, specifically our emphasis on cultivating working relationships based on mutual respect and sensitivity with our research subjects. Recently, two scholars discussed struggles with similar ethical and methodological challenges in the journal

Ethnomusicology (Kaminsky 2014; Teitelbaum 2014). Benjamin Teitelbaum is deeply opposed to the ideology and political stance of his research subjects, White radical

nationalists in Scandinavia. In effort to produce a detailed ethnographic study of a population that has typically only be studied from afar, he opted for a methodology that fostered close relationships, “[adjusting] the ways I describe my consultants and their cause…[avoiding] language, terminology, and in some cases, lines of inquiry they find offensive” (409). Teitelbaum (2014) admits the shortcomings of such an approach, noting that he is less critical of his consultants’ racist positions: “the friendships that result from increased contact and collaboration drive me to present portraits of my consultants that may obscure the nature and significance of their political ideology” (409-410).

David Kaminsky (2014) took a different approach to this dilemma. In his article on non-Jewish klezmer bands in Sweden, Kaminsky explains: “Like a number of

American Jewish Scholars who have written about today’s European klezmer scene, I grapple with some visceral emotional responses to how this music has been used and interpreted by its mostly non-Jewish European performers and audiences” (255).

Kaminsky sought to develop close relationships based on mutual respect, yet he chose not to shy away from criticisms: “I have experienced a great deal of generosity and goodwill from my consultants, who have graciously donated their time and energy… My critique of their discourse, on the other hand, is harsh. The six people I have focused on here have read a draft of the work, and their response has been sadness and disagreement with my conclusions” (259). While his collaborators will probably never be happy with his conclusions, Kaminsky stresses “I am reading this discourse in terms of function, not intention. I make a great many statements about what these musicians are doing and why, but at no point do I mean to suggest that they are doing these things purposefully or with ill intent” (259-60).

My project differs from the work of Teitelbaum and Kaminsky because of my positionality: not only am I an active performer in the Brazilian music scene, but many performers share my concerns about cultural appropriation, authenticity, and what it means to be a White American performing Brazilian music. Unlike Teitelbaum, I am not fundamentally in opposition to the actions and ideology of my consultants. Like

Kaminsky, however, “I have had misgivings” about White Americans uncritically performing Black Brazilian music (255). Our work differs in that my positionality means

I examine these misgivings from the position of an “insider looking around” rather than an “outsider looking in.”

In other words, as an active performer in Austin’s Brazilian music scene, I have already forged friendships and collaborative relationships as a peer. Thus, my research questions resonate with the concerns of participants, and I view my project in many respects as a collaborative effort to explore our collective discomfort and work toward solutions. Such an approach reinforces the relationships I have with fellow musicians. As a race scholar, I will not hesitate to raise issues and viewpoints that may point toward unintentional racism, but always in collaborative dialogue that works to resolve our shared concerns. Ensemble members are not critiqued as “big, bad, unknowing racists” but rather individuals who are working to distance themselves from racism. This project is not about calling out participants for inappropriate behavior. Rather, it is about articulating strategies that facilitate the goals and desires of group members. By developing best practices for ethnomusicologists and Brazilian music ensembles alike, this project works to achieve greater cross-cultural understanding and racial tolerance.

Chapter Breakdown The dissertation is organized into three parts that address different aspects of racial formation. Part I: Race and Space, examines the spatial dimensions of racial formation.

Chapter 1 focuses on its (trans)national dimensions associated with Brazilian music consumption and performance. As such, it includes a critical review of relevant literature on Brazilian music ensembles outside of Brazil and provides a theoretical orientation that frames the remainder of the study. I engage with Omi and Winant’s racial formation theory, the enduring legacy (and international impact) of Brazilian racial democracy, and

(trans)national performative discourses to argue for a shift in the approach of studying

Brazilian performance ensembles in North America. Rather than understanding such ensembles as the inevitable products of increasingly globalized cultural flows, I view them as contemporary manifestations of a longstanding (trans)national racial formation encompassing both the United States and Brazil. Such a shift enables us to study under- researched aspects of musical performance and has the potential to provide a better understanding of the role that music plays in the racialized constructions of individuals and groups. By remaining attentive to Whiteness and (trans)national formations we can clarify some of the ambiguity that exists in the literature on Brazilian ensembles in North

America regarding race, cosmopolitan desire, and multiculturalist encounter.

Chapter 2 examines spatio-racial formations in Austin through both historical and contemporary analysis. The chapter demonstrates that race and space are inseparably linked, so much so that racial formation is more accurately described as spatio-racial formation. Additionally, the intersection of spatio-racial formations with the discourses of cultural consumption is increasingly relevant in interpreting gentrification, sharper declines in the African American population, as well as Austin’s urban branding as a hip,

culturally vibrant, and progressive city. I conclude with a discussion of how Brazilian music ensembles fit within this broader narrative, linking (trans)national frames of racial formation to localized spatial production in Austin as a “weird” place.

Part II addresses racial formation via embodied performance, what I am calling

“racial drag.” My use of the term emerges from engagement with scholarship on blackface minstrelsy as well as the performativity of race. The sort of racial play involved in the embodied practices of (Black) Brazilian music that I examine here could be characterized as blackface performance without the (black) makeup. Bryan McCann analyzes the use of gangsta rap in the film Office Space similarly as a form of

“proletarian Blackface,” an ironic appropriation of Black vernacular practices to articulate predominantly White male working-class “rage against modern corporate labor” (McCann 2016: 363). However, the term blackface is closely associated with a specific repertoire, stock characters, and performance practices of the 19th-century United

States; for this reason I consider it less than ideal.6

Avoiding “blackface” for the reasons described above, I use “racial drag” to reference a broader range of racialized performance, including a Butlerian notion of performativity. Racial drag does not exclude blackface; blackface is indeed one type of racial drag. However, racial drag elicits associations beyond the specific parameters and historical contexts of blackface, even if the other performances referenced may be similarly contrived. Racial drag emphasizes the ways in which ensemble members temporarily embody a non-White Brazilian Otherness in a more general sense. Dragging draws attention to multiple layers of performing race by highlighting costumes, bodily

6 Analyses of blackface theater the United States also employ the term “blackface” to describe the lingering effects of minstrelsy’s stock Black characters in the present (García 2015; Laski 2010; Nyong’o 2002).

posture, dance movements, instruments, timbres, and the voice. Additionally, drag helps parse out the many forms of racialized performance on stage, and the off-stage meanings of such performance to particular communities. I do not intend to artificially separate on- and off-stage performance, but rather to highlight the complex interconnection between them. What is left on the stage when the performance is over? Does the drag come off?

Note that my use of racial drag is also influenced by Mae G. Henderson’s prior use of the same term in analyzing James Baldwin’s novel Giovanni’s Room. Henderson argues that racial drag “enables [Baldwin] to examine internal aspects of the complex self by occupying a position of radical otherness” (Henderson 2005: 300). My investigation similarly explores how Austinites develop their own racial subjectivities via Black

Brazilian music performance.

Finally, Butler’s concept of parody is embedded within my framing of racial drag, although I suggest that the term “drag” avoids the pitfalls of parody. Parody implies a failed or imperfect attempt at (racial) performativity, thus betraying the lack of inner fixity or truth of race (Butler 2006).7. However, this realization may be employed in defense of colorblind racism; the notion that race does not exist can be used to deny the impact of race or to erase Black and Latinx experiences. If White performers’ embodiment racial Others offers a potential challenge to racial essentialisms (Locke

2004; Kisliuk and Gross 2004; Pravaz 2010; 2013; Robitaille 2014), it does so in ways that “also reify White supremacy” (McCann 2016: 363). While parody can challenge and unsettle, Butler reminds us (2011[1993]) that not all drag is subversive (85). My use of

7 Butler’s notion that parody reveals the impossibility of occupying another’s identity is employed in Nadine Ehlers’ analysis of racial passing (Ehlers 2012: 69). Ehlers argues that all racial subjects are always already “passing.” That is, since there is no inner fixity of Whiteness, White men are only White men in so far as they successfully perform and occupy a regime of White masculinity maintained by a Foucauldian notion of disciplinary power. (Ehlers 2012).

“drag” does not preclude the potential of Brazilian music performances to be subversive or transformative. However, I highlight the ways in which performances can work as drags that (Whiteness) makes for itself—performances that produce, negotiate, and deflect racial anxiety and fear (Butler 2011: 85). In this way, drag foregrounds the intersection of race and sexuality, underscoring racial embodiment as a site of both fear and desire.

Chapter 3 uses racial drag as a framework to connect the prominence of the body in scholarship on Brazilian music outside of Brazil with what can be described as an embodied phenomenology of Brazilian music performance. I draw on performance theory, racial interpellation, and the broader (trans)national historical context of blackface minstrelsy to explore the various ways in which Americans come to “embody”

Brazilianness, and how this in turn shapes their own racial understandings. Chapter 4 extends this analysis into the realm of material culture, considering how the embodied experience and spectacle of Brazilian music performance occurs through particular interactions between bodies and things. I engage with thing theory as well as contemporary scholarship on organology to uncover the work of musical instruments in racial formation. Specifically, I am concerned with the work of instruments and humans as mutually constituted subject-objects and how they perform embodied notions of race and gender.

Chapter 5 considers the discursive dimension of racial drag by tracing how descriptions of samba and maracatu in Austin (re)articulate three interconnected

(trans)national narrative tropes of Blackness—alegria (joy, happiness), hot/infectious rhythm, and community. Taken together, the multiple layers of racial drag suggest that

despite attempts to celebrate Brazilian culture and even potentially challenge racial stereotypes, Brazilian music and dance performances in Austin tend to unintentionally

(re)produce and reinforce views that both circumscribe the possibilities of Blackness while simultaneously reifying the power of Whiteness.

Part III focuses on the pitfalls and potential of world music ensembles as effective pedagogical spaces for multicultural and anti-racist music education. Chapter 6 considers recent publications on music education and social justice pedagogy and their relevance to

Brazilian music performance. I conclude by proposing new approaches to world music pedagogy that might mitigate against reinforcing race and gender stereotypes while simultaneously optimizing the potential of music for fostering cross-cultural understanding and anti-racism education.

PART I: RACE AND SPACE

CHAPTER 1

Brazilian Racial Democracy and (Trans)national Racial Formations:

Rethinking Race in Brazilian Performance Ensembles in North America

Trem do Samba at Boteco Food Truck #1

When I arrive to the Boteco Food Truck, located on East 7th street and Navasota, most of my fellow Trem do Samba members are already there and the equipment is already set up. Quickly I pull my seven-string guitar from its gig bag and plug into a DI line set out for me on a chair between the cavaquinho (Brazilian ukulele-like instrument) player and another guitarist. After tuning, I have time to socialize with everyone before we start our set. It’s a typical Sunday afternoon in Austin, Texas: hot and sunny. We try to get most of the band to sit in the shade and everyone is wearing all white: both to have a uniform look as well as stay as cool as possible. Ice-cold beer helps as well. The picnic tables are already full of patrons. A good number are friends of members of Trem do Samba, including several members of Austin Samba who have come to socialize and dance with their friends. Two Austin Samba drummers, with support from the director, formed Trem do Samba in 2013 to learn, perform, and have fun playing pagode-style samba at barbeques and small gatherings. Trem do Samba holds weekly rehearsals/gatherings at members’ houses on the weekends, starting as early as May and usually running through until the end of October. At that time, the Samba School rehearsals intensify in

preparation for their performances in February carnival events, leaving little time for pagode. Trem do Samba occasionally performs in public, usually at Boteco Food Truck or Central Market on N. Lamar. But the group has also performed at Live Oak Brewery

(one of the Austin Samba/Trem do Samba members, Phil, is a part owner) and will occasionally play before or after an Austin Samba gig.

Boteco is run by Brazilians and serves classic Brazilian dishes like picanha steak, feijoada (bean stew), and snacks like coxinhas (chicken fritters) or fried yucca. Some families in attendance have children with them, and others have brought dogs. About twenty minutes past our scheduled start time, members of Trem do Samba assemble and begin playing. We are arranged in a semi-circle around a picnic table with the percussion (surdo, tan-tans, repique de mão, pandeiros, shakers, tamborins)8 to the left of the strings (cavaquinho, guitar and seven-string guitar). Singers and hand percussionists stand behind the seated instrumentalists. As we begin our set playing well known pagode classics, many in the crowd start dancing enthusiastically.

The crowd consists mostly of Americans, a large number are friends with band members, but there are also about ten Brazilians present, which is more than I than I normally encounter at other performances of Brazilian music. The Brazilians at Boteco usually know the food truck owner, Marcos, or the servers, who encourage them to come on days when there will be a pagode band. Friends invite other Brazilian friends and coworkers; these groups are usually more interested in socializing and eating Brazilian food than in dancing or watching the music. However our repertoire includes many well know sambas and I notice the Brazilians occasionally sing along, dance, or bater palmas

(clap a repeated tresillo rhythmic cell), especially when cued by Trem do Samba.

8 Various drums and hand percussion used in pagode-style samba.

Before the show, there is very little interaction if any between the Brazilians in the audience and members of Trem do Samba. During our intermission, however, the two groups interact a bit more as audience members congratulate and we wait impatiently for our promised feijoada (which never arrives as scheduled during the intermission).

Interactions between Brazilians and Americans mostly take the form of quick compliments (“nice dancing”), questions about whether anyone in the band is Brazilian, and occasionally requests for songs. Most Trem do Samba members take the opportunity in the intermission to talk and eat with their friends in the audience. A few who speak

Portuguese, like the Austin Samba director, might converse briefly with Brazilians, having met them through their mutual friend, Marcos.

During our second set, one Brazilian woman who appeared to be under the influence of alcohol, adamantly requests a popular song by one of the most famous pagode singers, Zeca Pagodinho. She doesn’t know the name of the song, but sings the lyrics enthusiastically. Vanessa, the only Brazilian member of Trem do Samba, as well as the director of the Samba School (also a percussionist in Trem do Samba) immediately recognize it, “Vacilão.” The director promises that we will learn the song for our show next month.

______

I open this chapter with a vignette to provide a brief glimpse into the live

Brazilian music scene in Austin. By drawing our attention to the encounters between

Austinites and Brazilians, between Austin culture (outdoor food trucks, music) and

Brazilian culture (pagode music and dance)—as well as how these activities reflect

“ideas” about both places—the scenario illustrates the ways in which Austin operates as a

site where both local and global cultural flows intersect. It describes performances and activities that (re)produce spatial practices of Austin’s urban brand of quirky hipsterism.

I call this opening vignette Botecto #1 because I return to the same location with two more vignettes later in the chapter, describing the rehearsal where we learn the requested song as well as our return performance. The additional moments further illustrate how

Austinites locally interpret and participate in (trans)national racial formations. That the racial meanings of these performances are not entirely clear or easily recognizable –they are quite subtle and often ambiguous—is a helpful point of entrée to the chapter’s contents. In addition to reviewing literature central to the theoretical frameworks deployed throughout the dissertation, it foregrounds the parallels in Brazilian and

Austin’s racial discourse.

My dissertation theoretically reconfigures the role of race in the frameworks employed to understand Brazilian performance ensembles outside of Brazil. Whether participants acknowledge race or not, racial meanings are constantly at work in such contexts. The scholarship on capoeira and Brazilian music performance in North America does discuss race, though the degree to which authors employ it as a primary analytical frame varies widely. There are three dominant trends in the existing literature: 1) to shy away from race, utilizing instead notions of cosmopolitanism or Brazilian / non-Brazilian frameworks that privilege notions of authenticity and community building, 2) to view the rise of Brazilian performance ensembles in North American cities as the product of increasingly globalized cultural flows rather than a contemporary manifestation of a longstanding and ongoing (trans)national racial formation, and 3) when race is addressed,

to discuss it only in terms of Blackness or non-White Brazilianness rather than through the lens of Whiteness or broader notions of Canadian or U.S. national identity.

Figure 3: Trem do Samba performing at Boteco Food Truck, Austin Texas.

In what follows, I critique these tendencies, calling instead for an approach that frames such performances as part of (trans)national White racial constructs. I argue that the treatment of race in this body of scholarship—from analysis limited to Blackness or glossing over race—is a consequence or product of the influence of the myth of Brazilian racial democracy as well as decades of comparative scholarship on racial politics in

Brazil and the United States, and related discourse in the popular press. Shifting away from comparative approaches and examining not only constructions of Blackness but how the presentation, (re)production, consumption, and embodied performance of

Blackness is constitutive of White racial formation as well, enables us to examine new gendered or racialized meanings in Brazilian music and dance ensembles outside of

Brazil. As such, this chapter also draws attention to the spatial dimension of racial formations, as Whiteness and Blackness resonate in similar and interconnected ways in

Brazil and in the United States. I argue that we need to analyze race in Austin as we would analyze it in Brazil because Austin claims a racial democracy. This chapter establishes the analytical framework from which to highlight the parallels between

Austin’s racial discourse and that of Brazilian racial democracy.

To clarify my terminology, I use (trans)national to refer to cultural formations that transcend traditional notions of national borders, “rendering them at least partially irrelevant” (Madrid and Moore 2013: 16). But I am also influenced by Jacqui Alexander and Chandra Mohanty (1997) who draw attention to how the term transnational often obscures uneven power dynamics across nations and the people within them. My approach to gendered racial formations follows their call for a transnational feminism:

“grounding analyses in particular, local feminist praxis is necessary, but we also need to understand the local in relation to larger, cross-national processes” (xix). Indeed, this dissertation seeks to situate local processes of race in Austin relative to broader

(trans)national articulations. I employ (trans)national to draw specific attention to how national ideologies can emerge from transnational formations. My aim in using

(trans)national is to underscore that while the musical exchange between the U.S. and

Brazil indeed performs and codifies ideas about what it is to be American or Brazilian, those ideas are dependent upon specifically (trans)national racial formations—what

Laurence Robitaille (2014) calls global frames of Blackness. Madrid and Moore observe that from a transnational perspective, “space is no longer the place were one is but rather where one becomes” in discursive relations with others (16). Racial formations emerge in

what I’m calling a (trans)national space because race is fundamentally tied to nation building, and yet the ontologies of Whiteness and Blackness are formed via systems of

White supremacy and anti-Black racism that cut across national boundaries.

Music and (Trans)National Racial Formations

Sociologists Michael Omi and Howard Winant (1994) developed racial formation theory as a tool to analyze race as a social construct that pervades and fundamentally shapes U.S. society and culture. Racial formation attempts to explain how racial meanings emerge and affect social structures. They define it as “the sociohistorical process by which racial categories are created, inhabited, transformed, and destroyed”

(55). The process is conflictual and emerges from the competition of any number of distinct racial projects (Winant 1994:139). Racial projects, a fundamental component of the framework, are defined as “simultaneously an interpretation, representation, or explanation of racial dynamics, and an effort to reorganize and redistribute resources along particular racial lines” (Omi & Winant 1994: 56). Omi and Winant explain that racial projects “connect what race means in a particular discursive practice and the ways in which both social structures and everyday experience are racially organized, based on that meaning” (ibid., emphasis in original). In other words, racial categories and racial meanings emerge from the linkage between “structure and representation,” and racial projects provide the “ideological work” that make this linkage possible (ibid.).

Winant acknowledges that racial projects are always both cultural and political

(Winant 1994: 139). Individuals and any number of social groups—including elites,

political organizations, individuals involved in popular political movements, religions, intellectuals, and state agencies—develop racial projects that clash over continuously shifting interpretations of the meaning of race (ibid.). I understand Brazilian musical ensemble performances to be gendered racial projects that engage with racial discourse at multiple, intersecting levels, from the individual to the group, from the local specifics of

Austin’s spatio-racial formation and the ideologies of its urban branding to

(trans)national frames of Blackness/Whiteness.

The racial dynamics of Brazil and the United States country are frequently defined in opposition to each other, encouraging a large body of nationally focused or comparative scholarship (Bailey 2009; Degler 1986 [1971]; Fry 1995; Hanchard 1994;

Oliveira 1996; Silva 1998; Skidmore 1972; Twine 1997; and Winant 1994). Much of this work attempts to explain why skin color and racial identification are so ambiguous and relatively unimportant in Brazil when compared to the United States.

Comparative studies of race in Brazil and the United States tend to make two basic claims. The first is direct or indirect support for the myth of Brazilian racial democracy, or at least Brazilian racial exceptionalism (Bailey 2009: 3). Racial democracy is an ideology that has dominated both national and international understanding of

Brazilian racial identity and race relations throughout the twentieth-century. The sociologist Gilberto Freyre popularized the construct in his influential book, Casa-

Grande & Senzala (The Masters and the Slaves), published in 1933. Freyre argued that in relation to other Europeans colonizers, the Portuguese were kindly toward their non-

European Others, frequently forming interracial unions that resulted in, according to

Freyre, a Brazilian society built on harmonious intermixture. Going against the grain of

the pseudo-scientific racism of the era which denounced racial mixture as resulting in a degeneration of the superior White race, Freyre postulated that “cross-breeding” created hybrid vigor and a Brazilian meta-race poised to lead Brazil to a prosperous future

(Bailey 2009: 1; Caldwell 2007: 32). Hanchard characterizes Freyre’s term “meta-race” as “a race of people that combined the intellect of the European with the sensuality and adaptability” — and I would add physicality or corporality as well — “of the African and native American” (Hanchard 1994: 46). Freyre’s model is strikingly similar to Mexican theorist and Minister of Education José Vasconcelos’s notion of “la raza bronce”—the mixture of all races and cultures to produce a universal civilization that transcends ethnic differences. Madrid and Moore note that Vasconcelos’s definition of mestizaje (racial mixture), like Freyre’s mestiçagem/racial democracy, “was in fact an ideological project designed to privilege European culture, indigenous assimilation, homogenization, and the whitewashing of ethnic difference” (Madrid and Moore 2013: 98). Unlike the centrality of Blackness in Brazilian racial democracy/mestiçagem, mestizaje in Mexico emphasizes

European and indigenous mixture, resulting in the erasure of Afro-Mexican bodies and the conceptualization of all Black cultural forms found in Mexico as imports from the

Caribbean (ibid.: 97-98).

Freyre’s notion of racial democracy contains two central elements. First, it presents a romanticized vision of Brazil’s colonial past and establishes racial mixture as the essence of Brazilianness (Baily 2009: 2; Hanchard 1994; Caldwell 2007: 32). Second, the discourse provides (in Hanchard’s characterization) the “biological basis for social racial harmony” (45). In other words, it set the stage for claims that “persons of all skin color types [are] full and equal participants in the benefits of citizenship in the Brazilian

nation” (Bailey: 2). Ultimately, this reinforces the belief “that racism cannot exist in a racially hybrid society that has never practiced legal segregation, or apartheid-like racial discrimination” (Caldwell: 9).

Hanchard understands racial democracy as a specific articulation of Brazilian racial exceptionalism—a “broader ideological construct” that has “outlived racial democracy as an ideological form” (43). He indicates that the ideology of Brazilian racial exceptionalism on which Freyre’s notion of racial democracy is built first emerged as a defense of slavery in the early nineteenth century (47). Brazilian racial exceptionalism incorporates the myth that Iberian colonialism established less harsh relationships between the races, contributing to a contemporary society that is largely devoid of racial antagonisms. That is, ostensibly due to factors such as the presence of the Moors,

Catholicism, and higher rates of manumission, slavery in Brazil and other Latin

American countries/colonies was recast as less violent and savage—more amicable and beneficial—than slavery in the United States (See Degler 1971 and Hanchard 1994, 44-

50). This notion is present in another foundational myth in Brazil, that of the homem cordial. Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, in his influential book Raízes do Brasil (1936), claims that the Brazilian man [sic] is cordial, friendly, amicable, affectionate—someone who avoids conflicts and is thus disposed to harmoniously coexist in the same space with persons of different races, classes, and ethnicities without conflict. This ideology of

Iberian-cum-Brazilian exceptionalism provided the groundwork for Freyre’s writings in the 1930s, a particular rendition of the myth tied to a paternalist, liberal-progressive nation-building project of the first half of the 20th century (Hanchard 54).

The second claim found in comparative studies of racial dynamics in Brazil and the United States is a tendency to misread—if not critique outright—racial identification and political mobilization by Black Brazilians (Perry 2013: 21-22; Seigel 2009:179-180).

Questions about whether U.S.-derived frames of racial analysis apply to Brazil derive in part from longstanding academic debates (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1999; French 2003;

Hanchard 1994) as well as the deeply entrenched notion within Brazil that the country doesn’t have a “race problem,” that its race relations are fundamentally different from those of the United States, and therefore any discussion of race represents a foreign imposition.9 Many scholars (Caldwell 2007; Perry 2013; Smith 2008; Smith 2013;

Vargas 2005; Vargas & Alves, 2010) critique the limits of such a comparative approach and push for (trans)national analyses rooted in diaspora theory.

Recently, scholars have emphasized the importance of music in forging national and racial consciousness in Brazil and the United States (Hertzman 2013; Seigel 2009).

Here I briefly discuss two historical examples—maxixe and repertoire of the band Os

Oito Batutas—in order to highlight the connections between racial meanings and music in the two countries. I then cite a few contemporary examples to suggest that scholars view current Brazilian music ensembles in North America as contemporary manifestations of this same historical relationship.

In the first decades of the 20th century, the Brazilian maxixe was one in a series of exotic music and dance fads that captivated U.S. audiences. Seigel refers to this seemingly insatiable desire for foreign musical repertoire as an “exoticist culture of empire,” and it had a profound impact on how North Americans understood themselves.

Seigel explains, “culture and commerce fed imperialist ideology with delicious panoplies

9 See Bourdieu and Wacquant 1999, French 2003 and Smith 2008.

of available exotics, kaleidoscopic views of the globe’s semi-savage Others, offering counterpoints against which U.S. consumers could posit their nation’s unique (and superior) qualities” (71). Maxixe, then, is one in a series of “exotic” performances of

Blackness—what Coco Fusco (1994) calls intercultural performances that not only

“reinforce stereotypes of ‘the primitive’” but … serve “to enforce a sense of racial unity as whites among Europeans and North Americans, who were divided strictly by class and religion until this century” (148). What makes Seigel’s analysis particularly compelling is her insistence that the domestic aspects of exoticism, what she refers to as both “sides of the exoticist coin”: the paradox of a desire for exotics—the majority of which are Afro- diasporic—coupled with domestic anti-Black racism (ibid.). She reminds us that colonialist desire for the commodified bodies and cultural forms of foreign eroticized exotic Others represent an extension of the same paradoxical desire for America’s domestic eroticized-exotic Others. George Yancy describes the same Black-White relations within the diaspora when he observes, “the Black body vis- à- vis the white body …is both desirable and yet disgusting (7).”

In the early 20th century, Os Oito Batutas (The Eight Aces)10 emerged as one of the most celebrated groups in Brazilian pop music; many contemporary White observers who described their repertoire as the epitome of Brazilianness, in the same way that samba later came to stand in as metaphor for Brazilian nationalism (McCann 2004).

However, other cultural critics and political elites hotly debated the significance of the group and its music, given their anxieties about Brazilian national identity and its role on the global stage. Controversy surrounding the ensemble focused on musical style and

10 The word batuta means a conductor’s baton, as well as a skilled expert or ace. Thus the band’s name has been variously translated as “the eight batons… pros, aces, experts, masters, remarkable ones, clever ones” and even “The Great Eight.” Seigel 270n6; McCann 2004, 165; Crook 2009,158; Hertzman 2013, 94).

above all race (Hertzman 2013106-108, Seigel 2009: 129-130). The Batutas played diverse Brazilian genres including maxixe, choro11, samba, Carnival pop hits and marches, música sertaneja (folky country music), as well as the international music such as tango, ragtime, and jazz. The musicians were “in constant conversation across genre, regional and national borders, [problematizing] urban-rural distinctions, and metropole- periphery divides: unmistakably hybrid” (Seigel 2009: 96). Brazilian nationalists found it especially concerning that the group—half of whom were Afrodescendant—linked Brazil both in visual image and in sound to Blackness. This was especially troubling given the celebration of the group and of U.S. jazz musicians in Paris. As Seigel points out,

Brazilian elites had long been enamored by Paris and other European metropoles as the epitome of sophistication and taste; Parisians’ (exoticist-primitivistic) adoration of jazz and choro turned this perception on its head and seemed to represent a step backward in

Brazil’s attempts to whiten its international image. “Clearly the music was black, but there it was, adored and uplifted in the centers of ‘civilization’—places Brazilians had understood as the antitheses of Blackness. This acute dilemma bleeds through the pages of mainstream and elite magazines, newspapers, and other public fora of the period”

(Seigel 2009: 121).

The ultimate acceptance of the Batutas both abroad and within Brazil as cultural ambassadors draws addition to the (trans)national character of racial formations via musical sounds as well as the connection between the United States and Brazil specifically. The dominant idea to emerge from such debates was the realization that “the

Batutas could be used to set Brazil and the United States on the same plane, a prestige- winning comparison [and] long a treasured project of Brazilians seeking to coax from

11 An instrumental genre that incorporates improvisation and is related to maxixe and samba.

foreigners the recognition they thought warranted by Brazil’s dominance in the Southern

Cone” (Seigel 2009: 130). Tied to this, of course, is the argument that unlike the United

States, Brazil is a nation of racial harmony, illustrated by the Batutas, who ultimately perform nation over race (ibid.: 129). Marc Hertzman (2013) also highlights the links between exoticism and anti-Black racism at work in the sanctioning of the Batutas. He reminds us there is a “thin line between earnest appreciation and exoticization or patronizing wonderment,” evidenced in “the widespread fascination with Pixinguinha’s ability to mimic a bird’s chirp with his flute” (109). He argues that elite White Brazilians’ embrace of the Batutas as a national symbol did little to challenge well established preconceptions of racial hierarchy and racialized social practices.

The above examples underscore the historic relationship between Brazil and the

United States wherein music and dance have become central elements in the construction and performance of racial meanings. This dialectic continues to impact how Brazilian music is received by North American audiences today, and vice-versa. Anthropologist

John Burdick articulates how Black gospel singers in São Paulo come to understand their own racial identities, religious practices, and singing styles via U.S. Black gospel music and history in ways that simultaneously resonate with Brazilian racial discourse. For example, he argues that “the practices of black gospel singing… [generate] hyperattention to the physical organs of the vocal apparatus,” a process that is “partly responsible for many black gospel singers coming to adopt racially essentialist ideas about their own voices,” ideas already “circulating in Brazilian society” (Burdick 2013:

141). Singers cite anatomical differences in Black and White vocal chords that make the

Black voice stronger and physically capable of “endur[ing] exceptional stress”—concepts that articulate broader ideas in Brazil about Blacks’ ability to endure pain (142).

Significantly, the consumption and (re)production of narratives about the origins of Black gospel singing reinforce the notion that slavery (and therefore subsequent race relations) was different in the U.S. as opposed to in Brazil. Burdick’s interlocutors explained that Black Brazilians never developed the “strong” vocal aesthetics of U.S.

Black gospel (and blues and jazz) singing because enslaved Africans in Brazil were allowed to keep their drums and thus had “no incentive to develop vocal skill.” In contrast, Blacks in the U.S. were denied drums and therefore forced to express themselves musically via their voices. Black gospel, according to one of Burdick’s participants, began in “America’s large open fields” in ring shouts and field hollers, to

“cry out to heaven and to have other slaves hear you” (149).

In Austin, Brazilian ensemble performers often reiterate origin stories of samba, describing it as emerging among “slaves” in Brazil, who unlike those in the United

States, “were allowed” to keep their drums and play their own rhythms. Their drumming practices are linked to resistance in such narratives as well, as a way enslaved Afro-

Brazilians maintained their culture and (in some versions of the story) kept practicing their own religions. Samba comes from Brazil and not the United States because we

“didn’t allow slaves to have drums.” In the U.S. context, these stories (re)produce the notion of Brazilian racial exceptionalism. The following comments from one of my informants are illustrative: “[slaves] were allowed to keep drums and play them … I think that that is really amazing that they… that we have samba now. I’m so happy [slave

owners] didn’t take drums away from them like they did in the United States!

[Laughs].”12

The last two examples indicate that Brazilians and Americans continue to learn about race in another country via music and its accompanying narratives. However, individuals in the U.S. not only learn about Brazil, but simultaneously understand racial processes and history in their own country as distinctive. The examples above support my claim that we view/hear North American Brazilian performance ensembles within a

(trans)national racial formation framework.

While existing scholarship on Brazilian music groups in North America does address race to some degree, most analyses do not place performance groups abroad within the context of historical (trans)national racial formations.13 Laurence Robitalle

(2014) provides an exception when she reminds us that “there are important continuities between the meanings circulating now via capoeiristas’ bodies and the historical narratives that were attached to the bodies of African descendants in Brazil: the complex racial politics and the ensuing social attitudes toward the Afro-Brazilian population in

Brazil still inform the interpretations of capoeira that circulate globally in various culture industries even though some semantic shifts and ruptures happen as the practice opens up to new populations worldwide” (230). This quote notwithstanding, the overall tendency of scholars (Mercier 2013; Pravaz 2010; Pravaz 2013; Stanyek 2011) is to consider the rise of Brazilian performance ensembles in North American cities as the product of

12 I explore the significance of this statement in broader processes of racial/cultural appropriation in chapter 5. 13 Natasha Pravaz includes some discussion of race, yet it is not a central component of her analysis (Pravaz 2010 & 2013). On the other hand, Laurance Robitaille provides not only a strong racial analysis of capoeira in Toronto, but also discusses global frames of receive and understanding “Blackness.” See Robitaille 2014 230.

increasingly globalized cultural flows, a frame of analysis that can obscure the racialized dimensions of such practices and even work to normalize inequality through the colorblind treatment of difference.14 We can begin to uncover the racialized inner workings of Brazilian performance internationally by viewing/hearing such ensembles as contemporary manifestations of a long-standing, (trans)national racial formation that links Brazil and North America, and by focusing on the discursive impact of the ideology of Brazilian racial democracy in a (trans)national scope.

Trem do Samba Rehearsal

At rehearsal a couple weeks after our performance at Boteco, we are learning the requested song, “Vacilão.” As usual, we are sitting in a circle in one of the members’ backyards; drinks and snacks abound. We begin to learn “Vacilão” by translating the lyrics. Either Vanessa (the only Brazilian) or Amanda (whose parents are Brazilian and who speaks fluent Portuguese) teach the pronunciation and translate the lyrics for the rest of the group. With few exceptions (myself, Steve, and a handful of others who are learning), the rest of the group does not speak Portuguese. The song’s lyrics are from a man’s perspective and chastise his friend/brother for acting crazy and losing the perfect woman (see appendix to this chapter). The song opens with the line, “now that was a woman,” and proceeds to describe how great she was, including examples such as

“leaving bed on her tip-toes [so not to wake him],” and cooking elaborate meals. The

14 Stanyek (2011) rightly contextualizes the rise in U.S.-based choro groups not as a recent phenomenon so much as part of a long historical process that is transregional, or transnational. However, his analysis does not focus on the racial implications of this global, historical exchange, but rather utilizes a Brazilian/Non- Brazilian binary.

singer chastises his losing her as the result of his foolish and crazy behavior: “brigou com a preta sem razão” (you [started/picked] fights with “that Black woman” for no reason). This line is especially interesting because of the term “preta” and what is starts to reveal about race in Brazil, and subsequently how Austinites come to understand the music and culture they are performing. In Brazilian Portuguese, preta literally means

Black woman but it has varied uses. The term can refer to cooks or maids, reinforcing the stereotype of Black women in these roles. The term as used by samba performers and

Black Brazilian communities also refers somewhat generically to women as a term of endearment, which is how it is used in the song. However, since preta is racialized, it marks one of the few moments when Vanessa and Amanda are confronted with, and have to explain, racial formation in Brazil. Amanda explains to the group that preta means

“Black girl,” but brushes it off as not important because, as she understands it, a more accurate translation, what the lyric is “really saying” is “just that he argued with her for no reason.” None of us push for more explanation, and we continue to learn the rest of the lyrics.

Despite some hesitation about the song’s clearly sexist position—which members express with smirks, eye rolls, and chuckles, but do not discuss verbally— members of

Trem do Samba find the story articulated in the lyrics to be quite funny, and they side with the singer’s perspective. That is, they agree that the song humorously depicts a typical guy who, not appreciating how good he had it, mistreats a woman; she, in turn, choses to leave him alone and pathetic. After we play through “Vacilão” a few times,

Vanessa requests that we play “O Show Tem que Continuar,” since the famous pagode band Grupo Revolução plays “Vacilão” in a pouporri (medly) with “O Show tem que

continuar.” Lead singer and co-founder of the group, James, likes the idea but also expresses a bit of hesitation about the difficulty of learning “O Show tem que continuar.”

Carlos, the cavaquinho player, and I encourage James to play it, and so we quickly figure out a transition between the two songs, thankfully in the same key. We then play through both tunes. We don’t stop to translate or pronounce the lyrics of “O Show” because, as usually, Trem do Samba only explains the lyrics when introducing new songs.

Brazilian Racial Democracy Abroad: Cosmopolitanism and Racial Silences

In her dissertation on Brazilian music performance in Montreal and Toronto,

Catherine Mercier (2013) details the difficulties she encountered discussing race with participants there. She argues that race matters to many of them, “even if their comments suggest that they would generally like to pretend that it doesn’t” (17). Further, she suggests that participants may be unaware of how race or racialized frames of perception influence their attitudes. Mercier supports her claim by noting that “some attendees were more inclined to believe that dancers with Black rather than White skin are Brazilian” and that her respondents frequently used the term “culture” as a replacement for “race” when talking about difference (16-17). Despite these indications of the significance of the topic, she ultimately describes her efforts as “inconclusive” and abandons racial analysis in favor of cosmopolitanism.

If race matters, why not pursue the issue further? More importantly, why do participants want to “pretend” race is not a factor? Why do they expend so much effort

avoiding discussion about race? Mercier leaves these issues unexplored, defending her position by citing “the many reactions of surprise and misunderstanding by scene members of all races when I talked about race” as one reason for her shift away from the topic, as well as a desire to avoid applying U.S.-based race studies out of context (17).

The comments of Mercier’s participants, and her reaction to them, suggest that scholars should not only revisit the applicability of U.S.-derived theories for studying race and racism in Brazil, but explore the ways in which Brazil’s myth of racial democracy influences participation in Brazilian music ensembles abroad.

Notions of Brazilian racial exceptionalism emerged in my conversations with ensemble members in Austin. In addition to the samba origin stories cited above, some participants articulated an understanding that race in Brazil is fluid, less attached to skin color, and less important than in the United States. For example, I asked Adriana, a self- identified Mexican-American woman who began as a dancer but now plays percussion in

Austin Samba School, about race in Brazil. In her response, she told me the following story:

There’s a difference between…you know I’ve spoken with Vanessa before, you know she’s from Brazil, and she told me that if she had to fill out a form or something like that in Brazil she would mark herself down as Black. You know, to me she looks…she doesn’t look Black. But, you know, that’s how she identifies. And, I find that interesting that you can, … [that in Brazil] there are forms there where you can fill out your race and you put whatever, you know?15

Adriana interpreted this story as evidence that race functions very different in Brazil.

Unlike in the United States, where race is inseparable from one’s physical appearance,

Adriana was taken aback that apparently in Brazil “you can fill out your race and you put whatever.” Her misinterpretation of Vanessa’s racial self-identification is partly informed

15 Interview June 26, 2017.

by her understanding of racial formation in the United States and the significant role of interpreting bodies and racial subjectivity based on phenotype. Adriana’s interpretation of

Vanessa’s experience reinforces the commonly held notion that race in Brazil is more fluid and therefore of less socio-cultural significance.

Additional comments from ensemble members in Austin express similar sentiments about the fluidity of race and racial interactions in Brazil. For example, Sarah, an African-American woman who danced with Austin Samba for three years, told me

“surprisingly race didn’t come up a whole lot at all [in the context of samba performance], actually,” but that she did realize “that at some point the darker you were the… you know your status was not as high as if you were lighter.” Sarah then immediately adds “Brazil’s got people from all over the rainbow. You can be racist anywhere or make it an issue or be prejudiced anywhere, but I’ve never run into that.”

Sarah’s response is very typical of how Samba school members understand race in

Brazil: the music they play originates with enslaved Africans, but Brazil is very relaxed racially and people of all shades and phenotypes participate in samba. Sarah found proof of this in the interactions she had with Brazilians in the Samba School. While she “didn’t run into” racial prejudice, she did “[run] into Brazilians that [she] would never stereotypically think … were Brazilian.” She explains, “You know, there are a lot of blonde, blue-eyed people in Brazil. I did not know that until I joined the school. That was kind of a culture shock for me.” Curious, I confirm “You didn’t know until you joined the school, and [then] people told you? Or you saw videos?” Sarah interjected, “I saw them!

They were in the school, and I was like, ‘Oh my god!’ and they’re like ‘Yeah I’m

Brazilian,’ and I’m like ‘shit!’.” Sarah’s encounter with White Brazilians challenged her

previously held U.S.-based assumptions that equated Brazil with exotic Latinness (i.e., not Whiteness), simultaneously confirming that samba, while Afro-Brazilian in origin, is open and accessible to all races.

We should understand the accessibility of samba not as a consequence, but rather as an enabling mechanism of racial democracy. Reitner acknowledges that Freyre provided a strategic framework for including Afro-Brazilians on the bottom of the social- hierarchy of an imagined Brazilian community. Importantly, Reitner stresses that “this integration demanded from Afro-Brazilians, and any other group that potentially stood in the way of [Getúlio] Vargas’s project of building one nation, a complete negation of cultural distinctiveness” (Reiter 2010: 26, emphasis added). His sentiment reverberates in

Austin’s Brazilian music community as well where the racial/cultural distinctiveness of samba is largely glossed over and subsumed by a U.S.-vs.-Brazil dichotomy. The rehearsal vignette underscores this dynamic, as the complicated (and revealing) racial implications of the term “preta” in samba lyrics are glossed over or ignored in English translation.

In another example, Adriana explains, “a lot of things came over with the Black slaves, but I mean you could say that pretty much about any country, couldn’t you? Any country that has had slaves. Yeah, so race comes into it just a little bit. But we try not to dwell on that too much.” Like Sarah, Adriana confirms that race is rarely discussed in the

Austin Samba School, and that the prevailing understanding is that race does not play a significant role in samba practice. Her comments work to deflect attention away from race; she implies the suggestion that samba originated in Afro-Brazilian communities is unimportant because African cultural contributions exist throughout the Americas.

However, Adriana also hints at an active process wherein Austin Samba School members intentionally choose to ignore or avoid “dwelling” on the racialized meanings and significance of their musical practices.

In a separate conversation, Vanessa—who self-identifies as bi-racial—articulated the complexities of racial identity in Brazil. I discuss Vanessa’s perspective on racial identification in Brazil versus the US in greater detail in Chapter 3, specifically because it articulates aspects of race that are both performative as well as anchored in the body.

Here, however, I want to stress the profound influence of narratives of Brazilian racial exceptionalism both in Brazil and in Austin, highlighting the manner in which race and racism manifest as both present and absent. As Vanessa explains, “you know in Brazil people have this hidden prejudice, right. There’s prejudice, but it’s hidden. But at the same time, it’s not so hidden, it’s very exposed in the sense that people pretend that it’s not prejudice and it’s [just] a joke and they just [say or do] whatever [racist comment or action they want].”16 Vanessa’s comments express the manner in which the racist interactions that pervade Brazilian society often hide in plain sight. Glossing over the racial implications of “preta” in the lyrics of “Vacilão” indicate that Brazilian racial dynamics are similarly obscured in Austin.

Within Brazilian racial discourse and by means of terms such as mestiçagem

(mestizaje, racial mixture), race is simultaneously obscured and rendered hyper-visible.

That is, Brazilian social relations are marked by what João Costa Vargas identifies as a

“hyperconsciousness/negation dialectic of race.” Vargas elaborates:

Such hyperconsciousness, while symptomatic of how Brazilians classify and position themselves in the life world, is manifested by the often vehement negation of the importance of race. This negation forcefully suggests that race is

16 Interview July 15, 2017.

neither an analytical and morally valid tool, nor plays a central role in determining Brazilian social relations, hierarchies, and distribution of power and resources. Try talking to Brazilians of varied racial backgrounds, places of residence, occupation, age, gender, sexuality, and levels of formal instruction about the matter, and most often you will find yourself accused of racism17 (for insisting on a theme that has no relevance in that country) and/or the conversation will swiftly be redirected away from race (Vargas 2004: 444, emphasis added).

Sarah and Adriana’s reflections on race, as well as Mercier’s experience researching the theme in Canada, illustrate that hyperconsciousness/negation of race resonates in

Brazilian musical performance in North America. At least one performer in Austin experienced this negation in the form of an aggressive accusation of “reverse” racism.

Jessica, a self-identified bi-racial women from the United States, began as a dancer in

Austin Samba and has since moved to performing in the bateria (percussion section). She emailed me to share an incident that she recalled after our first conversation. She remembered talking to Austin Samba members about her first trip to Brazil. Jessica wrote:

Among other things, I mentioned that the poverty and disadvantages faced by Black Brazilians [were] especially heart-wrenching. So many of them were begging in the streets. And among the well-dressed young urban professionals in downtown Rio, not a Black face could be found. Well! That set off a firestorm of replies. One particularly memorable reply suggested that I am racist because I was moved by the hardships black Brazilians face but apparently didn’t care about impoverished White Brazilians.

The dynamic articulated by Vargas echoes strongly in Jessica’s story, but there is an added dimension, namely the desire to separate the music (the repertoire to be learned/performed) from its socio-political frame. Jessica continued, “I was naive to assume that the Austin Samba membership would be interested in the issues and problems faced by ordinary Brazilians. The smart thing was to keep quiet, stay away

17 Also see Reiter 5-6.

from controversy, and just learn the Austin Samba choreography (I was still a dancer then).” In this especially overt case, the negation of race was effective and total. As

Jessica put it, “I don’t think I ever again tried to raise the community’s awareness about anything Brazilian. Lesson learned. Perform with blinders on.”

Even with more “subtle” forms of racial negation, such as those encountered by

Mercier and found in Adriana and Sarah’s comments above, it is important to remember that the “process of rendering the racial epistemology of the society invisible is in part what naturalizes inequality” and obscures the racialized implications of spectacle (Smith

2013: 186). As Christen Smith acknowledges, “within the literature on race and racism in

Brazil, there has been a notable overreliance on the verbal to diagnose racial tensions”

(Smith 2016: 99). She asks “what of the meaning that fills the silences of racial discourse?” and asserts that there is indeed “a relationship between race, performance, and the lived political realities of blackness in the nation that fills this silence with meaning” (ibid., 99-100). Any analysis of Brazilian music, whether in Brazil or abroad, must recognize such Brazilian modes of racial formation that render race both silently obscured and clearly visible/audible.

Aside from Mercier’s work, discussed above, another example of scholarship on

Brazilian music in North America that fails to explore racial silences is Jason Stanyek’s work on choro musicians in the United States. Stanyek chooses to avoid race by employing a Brazilian/non-Brazilian analytical framework. This is most likely due to the language used by his interlocutors who frequently discuss themselves in that way.

However, in multiple iterations of choro’s origin story, race and the echoes of racial democracy are clearly present. For example, one U.S. choro musician is quoted in

Stanyek’s article as stating:

There were Europeans colliding with Africans. That's what created this groove. If you go back to the very moment [when choro begins] you're gonna have some Italian guy on an accordion playing a mazurka or a polka, and you're gonna have some guy with some percussion instrument, you're gonna have some African guy going, "hey wait a second, if I put this swing under here, check out what it does." And the first response to the Italian might have been: "Wait a second, that's not Italian." And the second response might have been, but god dang it, that make [sic] my butt wiggle” (Stanyek 2011: 113, emphasis added).

It is striking that Stanyek does not interrogate the racial implications of this statement, especially given his stated interest in the linkage between the corporality and the aurality—“the corpaural politics”—of choro improvisation and performance (ibid.:103).

In the origin story repeated by U.S. musicians, choro-cum-Brazilianness emerges from a moment of improvisatory play, wherein African corpaurality (to use Stanyek’s term) makes a European “wiggle his butt.” Stanyek provides no critique or commentary, nor does he unpack musicians’ use of the terms malícia and malandragem to articulate aesthetics and improvisatory techniques.18 I revisit Stanyek’s notion of corpaurlity—and specifically the notion that Brazilianness comes into being precisely and solely at the moment that an African’s musical innovation causes a European to move in a non-

European way—in Chapter 3 as part of a broader discussion of embodiment and racial drag. My point here is to stress the hyperpresence of race that is left silently unexplored in both popular discourse and in scholarship.

That Brazilian performance ensembles in North America have both “everything” and “nothing” to do with race is indicative of the hyperconsciousness/negation that has dominated discursive practices regarding race, racism, and culture in Brazil.19 In other

18 These terms emerge from Black Brazilian improvisatory socio-cultural practices, including capoeira and samba (see McCann 2004; Roubitaille 2013). The terms did not appear frequently in discussions with participants in Austin. 19 Vargas 2004. See also Abdias do Nascimento, 1978. O genocídio do negro brasilieiro, Rio de Janeiro:

words, it should not surprise Mercier that her interlocutors dismissed racial interpretations in their responses. It should also not come as a surprise that choro musicians in the U.S. repeat such origin myths and frame their approach to learning repertoire and improvisation around notions of Brazilianness which are themselves built on racial stereotypes and romanticized depictions of the Other. The same can be said of members of Austin Samba, who point to the presence of Brazilians of all races and colors who perform samba. Even the fact that Jessica’s discussion of race was dismissed, and that she herself was accused of racism is unsurprising. All these anecdotes fit a pattern in that they mirror Brazilian discourses on music and race. The redirections and silences in such discourse merit further investigation.

In focusing on cosmopolitanism, scholars miss key elements of present-day racial analysis, notably its diasporic and (trans)national qualities. Numerous scholars have demonstrated that although race and racism are indeed subject to localized specificities, they are born from conditions of colonialism and race-based slavery in the Americas and are therefore hemispheric in their formation.20 Thus, the similarities between two ostensibly very different societies in the United States and Brazil overwhelm any local specificity, allowing us to view the (trans)national character of anti-Black racism. Yet notions of Brazilian racial exceptionalism are entrenched in popular discourse. Mercier was right to bring up race. The denial and confusion her interviewees expressed, I argue, should be understood as a product of the (trans)national scope of racial thought. Notions of Brazilian racial democracy persist alongside berimbaus and surdos, and resonate

Paz e Terra; Kabengele Munanga, 2008 (3rd ed.). Rediscutindo a mestiçagem no Brasil: Identidade nacional versus identidade negra, Belo Horizonte: Autêntica. 20 See, amongst others, Caldwell 2007; Gordon 2007; Perry 2013; Smith 2008; Smith 2013; Vargas 2005; Vargas & Alves, 2010.

sympathetically in tandem with North American racial constructs.

Trem do Samba at Botecto Food Truck #2

It’s about two weeks after we first learned “Vacilão,” and Trem do Samba is again performing at Boteco food truck. Everything is very similar to our performance here a month ago. Friend are dancing, folks are eating. The Brazilian woman who previously requested that we play “Vacilão” is here, and again asks us to play the song. We assure here that we will pay it in our second set. When we return from our intermission, we start our second set with the “Vacilão/O show tem que continuar” medley. The woman is very excited. She leaves her table, grabs a microphone from one of the singers, and sings the song very loudly, drawing the attention of all in attendance. She claims the space as her performance to the cheers and laughter of her two Brazilian friends. I interpret her performance as a personal anthem; I get the clear feeling she is singing the song to an absent ex-husband. I cannot see her; she is standing behind me and to the right. And since I have not memorized the songs, I need to keep my eyes on the chord charts that are to my front left. But I do catch glances of Carlos, James, and other members in my line of sight. We are all alternating between laughter, smiling at the silliness of the situation, and forcing smiles with awkward looks in our eyes and faces of focused concentration.

We are encouraged by the impromptu takeover of our show and with the participatory nature of the performance, which we generally encourage by asking the crowd to dance and clap. Never before, however, has an audience member taken a microphone from us.

We are also a little annoyed because the woman is singing off-key and not always in sync

with our rhythm. The situation is funny, improvised, and, well… weird. Also, her unfamiliarity with our planned medley causes a fumbled transition to the next song, but we push through and the audience members who recognize the song also join in singing

“O show tem que continuar” as the women relinquishes the microphone. We finish the rest of our set as normal, and the woman thanks us repeatedly as we pack up our equipment and continue to socialize and eat as evening approaches and the crowd thins.

Exoticist Desire and (Trans)National Whiteness

Whiteness is an area underrepresented in both Brazilian musical scholarship and ethnomusicology more broadly. Studies of Blackness, Latinness, and ethnic minorities are considerably more common. However, studies of Blackness, and in particular its consumption, can tell us a great deal about the construction of Whiteness. Regarding

Brazilian music performance outside of Brazil, Robitaille argues in her study of capoeira in Toronto that “global blackness frames the public’s understandings of capoeira, providing readily available categories through which their interpretations are formed.

This interpretive frame includes a series of stereotypes and preconstructed tropes of meanings that inform the way consumers read what they see and hear at performances.

Thus, it engenders a specific idea of Blackness—importantly from an external perspective” (238).

Robitaille’s global Blackness framework resonates strongly with Said’s concept of Orientalism in that it imposes limits and constrains upon both the reception of and discourses about capoeira, Brazil, and Blackness (Said 1994: 42-43). As Said reminds us,

“like any set of durable ideas, Orientalist notions influenced the people who were called

Orientals as well as those called Occidental, European, or Western” (42). In other words,

“Orientalism… has less to do with the Orient than it does with “our” world” (12). Eric

Lott (2013: 9, 39) also demonstrates that blackface minstrelsy shows in the United States were less about Blackness then they were spaces where White racial subjectivity was worked out, ultimately making possible the “formation of a self-consciously white working-class.” That is, performances of Blackness provided an oppositional ontology against which groups of Europeans of different ethnicities, national origins, and socio- economic classes unified into a cohesive American Whiteness. Similarly, Ann Stoler argues that attitudes about race and sex were not “peripheral to the cultivation of the nineteenth-century bourgeois [White] self,” but rather, “constitutive of it” (1995:8).

What, then, can Brazilian ensembles tell us about ourselves as North Americans and our racial attitudes? And what have we missed by not focusing on Whiteness in our analyses? Following Said, Lott, and Stoler, as well as Saidiya Hartman (1997: 26), who asserts that “the fungibility of the commodity, specifically its abstractness and immateriality, enabled the black body or blackface mask to serve as the vehicle of white self-exploration, renunciation, and enjoyment,” this study examines how Whites utilize performances of Brazilianness—a concept that simultaneously draws on both global frames of Blackness and Latinness—in the construction of their own identities.21

Let us consider Natasha Pravaz’s analysis of tambor de crioula events in Toronto from the perspective of Whiteness. Pravaz is clearly aware of the racial implications embedded in such performance: “We may consider, for a moment, that for the mainly

21 Eric Lott’s work resonates strongly with Stoler. He asserts that “blackface performance [insistently] concerned itself with matters of the body—gender anxieties, unconventional sexuality, orality—which mediated, and regulated, the formation of white working-class masculinity” (Lott: 90).

White, middle-class Canadian participants, a good dose of “exotic”-bound desire is involved in their pleasurable consumption of tambor” (Pravaz 2013 834). However, the author’s analysis downplays certain aspects of racial dynamics—specifically White privilege— and she conflates race with class based-analysis, ultimately suggesting that the musical practices in Toronto amount to a sort of cosmopolitanism directed at forging community bonds (834-835). Pravaz argues “it is simplistic to reduce migrants’ engagement with samba, tambor, and the like to yet another form of appropriation. This is so because an embodied relationship with cultural forms is fundamental for Brazilian migrants’ sense of well-being and ability to adapt to new surroundings” (835). Pravaz supports her claim by shifting attention away from White, native-born Canadian participation in Brazilian music performance and focusing on the experiences of immigrants, especially those from Latin American countries. She stresses that most

Brazilian migrants lose “their class privilege upon arrival … having to settle for subaltern work roles they would not have imagined as figuring in their career trajectories” (837).

But what of their racial status? Pravaz only hints at the correlation between higher socio-economic class and Whiteness. Do these migrants identify as White in Brazil, only to be interpellated22 as non-White or “Latinx” in North America? Pravaz does not pursue that line of analysis, and in avoiding it she repeats the common trend in Brazilianist scholarship to ignore racial factors in favor of class-based analysis, leaving many questions unexplored.

22 I intentionally use the term interpellation or hailing to indicate not just how one’s race is “read” by U.S. Americans, but how a person’s (racial) subjectivity is actually “hailed” into being. George Yancey utilizes a similar construct, what he terms “the phenomenological return of the Black body” (52). I elaborate on interpellation in Chapter 3.

Cristina—a self-identified Black women (negra) who relocated to Austin work for a major tech company, and one of the very few Brazilians to currently perform with

Austin Samba—and I spent a good deal of time discussing the (small) Brazilian community in Austin. Cristina explains to me the lingering effects of institutionalized racism by pointing out that it is very difficult for Black Brazilians to immigrate to the

United States. She says, “When they do come, it’s either to be a babysitter or… because they married someone. For a Black [Brazilian] to say, ‘I’m going to the United States because I work for a company and I was transferred’ that’s very difficult” because institutionalized racism often prevents Black Brazilians from high-paying positions with international employers.23

Cristina’s experiences challenge Pravez’s conclusions that samba performance in

Toronto “respond[s] to Latin American migrants’ need to have their aesthetic, moral, and even spiritual sensibilities reflected back to them in ways rarely found in the mainstream

Canadian cultural market” (Pravaz 2013:837, emphasis added). Cristina admits that for her, Austin Samba represents a way to reconnect with certain element of her life she feels were missing in Austin, yet her interactions with other Brazilians in Austin simultaneously articulate racialized complexities overlooked by Pravaz. Cristina points out that whereas it is often difficult for Black Brazilians to come to the United States, when White Brazilians come, “my view [is] they want to erase Brazil and forget

Brazil.”24

Cristina stresses to me that it is important to not only talk about Americans and

American racism in the U.S., but also Brazilians who Cristina characterizes as “more

23 Quando vem, ou é pra ser ou é baby-sitter ...ou vem porque casa com alguem… Negro resolver, “aí eu vou pra os unidos porque eu trabalho numa empresa e eu fui transferido’... é muito difícil.” 24 “E branco quando veem pra cá, minha visão, eles querem apagar o Brasil…e esquecem o Brasil.”

racist than Americans.”25 Cristina believes that “my White Brazilian friends are more racist then the [American Austinites] who go to watch the samba school and [Maracatu

Texas].” She supports her claim with a number of reactions she received about playing samba in the United States.26 The utterances include, “tu vai pra escola de samba? Ai que horror! (you’re going to the samba school, oh how horrible!) and “Deus me livre me envolver com algo do Brasil” (God save me from getting involved with something

Brazilian). What is significant about these comments is how they illustrate the racial dynamics Pravaz overlooked. Cristina understands that these rejections are not solely rejections of Brazil, but also of Blackness. Cristina argues that the White person who comes from Brazil tends to brag or show off (se achando) “because they came to live here, you understand? Ah, it’s the United States [an important, developed nation] even if they actually work [here] cleaning the streets.”27 Pravaz argues that Brazilian immigrants often lose their class status in North America, but she does not explore how race intersects with class. Such dynamics are best witnessed in one last example from my interview with Cristina, who tells me, “The woman who does my nails, she is Brazilian, she is White, from Curitiba. She hates samba.” When Cristina explained to her that she had to go to rehearsal and pointed out there was an upcoming Austin Samba show, the manicurist replied in a disparaging tone, “Ai Cris, tu vai!?” (Ugh Cris, you’re going!?).

In this context, a White Brazilian woman who, while she did migrate to the United States, is doing the nails of a Black Brazilian women in a high-paying position at a tech firm.

25 é importante também não só fala do Americano, do racismo Americano, mas os brasileiros . . . O brasileiro é mais racista que o Americano.” 26 Os meus amigos que tenho brasileiros brancos são mais racistas que o pessoal que vai assistir a samba school que vai assistir o maracatu. 27 O branco que vem de lá do Brasil, vem pra cá se achando porque veio morar aqui, entendeu, “Ah, os estados unidos”, mesmo que trabalhe pela...limpando ruas.

The manicurist’s rejection and hatred of samba (articulated with patronizing intimacy) is an attempt to reassert the boundaries of Whiteness and the imagined racialized power dynamics that have been inverted outside of Brazil.

Richard Mook notes that music scholars “consider race only where representations or contributions of racial ‘others’ are concerned” and suggests we look more closely at how musical practices relate to Whiteness (Mook 2007:455). Indeed, one of the major interventions of early Whiteness studies has been the argument that

Whiteness is an unmarked, invisible, and normalized racial category.28 Subsequent scholars have challenged this notion, suggesting that Whiteness is hypervisble to people of color, especially when experienced as a form of terror and power.29

While Mook is correct in critiquing music scholars for largely ignoring Whiteness

(what Radano and Bohlman characterize as “reflexively turn[ing]” to “the edifice of

‘black music’” when acknowledging race), there is nevertheless a very important body of scholarship that does address music and Whiteness (Radano & Bohlman 2000:1). Fox

(2004), Walser (1993) and Berger (1999) have all explored the relationship between music (Texas country, heavy metal, and heavy metal and jazz, respectfully) and constructions of White masculinity. As I explore in greater detail below, a number of scholars have also investigated the articulation of Whiteness via the performance of

Black music by Wong (2000), Radano and Bohlman (2000), and Monson (1995) among others.

28 See Fishkin 1995; Frankenburg, 1993; Rasmussen et al., 2001. For an in depth discussion of the construction of Whiteness, including the development of European beauty standards, see Nell Irvin Painter (2010) The History of White People. 29 See bell hooks, 1992. Black Looks: Race and Representation. Also, Rasmussen et al., 2001, “Introduction,” p 10-13; and Frankenburg 2001.

At work in foreign performances of Brazilianness is something more nuanced than a straightforward desire for the Other, and it has to do with how White Americans work to come to terms with their identities as Whites in a racialized society. Participants in Austin’s Brazilian music scene are, to borrow Pravaz’s phrase, “playing at being

Other” (2010: 210). The ultimate goal, however, is not to become “Black” or “Brazilian,” per se, but rather to rearticulate and define their own White identities through such embodied performances of racial drag, as I argue based on the scholarship discussed below, and later in chapters 3 and 4.

Various scholars have described historical uses and adaptations of Black music to perform alternative aspects of White identity. Importantly, Lott (1995), Roediger (1991), and Ignatiev (1995), have all documented how working-class Whites, immigrants, and ethnic minorities created, accessed, and occupied Whiteness by adopting Black performance in the United States. Both Mahon and Halberstam conclude that Elvis

Presley performed a sexy masculinity by first adopting the sounds and gestures of Big

Mama Thorton’s “confrontational black femininity,” what Halberstam refers to as

“female masculinity.”30 Deborah Wong provides an additional example, arguing that

“Asian American rappers are watched and heard with pleasure and discomfiture; the cultural tropes they rely on create a discursive environment in which, by rapping, they can’t be White” (85). Bryan McCann (2016), in his analysis of the film Office Space, notes that gansta rap as is used by White male characters a means of temporary escape from White corporate culture, a means of expressing White rage and contempt for their

30 Mahon, 10; Halberstam, 186. For a discussion of White male adoptions of Black masculinities, see White 2011.

jobs, and that the soundtrack marks a shift to suggest criminal and (humorously juxtaposed) violence.

We can read Brazilian music performance in North America through a similar lens, paying particularly close attention to the use of music to articulate notions of White hipness or cosmopolitanism. Ulf Hannerz defines cosmopolitanism as a “willingness to engage with the Other, an intellectual and aesthetic stance of openness toward divergent cultural experiences,” and notes that it involves achieving “competences in ‘other cultures’” (cited in Pravaz 2013:834-835). Such cosmopolitanisms are a driving factor in much of the scholarship on Brazilian music performance in Canada. Pravaz argues that

“the usage of samba by Torontonians vis-à-vis identity formation processes rests mainly upon the desired ability to be recognized as honorary Brazilians or, at least, competent sambistas” (Pravaz 2010: 222). Similarly, Mercier notes that “taking pride in identifying as cosmopolitan … as well as aspiring to become cosmopolitan is common among scene participants in both Toronto and Montreal” (160). The desire to be included within what

Pravaz refers to as a “highly-prized ‘club’” of “honorary Brazilians” is strong, as participants seek to become associated with Brazilians— “thought of as cool, sexy, sociable” (Pravaz 2010: 224; Mercier 2013: 94-95).

I suggest we can take the argument a step further by remaining attentive to

Whiteness, which enables us to understand this sort of cosmopolitanism as a

(trans)national White racial project. Indeed, Mirjana Laušević (2007) characterizes

Balkan folk music and dance practitioners in the US as “tend[ing] to see themselves as part of a select, possibly superior, enlightened minority (57). Eric Lott asserts that early blackface performers “immersed themselves in ‘blackness’ to indulge their felt sense of

difference” (53). He documents the overwhelming influence of blackface minstrelsy on

American bohemianism, uncovering the “racial logic usually hidden in our romantic notions of the bohemian, the Beat, the hipster” (ibid: 52). Deborah Wong explains that

“White hipness was (and is) an expression of imagined racial authenticity—an attempt to borrow racial markers in order to create White sites of rebellion and resistance” (2000:

77). But as Tricia Rose reminds us, even the most “genuine pleasure and commitment to black music” on the part of White listeners is “necessarily affected by dominant racial discourses regarding African Americans, the politics of racial segregation, and cultural difference in the United States” (1994: 5). Ingrid Monson explains one such unintended consequence of White hipsterism: “well-meaning white Americans have confused the most ‘transgressive’ aspects of African American culture with its true character, [and thus] they fall into the trap of viewing blackness as absence. Whether conceived as an absence of morality or of bourgeois pretensions, this view of blackness, paradoxically, buys into the historical legacy of primitivism and its concomitant exoticism of the

‘Other’” (1995: 398). McCann stresses the flexibility of Blackness as a performative racial signifier while linking blackface and hipsterism to White constructions of identity, in particular as a means to resist bland and suffocating restrains of “Protestant Capitalist culture.” He states: “the mobility of Blackness in general and Blackface in particular historically allows Whites to test the limits of their own identities and social status by appropriating the cultural practices of Others.” (2016: 364). In agreement with Rose and

Monson, McCann stresses that while “Black Americans historically rely on various expressions of Blackness for cultural and corporeal survival amid centuries of racist violence… Whites adopt Blackness in ways that ultimately affirm the supremacy of

Whiteness” (365). Similar dynamics appear to be at work in the Brazilian music scene in

Austin.

Participation in Brazilian music, as both performers and audience members, can be seen as one way in which White Austinites work to construct alternative White identities, a Whiteness distant from the American mainstream, from conservatism, and above all, from racism.31 While she does not refer specifically to alternative forms of

Whiteness or anti-racism, Pravaz does indicate that samba performance works to distinguish its practitioners from the mainstream: “playing samba provides an opportunity for social cohesion and for the validation of self-understandings that are set apart from the surrounding, majority population” (Pravaz 2010: 222 emphasis added). Pravaz’s point resonates strongly with Ann Stoler’s reading of Foucault’s The History of Sexuality

Vol. 1 and the discourse surrounding technologies of sex and the cultivation of the nineteenth-century bourgeois self. Stoler explains that “the colonial order coupled sexuality, class and racial essence in defining what it meant to be a productive — and therefore reproductive — member of the nation and its respectable citizenry” (Stoler

1995: ch. 6, Kindle ed.). In other words, Europeans gained “affirmation” and

“confidence” in the cultivation of a White bourgeois self via a discourse predicated on racialized and sexualized Others (ibid., ch.1, Kindle Ed.). Richard Mook explores similar dynamics, examining the role of barbershop singing in the development of Victorian-era

White masculinities (Mook 2007). Additionally, Eric Lott argues that beyond simply

racial mimicry, “what appears in fact to have been appropriated [by White performers of blackface minstrelsy] were certain kinds of masculinity” (54).32

In this light, we can view White American participation in Brazilian music ensembles as productive of certain aspects of identity that amount to what Foucault termed techonologies of the self. Essentially, they “permit individuals to effect by their own means, or with the help of others, a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being, so as to transform themselves” (Foucault

1988: 18). Indeed, Mercier uses the same term to describe the sorts of self- transformations participants pursue via the affinities forged in Brazilian percussion ensembles. She argues that some members “[attempt] to emulate other ensemble members’ hipness, cosmopolitanness, open-mindedness, hoping to really become hip, cosmopolitan, and open-minded” (Mercier 2013: 94). However, Mercier fails to explore the racial implications of her model, including the extent to which through performances of the exotic, the cool, and the alternative, White ensemble members distance themselves from non-desirable aspects of Whiteness. Take, for example, discussion of the following encounter that Pravaz had with an audience member during a performance in a public park:

a young woman born in Canada emphasized that she would never want to live in her hometown again, as it is “so White” and does not offer the same kinds of opportunities for exposure to multiculturalism as Toronto does. While she prefers to practice Eastern dance forms, she stressed that her own soul is “totally into Brazilian culture, it’s what makes me happy,” even though her dating a Brazilian man is shocking to her parents (Pravaz 2013, 834).

32 McCann similarly focuses on masculinity in his reading of Office Space’s use of gangsta rap, arguing that this musical representation of violent, hypermasculine Blackness affords film protagonist Peter Gibbons the possibility of reclaiming masculinity and rebelling against work, enacting a form of deviance from bland, assimilationist, White corporate culture (2016: 370).

The phenomenon of White hipsterism utilizing Black musical expression to create sites of

White resistance is clearly visible in this example. Exposure to multiculturalism, performing, and consuming Brazilianness can all be understood as technologies of the self. They enable the cultivation of alternative identities that establish distance from certain aspects of Whiteness (for example blandness, lack of cultural substance, and racism), and play a role in how individuals position themselves socially.33 McCann argues, “the White subject who appropriates Blackness yearns to escape banality, as well as various gender and class-based insecurities,” and he reminds us that “one of the chief characteristics of … any appropriation of Black vernacular expressions by White

Americans, is an initial disavowal of Whiteness” (2016: 367).

Thomas Turino (2008) describes this process by distinguishing between “cultural formations” and “cultural cohorts.” Turino observes that social identities are based on

“iconicity34—the foregrounding or recognition of similar habits or features that allow individuals to group themselves and to group others” (102). Turino uses the term

“cultural cohort” to describe these “social groupings that form along the lines of specific constellations of shared habit” (111). He notes that cultural cohorts can often group individuals in opposition to mainstream aspects of their cultural formation (described as a kind of cultural mainstream, a “baseline for much of what individual members think and do” (112). For example, the discourse and performance practices involved in old-time music cohorts offer “a temporary alternative to the values and lifeways of the ‘modern’

33 Earlier I drew on Butler to describe how variations in the signifying practices that produce racialized bodies challenge racial stereotypes and expectations. By performing and embodying racial otherness, I suggest that White bodies seek to discursively articulate alternative White identities. 34 Iconicity, here, is based in Peircian semiotics: “the first way that people make the connection between a sign and what it stands for is through resemblance, what Peirce called icons or iconic signs. A drawing of a horse is an iconic sign for the animal if, through resemblance, seeing the picture calls horses to mind” (Turino 2008: 6).

capitalist formation to which the cohort members also belong” (161). Brazilian ensembles in Austin operate as cultural cohorts and can similarly provide temporary escapes and alternatives to mainstream culture.

Mirjana Laušević (2007) documents similar attempts to be different among

Balkan folk music and dance aficionados in the United States. Overwhelmingly White and non-Balkan, participants articulated feelings of being “sick and tired of being

American.” Laušević elaborates, noting that one particular member “certainly did not escape being American by dancing Balkan dances but, through this activity, chose to identify himself alternatively” (56). She suggests that part of this alternative identity is adding “a ‘safe color’ to one’s identity” (57) via the embodied practice of Balkan music, which we can understand as a form of cultural drag.

It is important to remember, however, that while practitioners are seeking to distinguish themselves from “dissatisf[ying] and uncomfortable … aspects of mainstream

American [White] society,” they are not attempting to shed their Whiteness completely.

As George Lipsitz (2006 [1998]) reminds us in his foundational text The Possessive

Investment in Whiteness, “white Americans are encouraged to invest in whiteness, to remain true to an identity that provides them with resources, power, and opportunity”

(vii). The long history of appropriating Black musical expression to rework whiteness indicates the frequency with which white people have been “encouraged to expend time and energy on the creation and re-creation of whiteness” (ibid.). In this case, they do so by performing Blackness to articulate a hip Whiteness that resists stereotypical

“blandness” and claims to reject racism.

We can see a similar operation in David Kaminsky’s recent study of cultural ownership and appropriation among non-Jewish klezmer musicians in Sweden.

Kaminsky concludes “that the work klezmer music is doing in Sweden has less to do with

Jews, and more to do with Swedish anxieties concerning immigration and responses to it by the anti-immigrant extreme Right” (2014: 256). He elaborates by suggesting that

“Klezmer offers a safe, controllable, and claimable form of diasporic Easternness that may bring comfort, especially to political progressives, in the face of discursive conflicts surrounding [M]iddle-Eastern immigration to Europe” (ibid). Thus, klezmer works as a

“mid-East proxy,” an essential element in how Swedes navigate racialized identities and shifting demographics at home (257).

The impulse to resolve racial anxieties in music is longstanding in the United

States. Eric Lott explains that “cross-racial desire coupled with a nearly insupportable fascination and a self-protective derision” made “blackface minstrelsy less a sign of absolute white power and control than of panic, anxiety, terror, and pleasure” (2013:7).

Similarly, Brazilian music in Austin may have more to do with White American anxiety about race than it does with Brazilianness. It offers safe and comfortable forms of

Blackness and Latinness, what Michelle Bigenho (2012) might refer to as intimate distance, that allows White Austinites to distance themselves from racism. Indeed, it articulates an alternative Whiteness that is tolerant of and in contact with foreign cultures.

This is especially true of forms of Blackness and Latinness that are generally understood as hip and cool (Monson 1995). Mercier (2013:95) asserts that “participation in a

Brazilian percussion ensemble leads to a symbolic association with Brazilian people.

Because Brazilians are thought of as cool, sexy, sociable, and the like, this association

may reinforce the image some members project or wish to project” (also see Pravaz

(2010:224), Rose 1994, Monson 1995, and White 2011).

In her book Ethnic Drag, cultural studies scholar Katrin Sieg draws from Butler to remind us that “some parodic repetitions ‘become domesticated and recirculated as instruments of cultural hegemony,’” even as she criticizes Butler for not elaborating more on how this occurs (Butler 1990: 139, cited in Sieg 2002: 255-256). We can see that while racial drag performances are parodic, the variations of Whiteness produced tend to obscure issues of White privilege or unintended racism from performers: individuals see themselves as affiliated with racial others and therefore distant from White racism, creating a sort of an escape hatch for racism. Pravaz suggests that a similar dynamic exists in Brazil, where White Brazilian elites have historically appropriated Afro-

Brazilian cultural expressions (and bodies) “as flattering icons of a desired self-image” that ultimately and paradoxically “[provides] the White elite with an alibi against racial guilt, as if they could pronounce: ‘We are a racially just society. Just see how we celebrate Black culture’ (2010: 210-211). Liv Sovik (2009) further underscores how racial democracy obscures the celebration of Whiteness. Sovik argues that the supervalorização of Whiteness— a remnant of the Whitening discourse of the 19th century—continues although racial democracy remains the dominant ideology in

Brazilian society today. The effect is that Whiteness is silently valorized and sought after, yet denied in favor of mixture in official public discourse:

Racial exclusion in Brazil is spoken in two voices: one, in private, [speaks] about the value of whiteness and the other, pronounced loud and clear [in public], about the notion that race and color are of relative importance because the population is mixed.35

35 “A exclusão racial no Brasi fala em duas vozes: uma, no privado, sobre o valor da branquitude e outra, pronunciada em alto e bom som, sobre a noção de que cor e raça são de importância relative já que a população é mestiça” (Sovik 2009: 38).

It is this ideological juxtaposition that allows statements such as “aqui, ninguém é branco”: here, no one is White (Sovik 2009: 38).

The ideology of Brazilian racial exceptionalism and racial democracy is indeed present in Brazilian performance ensembles in Austin Texas. In this chapter, I have tried to highlight the (trans)national nature of racial formations in the United States and Brazil via the circulation of Brazilian music globally. But I also want to stress that the specifics of Brazilian racial discourse resonate with, and in some instances quite strongly parallel, racial discourse in Austin. For example, Black activists in Austin cite a similar

“hypervisible invisibility” dynamic at work. Joshuana Sanders suggests that White Austin residents’ desire for racial “inclusion is not the same as actively creating it, which is what makes Austin exhausting for Black people. We experience a hypervisible invisibility here,

[in which] our presence is interpreted as [the] achievement [of] equality, but the realities we live are replete with class assumptions and the relentless sense that we do not belong here” (Sanders 2015, emphasis added). In the next chapter, I focus on racialized spatial dynamics in an effort to ground the (trans)national discourse addressed in this chapter to the localized setting in which Brazilian performance ensembles in Austin operate.

Chapter 2

Racialized Space in Austin

Brazil Day at the Historic Scoot Inn

It’s 2015. I arrive at the Historic Scoot Inn and I start talking with members of Austin

Samba. I put my guitar and stool in a storage area/dressing room to the left of the entrance, amongst the samba school’s things, passing by dancers and drummers down a narrow hallway and navigating small rooms already packed with surdos and caixas. I also mingle with the members of Austin Samba who are in the private lounge reserved for performers, opposite the storage area. Outside, a large crowed is gathered to hear an impressive lineup of Austin’s Brazilian bands and celebrate Brazilian Independence Day.

Walking around, I see many people wearing yellow CBF (Brazil’s national soccer team) jerseys and t-shirts in yellow or green with images of the Brazilian flag. I also overhear groups of people speaking Portuguese and notice that there are many Brazilians in attendance. They keep to themselves and do not interact with members of Austin Samba.

The crowd, composed of mainly young people (college students and professionals), is racially diverse but made up of predominantly White Austinites, followed by smaller numbers of Latinxs and (White/mixed-race/light-skinned) Brazilians, as well as a of

Asian- and African-Americans. This is the most people I’ve ever seen at a Brazil Day show, which occur annually in early September to correspond with Brazilian

Independence day September 7th. My guess is that at this moment, right between Brazil’s hosting of the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio, heightened

interest in Brazil has drawn a larger crowd. I notice that the bar is promoting caipirinhas—“Brazil’s National Drink” –a cocktail made from cachaça (a spirit made from sugar cane, sugar, and lime juice). Brazilian caipiroskas (a caipirinha prepared with vodka instead of cachaça) is also on sale, as well as a drink called “Tio Jacaré”— named after the director of the samba school Robert Patterson, whose nickname is

“Jacaré” (caiman or alligator in Portuguese). The drink is made with watermelon juice and cachaça, a weird local Austin twist on the Brazilian capirinhia.

The crowd parts to make room as Austin Samba parades into the large open space in front of the stage. They are wearing matching blue t-shirts. The ensemble stops in the middle of the space and the crowd forms a circle around the drum bateria and the dancers, who are in front of the drummers. The crowd’s reaction is typical: surprise at the large number of drummers, excitement to be so close to the performers who have made their way into the crowd, with special attention paid to the dancers (they are cheered on with shouts and “woos”). Walking around the audience, I notice that a few

Brazilians are dancing samba and paying attention, but most of them continue talking amongst themselves, seemingly uninterested in Austin Samba’s performance.

The last band to play is the Brazilian band Fusca XR3 who play Brazilian rock and pop songs. The other bands that perform, the forró group Seu Jacinto, and the funk- soul fusion band Macaxiera Funk, are well received by the crowd, especially the grooves and horns of Macaxeira Funk. However, Brazilian interest shifts when Fusca XR3 performs. Nothing about the band other than song lyrics sung in Portuguese, “sounds”

Brazilian to American ears: they perform typical rock songs. Fusca XR3, however, is the most liked Brazilian ensemble by Brazilians themselves. Whereas Brazilian audience

members were largely aloof when the other bands performed, they all engage in Fusca’s performance by cheering, dancing, and enthusiastically singing along.

Figure 4: Trem do Samba performing at Brazil Day 2015, the Historic Scoot Inn, Austin Texas

After 1am, when the headlining Fusca XR3 end their performance, Trem do

Samba starts to perform. We set up without amplification, sitting around a picnic table.

The idea is to keep the party going, but at a lower volume. During Fusca’s performance we had already set up our instruments and positioned the table. Soon after Fusca ends, we gather the core musicians and begin. Over the course of our performance the crowd starts to thin out, but I do notice that a number of Brazilians engage, singing along to many of the classic and popular pagodes we perform, batendo palmas, and dancing.

Figure 5: Trem do Samba performing at Brazil Day 2015, the Historic Scoot Inn, Austin Texas.

______

The sharp contradiction present in Austin’s declining Black population despite the city’s continued success and economic growth has generated considerable attention in recent years. In May 2014, Eric Tang and Chunhui Ren addressed the issue in their detailed report published by the University of Texas at Austin’s Institute for Urban Policy

Research and Analysis (Tang & Ren, 2014). In January of 2015, The Austin American-

Statesman published a three-part series on historic and contemporary racial segregation in

Austin (Zehr 2015). News media continue to report on the issue in 2016 (Buchele;

Spearman; Zehr), and Eric Tang and other scholars have published follow-up studies.36

Of particular concern is not only that Austin’s overall Black population is in decline, a trend found in a number of large US cities37 (Buchele 2016), but that the staggering growth (20.4%) Austin experienced between 2010 and 2014 did not correlate with growth of its African American population. With the lone exception of Austin, whose

Black population declined 5.4 % between 2000 and 2010, all of the ten fastest-growing cities in the United States saw increases in their African American population during the same period. The tone of the reporting surrounding such analysis suggests concern that the decline of the Black population threatens Austin’s reputation as a diverse, tolerant, and progressive city.

The cultivation of Austin as a “weird” urban space of quirky hipsterism, cosmopolitan consumption, and live music offers an important opportunity to reexamine spatio-racial formations in the city. The Brazil Day at the Historic Scoot Inn vignette provides insights into how Brazilian ensembles map onto Austin’s ongoing urban brand and racialized spatial production. A majority White Austinites, both in the audience and in the ensembles themselves, construct a “weird” Whiteness by dragging Black and adopting embodied performances of Afro-Brazilian music and dance in Austin’s live music landscape. The Historic Scoot Inn represents the shifting demographics of East

Austin, and the entertainment activities that have accompanied such shifts. The multiracial past of the venue has become symbolic of the sort of defiant embrace of

36 Tang and Falola 2016. Also see the scholar/community research collaboration East Avenue, at segregatedaustin.org 37 Buchele 2016; Tang and Ren, 2014; Black population loss, http://www.segregatedaustin.org/black- population-loss/. Tang indicates that a number of US cities are experiences declines in African American populations, including Baltimore, San Francisco, and Chicago. What makes Austin different is that it is the only city with 10% or higher overall population increase to simultaneously experience a decrease in African American population growth.

cultural diversity and racial tolerance praised by Austin’s population. However, “before

2004, the space was almost entirely Latino” (Gray 2007). With new ownership, “their clientele changed from nearly all Latino to nearly all white in a matter of months” (Busch

357). Since, the “space has become a primary showcase for Austin’s live music scene on the Eastside, replacing its former function as a site of community resistance and pride for

Latino neighborhood organizations” (Busch 357-358, also Día de la Raza, N4 on pg.

358). Brazil Day 2015 reflects this dynamic and indicates a potential disjuncture between the Brazilian music cultivated by Austinites and the music preferred by Austin’s small

Brazilian population. The divide in musical interests between Brazilians and Austinites offers subtle but telling insights into ideas about Brazil (and by extention, Austin) that ensemble members cultivate and perform. That is, exotic drums and dancing, not pop- rock, offers Austinites the ability to keep Austin weird and perform a cosmopolitan

Whiteness.

In this chapter I consider the racialized spatial dynamics of Austin, moving back and forth between two analytical perspectives. The first historicizes Austin’s growth and practices of segregation; it contextualizes more recent demographic shifts while simultaneously highlighting the undercurrent of liberal and progressive discourses that have (perhaps ironically) functioned to marginalize and directly harm minority populations in the city throughout its history. The second focus of analysis considers how race and space are produced and performed. The intersection of race and the body in the production of space is increasingly relevant for interpreting Austin’s urban branding after

2000, a period that witnessed rapid population growth, increasing gentrification, sharper declines in the African American population, as well as a more overt cultivation of

Austin as a progressive “Creative City”— hip, culturally vibrant, diverse, tolerant, and green. The chapter illustrates that race and space are inseparably linked, so much so that racial formation is more accurately described as spatio-racial formation. And it provides the underlying theoretical basis and historical context for investigating how musical performance intersects with ratio-spatial formation. I conclude with a discussion of how

Brazilian music ensembles fit within this broader narrative, and Austin’s branding as

“weird.” This chapter should also be read in conjunction with chapter one, in that the spatial dynamics described in this chapter further illustrate the ways in which Austin performs a racial discourse that resonates with certain elements of Brazilian racial democracy. As such, this chapter provides further evidence of how Austin’s local musical and spatial practices relate to broader (trans)national trends.

Liberal Progress and Producing a Racial-Spatial Divide in Austin Austin in the 19th century and early 20th century was significantly less segregated than it is today.38 By 1910, Austin’s population was concentrated in the city center and consisted mainly of Whites, African Americans settling in Black communities scattered throughout the city center (including Clarksville, Wheatville, West Austin, Red River,

South Austin, Robertson Hill, Pleasant Hill, Masontown, and Gregorytown), as well as a few Latinx households concentrated in “Old Mexico” in the southwestern part of the city

(See maps 1 & 2. Spence et al., 2012:37-40). By 1940, however, Austin’s racially segregated landscape was firmly established and remained largely unchanged for the next

38 There was no existing Mexican-American settlement before White Texans established Austin as the state capitol in the 1840s. During that time, Austin had a small population of White Texans who brought enslaved Africans and African-Americans with them.

60 years. A number of factors contributed to Austin’s spatial realignment, but chief among them was a concerted effort on the part of liberal White businessmen to segregate the city in the early 20th century.

As geographer Elliot Tretter argues, “Southern Progressivism” has a long history distinct from its northern counterpart. Southern progressivism represents a range of responses to the fundamental socio-economic realignment of the post-reconstruction-era

South, i.e. rapidly increasing urbanization and a declining agrarian economy. The movement has often been characterized as “business progressivism” because social justice and equality were never its driving motivations. Instead, southern progressivism sought to facilitate urban and economic growth by modernizing urban administration, reducing waste and corruption, and establishing more efficient public services (Tretter

2012: 8-9, emphasis added). Here, efficiency refers not only to modern urban planning that eliminates redundancy and wasteful expenditures, but also to the effective reinforcement of White supremacy. It is not coincidental that the “Progressive Era,” which Tretter identifies as roughly 1890-1935, corresponds to a period of intense White racial terror and anti-Black violence in the United States.39 Progressive reforms became an additional mechanism by which government and business leaders could, literally and physically, remake cities to their social and economic benefit (ibid.).

However, because the courts repeatedly struck down attempts throughout the

South to enact racially exclusionary zoning as unconstitutional, city planners in Austin sought to develop an alternative legal means to establish a “negro district.” The legal solution was implemented in Austin’s 1928 city plan, developed by the Dallas-based firm

Knoch and Fowler (Busch 2011; Tretter 2012). Brutally simplistic, it called for relegating

39 Tretter 2012: 9. Also see Mitchell 2011, Smångs 2017, Wood 2000.

all the legally segregated public services and facilities for Blacks—schools, parks, and even sewers, utilities, and paved roads—to one single district while simultaneously denying Blacks service elsewhere (Busch 2011: 202-203; Tretter 2012: 17-18). To receive services, Austin’s Black population would therefore have to move to the “negro” district, effectively implementing racially exclusive residential zoning without actually enacting zoning legislation. The plan elaborates:

This [race segregation problem] cannot be solved legally under any zoning law known to us at present. Practically all attempts of such have been proven unconstitutional. In our studies in Austin we have found that Negroes are present in small numbers, in practically all sections of the city, excepting the area just east of East Avenue and south of the City Cemetery. This area seems to be all Negro population. It is our recommendation that the nearest approach to the solution of the race segregation problem will be the recommendation of this district as a Negro district; and that all facilities and conveniences be provided the negroes in this district, as an incentive to draw the negro population to this area. This will eliminate the necessity of duplication of white and black schools, white and black parts, and other duplicate facilities for this area. (Knoch and Fowler 1928: 57, cited in Tretter 2012: 18).

In this way, city planners effectively removed Blacks from the city’s central business district and most desirable residential areas surrounding the center. Additionally, municipal zoning restrictions relegated any “undesirable” use of municipal space, including industrial development, to the areas east of East Avenue, maintaining a pristine environment for White residential and business use. Tretter emphasizes that the 1928 plan fit perfectly within the discourse of southern progressivism that ostensibly promoted socio-economic efficiency (e.g., the elimination of redundant services for Blacks and

Whites in the same location) while simultaneously defining “the boundaries of white racial identity” in geographic terms and bolstering policies associated with White supremacy (Tretter 2012:10, 18). Any improvements made to the infrastructure or public services for communities of color “tended to be coincidental and selective… often merely

designed to reinforce the hierarchy and barriers that had [already] been constructed between whites and non-whites” (ibid, 10).

The 1928 city plan had immediate effect. By 1930, up to 80% of Austin’s Black population relocated east of East Avenue (Davis 2016), and “almost all African

Americans were relocated to the designated Eastside location by 1932” (Busch 203).

Certainly, by 1940 Austin’s racial segregation was firmly established (Map 3). Tretter indicates that a number of factors combined in the 1930s to bolster the effects of the 1928 city plan. Progressive public reforms—both municipal and federal—coalesced with private market practices to produce a racially segregated Austin. For example, the federal

Housing and Loan Corporation’s (HOLC) and later Federal Housing Administration, in an effort to support and encourage home ownership, developed guidelines for mortgage lending (Trettor 2012:13-14). In the process, mortgage risk and property values had to be assessed. Because White supremacy rendered Black and Latinx bodies as undesirable, their presence threatened the stability of White neighborhoods. Federal guidelines assigned lower property values and higher mortgage risks to non-White neighborhoods, impacting bank loaning practices that ultimately made it even more difficult for people of color to secure mortgages, and further reinforcing Austin’s segregationist policies

(Tretter 2012: 27).

Unlike publically mandated residential segregation—repeatedly struck down by the Supreme Court (Tretter 2012: 12), private covenants of a racially restrictive nature were legal, rooted in English Common Law, protected as the individual rights of property owners, and defensible in that private contracts were not enforced by the government

(Ibid: 22-26). As such, the mandates of individual businesses or property owners are

often even more effective at enforcing racialized segregation than municipal statutes.

Significantly, private racial restrictions often pre-dated municipal zoning; the latter tended to build upon and solidify racialized segregation that had already been enacted through private-sector practices (ibid.: 30-31). These preexisting practices and geographies in turn impacted new city planning (ibid.).

Spatial Production, Heterotopias, and Racial Formation Henri Lefebvre’s theory of the production of space enables us to view the variety of factors working in Austin as a network of interactions that ultimately produce racialized-space (1991).40 Originally published in 1974 (first English translation, 1991)

Lefebvre’s The Production of Space posits that space is socially constructed, fundamentally bound up in social reality—an innovative idea at the time, which is now widely accepted if not taken for granted (Schmid 2008: 28). For Lefebvre, space emerges from the interaction of spatial practices that can be analyzed via two parallel yet contradictory three-dimensional dialectical processes.41 One of the dialectics is derived from language theory: “spatial practices,” “representations of space,” and “spatial representations.” The second parallel dialectic employed by Lefebvre — “perceived

40 Lefebvre’ has been cited increasingly by US academics since the spatial turn in social sciences, largely due to the pioneering and influential work of David Harvey (1973) and Edward Soja (1989). These authors thus contributed to a “second wave” of interest in Lefebvre. Recently, a new group of scholars are pushing for a “third-wave” reading of Lefebvre’s oeuvre. They claim that problems of translation, the previously limited availability of Lefebvre’s books in English, and difficulties in grasping fundamental aspects of his thought have led to incomplete interpretations or misrepresentations of his work (Kofman & Lebas 1996; Goonewardena et al., 2008). “Third wave” advocates seek to bridge the tendency to understand theorists via the separate lenses of political economy (Harvey) or cultural studies (Soja), establishing a more holistic reading of Lefebvre’s writings (Goonewardena et al., 3). 41 Christian Schmid reminds us that Lefebvre employs a unique ternary dialectic. Lefebvre’s dialect is not Hegelian (thesis-antithesis-synthesis) where two contradictory terms are resolved by a third. Rather, they represent an ongoing negotiation and interaction between contradictory terms, with no concept emerging as dominant over the others (Schmid 33).

space,” “conceived space,” and “lived space” — derives from phenomenology. In the combined model, space comprises a material reality, a thought concept, and a feeling or experience simultaneously: “the materiality [of spatial organization] in itself or the material practice per se has no existence when viewed from a social perspective without the thought that directs and represents them, and without the lived experienced element, the feelings that are invested in this materiality” (Schmid 40-41).

Michel Foucault also viewed spatial production as emerging from networks of relations. Foucault employs the terms “utopia” and “heterotopia” to designate sites “that have the curious property of being in relation with all the other sites, but in such a way as to suspect, neutralize, or invert the set of relations that they happen to designate, mirror, or reflect” (Foucault 1986, 24). Foucault describes utopias as “fundamentally unreal spaces,” sites with no real place (ibid.). Heterotopias, on the other hand, are grounded in real sites; Foucualt characterizes them as counter-sites, other spaces, “places outside of all places” (ibid.).

Heterotopias take numerous forms, including heterotopias of deviation (“those in which individuals whose behavior is deviant in relation to the required mean or norm are placed”) such as rest homes, psychiatric hospitals, and prisons (25). We can view

Austin’s “negro district” as a kind of heterotopia of deviation. In Austin, the Black body—rendered deviant since slavery—was forcibly placed in the heterotopic Eastside: a place outside the city center, an inverse of White Austin, connected yet removed. The heterotopia of the Eastside simultaneously reflects and contests the stability of Whiteness threatening its claim to the city. In thinking about Austin’s Eastside as a heterotopia, not

only can we see that space is fundamentally implicated in racial formation, we can also uncover the spatiality of White racial projects.

Space, then, is produced out of this cluster of double-layered dialectic interactions, which we can see are also simultaneously bound up with racial formations.

Racialized space in Austin, including its material aspects, lived feelings, spatial performances, and ideas, understandings, and representations of specific locations, all emerged from the coalescence of numerous spatial practices, relationships, and everyday experiences. As space is constituted and experienced, so too is race.

In the history of Austin’s racial segregation, not only can we see how racialized spaces are produced, but how such spaces simultaneously inform the boundaries of racial identification. Elliot Tretter argues that the boundaries of Whiteness were “unsettled” because of an increasing presence of Latinxs in Austin. Whites were the greatest contributors to Austin’s overall population growth from 15,000 in 1890 to over 50,000 in

1930. The African-American population in Austin declined to 19% in 1930, down from

25% in 1890 (at that time consisting largely of the formerly enslaved). However, between

1910 and 1930, large numbers of Mexicans (up to 10% of Mexico’s population) migrated to regions of the US that formerly belonged to Mexico, many settling in Texas

(McDonald 2012; Tretter 2012:32). The population of “Mexicans” in Austin, while small, nonetheless rose dramatically from around 500 in 1910 to 5,000 in 1930, or 9% of the population (ibid.).

The increasing presence of Latinxs challenged the existing racial formation.

Legally, Latinxs were classified as White; local legislation defined the term “colored” as a person of African descent. However, socio-culturally Latinxs were seen and treated as

something other than White. In response to the “changing textures of whiteness,” a tri- racial-spatial formation developed, relegating Latinxs to the Eastside, just south of the

“negro district” (see map 4).42 Tretter argues that the adoption of more pliable language in racially restrictive business covenants—from “no people of African descent” to

“white” or “Caucasian only”—is evidence of the ongoing negotiation of racial boundaries, an attempt to maintain White spatio-racial purity. Literally, the physical boundaries of Whiteness were unsettled and had to be reinforced.

Deepening the Divide: from Post-War to the 1980s Tech Boom

The sort of liberalism that influenced Austin’s 1928 city plan continued in the post-war era, prefiguring the neoliberal, post-Keynesian economic turn of the 1980s.

Hartenburger et al. (2012) acknowledge that Austin “explicitly planned to become a technology town in order both to replace the oil jobs that [residents] knew were not permanent and to complement and expand upon the only major sources of employment in town, the state government and the University of Texas” (67). The 1958 city plan and other initiatives including private-public partnerships of the 1970s and 1980s set Austin up to benefit greatly from Reagan-era increases in tech-heavy defense spending (Busch:

11-16; Harenberger: 71). Between 1960 and 1980, Austin’s population nearly doubled and its geographic footprint grew by 50% (Busch 186). The 1960s and 1970s also saw the flowering of Austin’s music scenes.

42 Jason MacDonald notes, “By the late 1920s, about 90 percent or more of the city’s ethnic-Mexican population was concentrated in two ethnic clusters, the largest being in East Austin and immediately adjacent to the city’s main African-American neighborhood” (McDonald: 168) and Tretter 34. Spence et al. (2012) also argue that completion of the Tom Miller and Longhorn dams preventing flooding in the southwestern district, which increased land values in the “Old Mexico” neighborhood and further pushing Mexican Americans to move to the eastside (37-48).

At the same time, the spatialization of race in Austin was reinforced. Socio- economic inequality, racial discrimination, and racialized restrictions to urban space all increased dramatically. The divide between White and non-White Austin deepened, and the notion of the Eastside as a heterotopia of deviance became increasingly widespread and entrenched. What Busch describes as the “socially-sanctioned residential and public segregation [of] the 1930s” grew into “aggressive socioeconomic oppression by the

1960s,” which including the appropriation of “minority space for profit” (Busch: 224).43

A central component of this deepening divide was the continuation of a liberal socio-economic ideology that enabled White businessmen to shape the city to their benefit. The result has been a “dual framework” that couples racial discrimination with policies aimed at promoting economic growth (Busch 2011: 223; Tretter 2012: 8-9).

Centered around the University of Texas, business interests and city leaders developed economic plans aimed at encouraging highly skilled labor and non-industrial growth.44

Rapid expansion in the 1960s provided little benefit for the city’s minority populations, as leaders focused on attracting workers in fields such as electronics and scientific instruments to Austin (Busch 2011: 223; Hartenberger et al. 2012: 67).

The 1958 plan and subsequent renewal efforts in the 1960s were detrimental to minority residents, as they involved forced relocation out of the city center and exposure to industrial hazards. For example, the city began displacing dozens of mostly Latinx residents from the north bank of Town Lake east of I-35 to build the Holy power plant.

43 Examples include UT’s eastward expansion, which displaced “approximately one thousand people …, mostly African Americans, and countless businesses, many African American–owned, [that] were forced to close.” See Tretter 2017: 48-54). 44 UT was involved in a number of public-private initiatives that influenced several tech firms to move or establish headquarters in Austin, beginning with IBM’s Selectric typewriter facility in 1963. See Hartenburger et al., 67-71; Tretter 2017: 34.

The facility became a constant source of noise and pollution; nine major fuel spills occurred between 1974 and 1993 (Busch 2011: 214).45

Racial tensions increased during the 1950s and 1960s. In order to get around the court-mandated desegregation of public schools, the newly formed Austin Independent

School District (AISD) implemented plans to integrate only existing schools in African

American and Latinx neighborhoods. Since Latinxs were legally considered White, AISD administrators “hoped that integration between Eastside African Americans and Mexican

Americans would be enough to keep federal courts out of Austin without integrating

Anglos with minorities whatsoever” (Busch 2001: 227).46 By the 1970s, the approach fractured Austin’s racial geography “beyond repair” (ibid.:234-235). Evidence of this can be seen in the public debates in 1975 about whether 19th street would be renamed Martin

Luther King, Jr. Blvd west of I-35, or if the name would be used solely on the Eastside

(Davis 2016).

The progressive city planning initiative “Austin Tomorrow” illustrates the extent of both the fractured racial geography and the heterotopic nature of Austin’s Eastside.

Between 1972 and 1975, city planners solicited the input of Austin residents through numerous neighborhood-based meetings and developed a report that would become the primary document directing Austin’s new urban planning agenda (Busch 2011: 235-237).

The aim of Austin Tomorrow was to return city planning to the people. However, leaders of the program “lacked [a] comprehensive vision of who “the people” were,” failing to recognize the chasm that now existed between White West Austin and non-White East

45 Tretter (2017) details how Federal Housing policy changes facilitated the acquisition of land under “renewal” programs. 46 AISD stalled the process of integration well into the 1970s (Busch 227-232; Spence et al., 54) and continues to struggle with segregation, equal distribution of educational resources, and academic performance (Spence et al., 56-59).

Austin.47 The “people” were envisioned as a “fairly homogenous group whose interests and goals were at least somewhat aligned against unplanned or unmanaged growth”

(ibid.: 238). The blueprint leaders eventually implemented in 1979 sought to preserve existing divisions and protect White neighborhoods in west and northwest Austin while providing no benefits to East Austin. Busch suggests the Austin Tomorrow plan

“represents the beginning of Austin’s progressive trajectory that emphasized conserving the environment at the expense of the urban in Austin,” urban being synonymous with

East Austin and “the environment” with natural areas associated with White west Austin.

This example demonstrates the extent to which the Eastside was understood and experienced as a heterotopia of deviation: “Westside environmentalists—as well as the business elite—were “trained by history and geography to not consider the Eastside as part of Austin’s bucolic imaginary—rather the Eastside was the receptacle for the industry and dilapidation that did not fit that bucolic image” (ibid.: 188).

Austin’s racial and spatial formations are thus fundamentally bound up with each other and jointly implicated in the designated use of urban space. As Busch reminds us,

“there was no room for industry, dilapidation, or minorities in White Austin, all of which were either extricated from the landscape or concentrated in the designated ‘urban”’part of town, the urbs in horto that needed to be segregated in the pastoral imaginary that defined Austin as a natural city” (ibid.: 234-35).

The racial and socio-economic disparity mapped onto the city continued to deepen in the decades leading up to the turn of the century. In 1970, the poverty rate on the Eastside was 37.5 percent. By 1990, the rate had risen to 52% —a clear indicator that

47 Another example of the tension between White West Austin and non-White East Austin can be found in Trettor 2016.

Austin’s minority populations failed to benefit from the economic growth of the 1980s.

Hartenberger et al. (2012: 76) argue that minority residents were largely shut out of the new tech jobs, and that increases in the cost of living (largely caused by the arrival of tech companies) offset any economic benefits gained through low-level service positions in these companies. Continued economic and population growth, rising rents and property taxes, and deepening structural inequalities all contributed to a new phase of gentrification and minority exodus out of the Eastside since 2000.

Keeping Austin Weird (and White?): Austin as a Palimpsest

There is a way in which Austinites kind of know what’s happening, but no one really knows … Everyone kind of knows that African Americans were compelled to move into the so-called negro district in 1928. Everyone kind of knows that there was Jim Crow in this city [and that] it was quite profound, if not always statutory, but they don’t really fully know… People kind of know that there is [an] area of the [city] cemetery [that was] designated for the burial of African Americans, and it is completely barren today because none of the African Americans who were buried there were afforded headstones but just wooden crosses which faded over time. Everyone kind of knows that, but no one really confronts these issues, and there’s no recognition. —Eric Tang48

Numerous scholars have employed the palimpsest—a manuscript whose original writing has been scraped off so that the parchment can be written on again, but in which traces of the original writing remain—as a useful analytical tool for thinking about time and urban space.49 As Deborah Thomas states, the palimpsest enables us to “parse the

48 Eric Tang, November 29, 2016. Life of the Mind: Conversations with University of Texas Faculty about Scholarship, Ideas, and the State of Higher Education in America. Humanities Media Project, University of Texas-Austin. http://humanitiesmediaproject.org/eric-tang/. Accessed December 9, 2016. 49 The Oxford English Dictionary defines palimpsest as: “A parchment or other writing surface on which the original text has been effaced or partially erased, and then overwritten by another; a manuscript in which later writing has been superimposed on earlier (effaced) writing; a thing likened to such a writing surface, esp. in having been reused or altered while still retaining traces of its earlier form; a multilayered record.”

place of the past in the present” (2011:11). The palimpsest allows for conceptualizing current sites as multilayered temporal and physical spaces, encouraging us to embrace non-linear time/space and to reevaluate our notions of movement and change (Alexander

2006; Santos and Silveira 2001; Smith 2016; Thomas 2011). Milton Santos characterized

Brazil as a palimpsest—layers of time, movement, and superimposed information (Santos and Silveira 2001). Bruno Carvalho (2011) refers to Rio de Janeiro as a palimpsest in an effort to recover the “associations and meanings” that have “[dissipated] from shared imaginaries, personal memories or historical narratives,” to map in “time as well as in space” and thus to “render legible yet again the submerged everyday” (12-13).50 Carvalho argues that “through [the] study of artistic expressions and cultural practices…one can access and map the invisible yet ubiquitous forces of the opaque past, hidden within a city’s plural quotidian and uncertain features” (12).51

Similarly, Christen Smith (2016) draws from McKittrick (2006) to argue that the unmapped experiences of Black bodies—Black geographies hidden from view—are indeed fundamental in “shap[ing] the material environment in Bahia” (Smith 2016: 62).

Citing M. Jacqui Alexander (2006), Smith argues that palimpseptic time/space is especially helpful for uncovering the linkage between Brazil’s present and its colonial past (63). She links the palimpsest with Mbembe’s (2001) notion of entanglement52 to

“Palimpsest,” Oxford English Dictionary. 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005 Also available at http://www.oed.com/. OED Online version September 2016. 50 Carvalho’s “everyday” is based on Michel de Certeau’s work on spatial practices; 1984. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press. 51 Carvalho continues to explore the ways in which new technologies such as the radio altered the social geography of the city. Specifically, he argues that by disassociating music from a particular event, space, moment, and even the body, the radio fundamentally altered the spatial practices in the city (14-15). 52 Mbembe argues that time is not a linear series, but rather an entanglement of multi-layered, interlocking of time. He elaborates: “By age is meant not a simple category of time but a number of relationships and a configuration of events—often visible and perceptible, sometimes diffuse… but to which contemporaries could testify since very aware of them. As an age, the postcolony encloses multiple durées made up of

argue that “the Bahian palimpsest constructs the state as a scrambled space, interweaving the past, the present, and the future into simultaneity. The cultural logic of antiblack state violence in Bahia emerges from Bahia as a space of entanglement” (63).53 Smith takes this (post)colonial palimpsest even further, developing it into “palimpsestic embodiment” as an analytical tool for uncovering haunting performances and repetitions of violence on the Black body across and through time/space. In palimpsestic embodiment, “the parchment of the palimpsest—the body—is overlain by layers of violent reenactment, and the faint shadows of the text (discourses of race, violence, and the social contract) are the temporal accumulation of knowledge (sometimes conscious, sometimes subconscious) that remain embedded in the body and retained in our corporeal memory”

(165).54

I argue that the palimpsest is a useful tool for analyzing contemporary racialized spatial/temporal practices in Austin, especially those of Whiteness. Indeed, the above quote from Eric Tang illustrates the palimpsestic nature of racialized space/time in

Austin. Traces of the past remain and inform current demarcations of the city, and yet they have been etched over and obscured. Majority-White Austinites simultaneously

“kind of know” and “don’t really know” (Tang, November 29, 2016). In other words, hints of a vague and distant racial past linger, and yet are they are not fully acknowledged, discussed, or understood as relevant today. Christen Smith argues that

“Bahia is layered, revealing and concealing the violence that produces its spatial reality”

discontinuities, reversals, inertias, and swings that overlay one another, interpenetrate one another, and envelope on another: an entanglement” (14). 53 Mbembe 2001, 15-16. 54 Smith continues: “Therefore, in palimpsestic embodiment, violent encounters iterated in the present are troubled; recited sketches, plots, scenes, and narratives that emerge and reemerge. Ephemeral, nonreproducible knowledge nevertheless holds memory in its repetition… the body is a repository of temporal and spatial information” (165).

(2016: 62). Austin’s current spatial reality is produced by similar revealing/concealing, a knowing and not-really-knowing that emerges from the traces that remain while a new vision of racial diversity, cultural history, tolerance and ethical consumption is etched upon the city’s past. This dynamic is embedded within a broader discourse/performance of exceptionalism, readily found in the “Keep Austin Weird” ethos and regime of

(neo)liberal consumption, both of which, as I demonstrate below, are also fundamentally bound up with race and space.

In his 2010 book, Weird City, Joshua Long traces the development of the “Keep

Austin Weird” movement as a case study for examining the city’s sense of place, its ethos, its identity, and its branding as a “Creative City.”55 The “Keep Austin Weird” motto first emerged in spring 2000 when local librarian Red Wassenich, calling in to donate to a community radio station, claimed that he was supporting the radio show because it “helps keep Austin weird.” He felt it sounded like a slogan, and his wife,

Karen Pavelka, soon printed “Keep Austin Weird” on bumper stickers that the couple handed out to friends and at events such as the annual Spamarama festival. Shortly thereafter, a website was created and the popularity of the slogan quickly took off (Long

2010:15-16). Within a year, the original message—intended as a “free celebration of culture” that reminded Austinites of “their city’s underlying sense of nonconforming

55 Both Joshua Long (2010) and Andrew Busch (2011) write in response to urban theorist Richard Florida’s concept of the “creative class.” Florida argues that in order attract the innovative, skilled labor force and economy required for sustainable economic growth, cities need to adopt policies that promote a “cool” image; i.e., liberal places with diversity, social tolerance, a pristine environment, and abundant recreational and cultural opportunities. Austin is widely recognized as the original Creative City, and indeed both Long and Busch are quick to point out that Florida developed his thesis through an analysis of Austin. Additionally, various dynamics attracted Austin’s workforce long before Florida developed his term (Busch: 2-7, 362; Long 2010:49). While scholars have sharply critiqued Florida’s thesis, it has nonetheless gained widespread acceptance and has proved highly influential among city planners (Busch: 8-10; Long 2010: 52). Evidence of the creative thesis is certainly present in Austin’s planning initiatives of the 2000s, as well as in the quick adoption of the grassroots “Keep Austin Weird” movement. Indeed, the elements of the “creative city” continue to shape Austin’s branding.

quirkiness”—had evolved into a “rallying cry for local business promotion” and a

“trademarked marketing logo” (ibid.: 16, 93-94).

For Long, the rise of the “Keep Austin Weird” movement is not only a fitting representation of the struggle to maintain a unique sense of place and ethos of quirkiness in Austin in the face of the city’s meteoric expansion, but it also illustrates a central component of Austin’s topophilia that continues to gain widespread traction even if it has become a commercialized cliché —a sense of deviation from the standard. Long argues,

“one of the most common characteristics observable in Austinites is their ability to forge an identity dependent on the city’s dichotomous relationship with the state of Texas”

(20).56 However, Long’s analysis tends to accept and promote Austin as “weird” rather than unpacking the construction.

Significantly, the idea that Austin is a weird alternative from otherwise boring and conservative Texas cities requires a re-imagining of history. Many respondents in Long’s study suggested that the uniqueness of Austin is grounded in the city’s history of quirky

“defiant deviation” and an ethos of social tolerance dating to the 1960s or earlier (Long

2010: 23-24). For example, some point to “Austinites’ overwhelming rejection of the

1861 Secession Ordinance” (ibid. 23). Others—including Armadillo World Headquarters founder Eddie Wilson—point to the foundation of the State Lunatic Asylum, also in

1861, as responsible for not only “leaking craziness to the rest of the city” but also helping to “create a sense of tolerance among Austinites” (ibid. 23-24).

Long supports this historicization of Austin’s “weirdness,” even lending it academic weight, claiming “there are much more tangible trends that point to the burgeoning of quirkiness in the capital city” (ibid. 24). He asserts:

56 Austin as a “blue island in a sea of red” and similar descriptors are common. See Long 2010: 20-21.

Prior to the late 1960s, Austin’s status as a center for government and education created employment sectors that seemed to promote an atmosphere of relative social equity, contributing in part to circumstances unique in Texas. During the first half of the twentieth century, Austin retained a relatively low degree of exclusive, elitist enterprise common in other Sunbelt cities, a factor which allowed [for] a high level of social equity among its many government employees and academics.57

Ultimately, Long argues that “Austin’s history had a mythos that combined musical legend, Bohemianism, cultural diversity, and tolerance for individual expression” (131).

Long’s argument and that of his interlocutors completely contradict and ignore the scholarship of Busch, Tang, and Tretter. Austin’s history of forced segregation and deepening environmental and institutional racism has been recast as a history of relative tolerance, racial diversity, and quirky, alternative cultural expression. The narrative of exceptionalism represents not only a palimpsestic re-imagining of the city’s racial past, but (as the narrative increasingly informs contemporary realities of gentrification and consumption practices in Austin) also represents a palimpsestic re-inscribing of the city’s racial geography (see maps 2.5, 2.6, and 2.7).

#KeepAustinGentrified: Race, Space, and Disembodied Consumption

Rapid population growth and urban redevelopment have sparked a sort of cultural battle in Austin, with many rallying behind the banner of “Keep Austin Weird” in an effort to protect the city’s iconic landscape and local businesses, and to resist the homogenizing effects of “big-box” retailers and high-rise condos (Long 2010: 117-119).

Long’s book is replete with examples from his interlocutors that indicate a sense of struggle for the “soul” of Austin that is tied to places and practices of recreation and consumption. His participants complain about absurd prices in quirky local stores, and

57 Long 2010: 24.

Long hints at a broadening consumption divide along socioeconomic lines, but his analysis falls short of contextualizing consumption as a mode of citizenship (Canclini

2001), racialized or otherwise.

Busch’s analysis, on the other hand, explicitly links consumption with race, socioeconomic class, and politics. Specifically, he places Austin’s recent discourse about consumption within a long tradition of progressive liberalism in the city that has consistently motivated majority-White residents to “[focus] on environmental concerns much more than social concerns” (Busch 2011:363-363). Busch asserts that contemporary notions of sustainable, localized, and responsible consumption in Austin are ultimately a “neoliberal structure of feeling” wherein “discourses of privatized, autonomous consumption have taken the place of discourses of collective social justice”

(364). In other words, what, how, and where you consume are understood to be modes of socio-political activism. However, as Busch rightly demonstrates, consumption options and practices are increasingly linked to both race and geography: divided between the historic, independent, and local boutique-type options afforded considerable social capital in urban centers and the suburban fringe of “cultural deserts devoid of coolness…consumption choices and increasingly devoid of prosperity” (ibid.: 365). The result is a “fractured society where social justice is imagined to take place in the act of consumption, rather than in any cross-class social initiatives” (ibid.: 364).

Austin’s contemporary processes of redevelopment and gentrification can be placed within the city’s long tradition of liberalism driving racialized spatial practices.

Busch observes that “the regime of accumulation driving downtown redevelopment is accompanied by a discourse of sustainability that prioritizes specific forms of

consumption and gives those forms social capital. Austin’s primary modes (and nodes) of consumption and its festivals work in the interest of promoting and attracting creative class workers” (Busch 2011: 362, emphasis added). But, as Busch rightly points out,

“social capital through consumption in Austin is thus largely a reflection of [racialized] socioeconomic class relations” (ibid.: 363). The new concentration of capital, including social capital, in the central and eastern areas of the city (bars, restaurants, shops) has

“intensified the outmigration of minorities, especially African Americans… but [it] does not represent a break from historical patterns whatsoever” (ibid.: 362). In fact, it is critical to recognize that attracting and supporting the growth of “a creative, upper middle class in Austin necessarily included a diminishing lower and working class, increasingly separate from the city’s centers of power socially and geographically” (ibid.:362-363, emphasis added).

With growing outmigration of non-White residents, near Eastside neighborhoods are now also becoming “center[s] of concentration for white amusement and consumption” (Busch 2011: 357-358). And yet, processes of urban development and gentrification of Austin’s Eastside are embedded in a discourse that casts the act of accumulation within a re-imagined and re-inscribed history of cultural diversity. The removing of non-White bodies from the city center and Eastside communities is accompanied by a simultaneous celebration of the ethnic character of the historic neighborhood and its non-White cultural heritage and expressions. An advertising supplement “Spotlight on East Downtown: Enjoy hipster paradise in this trendy neighborhood” (Olsen 2017) published by the Austin-American Statesman typifies the dynamic of such gentrification. It tends to be accompanied by a form of disembodied

consumption of cultural products (music, tacos) but not the people who produce(d) them.

In effect, recent marketing celebrates Black and Latinx culture in the service of White amusement.58 Describing East Downtown as “the quintessential hipster neighborhood,”

Olivia Olsen writes that “a decade ago Austinites would rarely dare to venture to the east side of the IH 35 corridor.” Note that for Olsen, Austinites who lived east of I-35 during that period do not register as actual Austinites. Austin “proper” is synonymous with

Whiteness. Olsen clarifies that, “though the city has never been home to truly seedy or sinister areas, going east of the highway prior to the mass gentrification of downtown was not advised.” Whiteness, White supremacy, and indeed the spaces of Whiteness needed to be maintained and protected from their heterotopic reflection, the non-White Other on the eastside. However, with the non-White bodies removed, east downtown has become a

“Mecca” for hipsters and White amusement. The following passage from Olsen’s article most directly demonstrates the linkage between racialized space and disembodied non-

White cultural consumption that has accompanied gentrification in Austin:

Despite the drastic change in typical residents, East Downtown still vies to keep its original Latin flavor in both its nightlife and general atmosphere. The East side is home to a plethora of restaurants, many of which are Tex-Mex fare of varying levels of authenticity. While everyone has their favorite taco spot, Veracruz All Natural Taco Truck is a place that's perfect for the authentic hipster and taco experience.

In Olsen’s assessment, the distinctive (i.e., non-White) culture of the neighborhood continues to exist despite being separated from the bodies that produced it. (White) hipsters-cum-Austinites enact and embody Austin’s urban brand by consuming— literally—the exotic flavor and spice of the palimpsestic eastside.

58 The article was published online on Tuesday June 27th and appeared in print in the Saturday July 1, 2017 edition of the newspaper. Responding to an uproar of criticism, The Austin-American Statesman removed the article from its website and issued the following apology: “An article about East Austin in the advertising supplement Homes in Saturday’s paper had an unfair characterization of the neighborhood’s past. The story, which was written by a content marketing freelancer, did not receive the proper review before publication, and we apologize for the oversight.” See Jones 2017.

Figure 6: A Facebook user posted this image with the statement: "Austin American- Statesman should be ashamed of themselves for publishing this shit! Thanks for doing your part to #KeepAustinGentrified...assholes!” July 1, 2017.

An other example of palimpsestic celebration of the Eastside’s ethnic heritage in the face of gentrification can be found in art professor John Yancey’s 2003 mosaic mural,

“Rhapsody,” located in Dr. Charles E. Urdy Plaza on East 11th Street. Depicting musicians and scenes of everyday life in the community, the mural celebrates East

Austin’s rich musical and cultural heritage. Before 6th street dominated Austin’s entertainment district, Black clubs on East 11th and 12th streets formed a cultural and economic hub on the Eastside, as well as an important stop on the national Chitlin Circuit

(Busch 2011: 368; Hix 2016). Yancy explains that the intent of the piece was in part to

“create a permanent marker [of the centrality of Black and Hispanic culture to the area] in the fear that what was will not be there anymore and the people who were there will not be there anymore” (Hix 2016).

Figure 7: “Rhapsody” by John Yancey. 2003. Photo from: Fun Free Austin, 2014. http://freefuninaustin.com/2014/03/exploring-austins-street-art-murals-mosaics/.

According to music critic Michael Corcoran, the music scene on the Eastside is thriving, although it is now “full of ‘white music’” (cited in Hix 2016). In similar fashion while analyzing the city of Bahia, Christen Smith notes that “the celebration of black culture etches over historical violence—a metaphor for the region and the nation writ large”

(2016: 62). One could argue that Austin might benefit from similar analysis. Indeed, in an area that is increasingly devoid of non-White residents and a space of White entertainment and consumption, the mural “Rhapsody” serves as a palimpsestic celebration of the neighborhood’s ethnic character and heritage. For many White

Austinites, the mural reinforces the etching over of the city’s racial-spatial history; it

celebrates a contemporary narrative of defiant racial tolerance and cultural diversity that is simultaneously linked to White discourses of sustainably, localized consumption and

Austin’s unique sense of place/character.

Musical performance is, of course, tied to consumption, and listening to music is an activity fundamental to the very heart of Austin’s branding, its mythologized history and character, and the city’s economy. One recent incident in particular involving the all-

Latina DJ collective Chulita Vinyl Club underscores the connection between spatio-racial formation, music, and palimpsestic articulations of community via disembodied consumption in Austin. Chulita Vinyl Club (CVC) is a female collective that originally formed in Austin in 2014. Journalist Jeanne Claire von Ryzin describes CVC as “equal measures music club and group articulation of cultural identity. Yes, members spin records at gigs. But they also create their own space to talk and share music, exchange info on the technological techniques and art of DJing, a male-dominated arena (Ryzin

2018). CVC Austin leader Xochi Solis (DJ Mira Mira) explains “[CVC] provides us with an avenue, a safe space to talk about identity and social justice issues. It’s empowering for us to have a voice and a platform” (ctd. in Ryzin 2018).

On July 28, 2017 CVC was hired to open for the Austin-based Colombian funk band Superfónicos at the opening of the new venue Caroline in the Aloft Hotel on the corner of 7th St. and Congress. Caroline’s management “told the DJs to get back on stage” for an additional set as the audience demanded an encore after the Superfónicos’ performance (Solomon 2017). About 45 minutes into the second set, assistant manager

Michael Childress rudely told the women to immediately stop the music because, “this hotel does not play Latin music. Change that now.” (Soloman 2017). CVC recorded their

conversation with Childress after the sound was abruptly cut-off, and the incident sparked considerable attention on social media (Spearman 2017; Soloman 2017). The claim that the venue did not play Latin music is indeed confusing given that they hired a Colombian funk band who are explicit about the politics of their musicking. Days later, the general manager David Meisner released a statement arguing that the “request” to end their set earlier was not about the “genre”—by which he seems to be referring to Latin music—or that the lyrics were in Spanish. Rather, he suggested that “In preparing for the last couple hours of service at the restaurant, we wanted to switch the tempo of the music” (ctd. in

Soloman 2017).

CVC understands the incident as a White man’s violent disrespect of Latinas and as part of a broader trend of cultural appropriation and disembodied cultural consumption in Austin. Venues like Caroline want diverse cultural products but not necessarily the people that produce them. Despite the fact that Latinxs now comprise “roughly 32% of

Austin’s metro population and 35% of Austin proper,” Spearman claims “local businesses sometimes operate with an unspoken policy of ‘heritage without the people’.

Cultural [products] originating from people of color are commodified and made noninclusive” (2017). Xochi Solis notes that in the aftermath of the incident “We got a lot of folks wanting us to play their space, who, in my opinion and our founder's opinion, may or may not be gentrifiers, but they wanted us to play so they'd have the Chulita stamp of approval…They're all, 'Oh, can you come play us? We promise we won't turn you off.' [My reaction is that] 'We're about building community, but we don't know you, and I think you see us as a token’” (ctd. in Spearman 2017, emphasis added). CVC member Claudia Aparicio adds, “We don’t need an apology. We don’t want this to

happen to anyone else…We’re tired of being disrespected. [We’re tired of] the community and the culture being taken … but not everything that comes with it” (quoted in Solomon 2017, emphasis added). Aparicio articulates frustration with the “heritage without the people” dynamic embedded in many forms of cultural consumption in

Austin, inseparably linked to its urban brand.

Aparicio’s comment about a selective consumption of culture—“not wanting everything that comes with it”—is strikingly similar to a statement by Austin Samba

School drummer Cristina. While elaborating on the benefit of Brazilian ensembles in

Austin, she explains, “First, [I believe the groups are making a positive contribution because they] bring something from Brazil, a new… how can I put this?… [They show us] Brazil—Brazilian culture, let’s put it that way: Brazilian culture, because [the groups] don’t bring the problems, it’s just Brazilian culture” (emphasis added).59 In other words,

Cristina understands that the Brazilian performance groups in Austin are not interested in the socio-economic and cultural issues that produced and continue to shape Afro-

Brazilian music and dance, but simply in the music and dance themselves as cultural products divorced from their wider context and offered up for consumption and amusement.

In Austin, Brazilian ensembles operate within the context of spatio-racial formations that are both (trans)national, as discussed in chapter 1, and highly localized.

The remainder of this chapter highlights the ways in which Brazilian music performance groups insert themselves into this dynamic and resonate with or reinforce certain aspects of Austin’s urban brand and palimpsestic spatio-racial practices.

59 “Primeiro, de trazer uma coisa do Brasil, uma nova… como é q posso dizer... pra mostrar o Brasil, a cultura brasileira, vamos colocar assim, cultura brasileira, porque [os grupos] não traz[em] os problemas, é só a cultura brasileira.” Interview with Cristina, 10/12/2017.

Alice in Austinland: the Mad Spectacle of Samba in Austin Austinites typically view performances of Brazilian music—the large drum ensembles like Maracatu Texas and Austin Samba School in particular—as part of a broader aesthetic of hip and quirky weirdness that defines Austin’s brand. Sarah, an

African-American who danced with the Austin Samba School for three years, described samba in Austin as “funky and cool.”60 The often-unexpected spectacle of dancers in feathered costumes and the commanding sound of more than 40 drummers tend to grab people’s attention, even in the “live music capitol of the world.” Sarah’s comments on her first encounter with the School are typical. She was hanging out at Ruta Maya (a popular coffeehouse and bar until rising rents caused the South Congress location to close):

I’m there drinking a beer and reading a book, and the samba [group] just busts in with all their drums and dancers and feathers and shit, and I was like, “what the hell is going on here?” [laughs] It’s insane, it’s so crazy, just so random. I don’t remember seeing it advertised anywhere.... I was like, oh my God, who are these people? What is this?

Sarah recalls and describes that moment as “crazy.” The fact that she was not expecting live music no doubt heightened her surprise. However, even when audience members are expecting a performance, the samba school stands out. As drummer Cristina puts it, “a gente chega chegando” (roughly, [when] we arrive, we [really] arrive). According to one

Austin Carnival Brasileiro attendee, “[a] 40-person drum troupe? that’s something to see.”61

60 Interview 6/26/2017. 61 Anonymous interviewee, quoted in the Carnaval Brasiliero Austin Official Video 2014. https://youtu.be/2bQBb21I4yE, accessed Jan. 26, 2018.

The barista at Ruta Maya informed Sarah that the samba school was promoting their upcoming gig, Austin Carnaval Brasileiro—which he described to Sarah by saying

“[they] just do a big party [downtown], it’s [a] pretty adult party, you know, just like

Carnival is pretty adult.” Surprised to hear there was an annual Carnaval event in Austin,

Sara later went to see them. “And I was like, ‘This is INSANE! This is insane that they have this indoors,’ and I was like, ‘I have to be a part of this. I have to figure out how to be part of this group.’ Because it was just so insane and the energy was just so crazy and it was so different from what I usually dance.” Note that Sara describes the dancing in the samba school as “crazy,” extraordinary, and “different.”

Jessica, a bi-racial Samba School member who has performed with the group for several years as both a dancer and a chocalho player, expressed a similar experience.

After seeing the school perform at the Austin Carnaval event, Jessica claims “I was just so impressed with the joy and the energy of the group. Especially when they added in the dancers, and the dancing group just got bigger and bigger every year. I said [to myself], ‘I don’t care what I need to do to be part of this, I don’t care where they put me, I just want to be a part of this group!’”62

Mike Quinn, organizer of Austin Carnaval Brasileiro since 1978, specifically links the event with the narrative of Austin as uniquely weird, liberal and open. The event’s official webpage declares, “This is an Austin story, one that has yet to really take off in Houston, Dallas or San Antonio, despite larger Brazilian (and other Latin) populations, consular officers, and potential public interest [in those cities].” The concluding paragraph of the webpost is full of references to Austin’s historic and celebrated quirkiness:

62 Interview 11/9/17

Carnaval has emerged and thrived in Austin, because long ago it became a city of open attitudes and spontaneity, due in large part to the university influence. Now that bohemian attitude has mixed with just enough business sense and hard work to make music happen in a way that is attracting attention from around the world. Perhaps the greatest monument to that spirit—the defunct Armadillo World Headquarters—is now just a memory. But Austin’s Carnaval Brasileiro, our peculiar winterfest of flesh and fantasy, was nurtured in that unique semi- cohesive, culture-conscious environment, and [it] still flowers every February (emphasis added).

The Austin Samba School is invested in promoting Brazilian music and culture as fundamentally embedded within the ethos of the city. It has performed annually at Austin

Carnaval Brasileiro since the mid-2000s. In 2011 the school collaborated with local

Brazilian musician Anne Simoni to write an original enredo or theme song. That year, the school’s carnaval theme was Alice in Wonderland, and the enredo they performed was the school’s first original theme song. Simoni explains, “we decided to put some personal elements and we decided to call it ‘Alice in Austinland,’ being you know, Alice being everybody that’s in love with Austin, and … the wonderland [representing] a lot of people, including me.”63

In the lyrics of the enredo, Alice goes down the rabbit hole to find “her fantasy”—

Austin, a “paradise” whose “talking flowers” can “drown her sorrows.” Her adventures take her through Zilker Park, arm-in-arm with the Cheshire cat, and after drinking a “mad tea” she dances samba with the Mad Hatter, loses her boots and, “in a very Brazilian plot,

[awakes] to the sound of the pandeiro” (see the full lyrics in the appendix to this chapter).

Austin is celebrated as a real-life Wonderland; as the Cheshire Cat famously quipped,

“we’re all mad here.” Significantly, Austin is also a place where Alice can overcome her

63 Interview with Michael Crocket on KUT’s radio program Horizontes, February 2011, included in a video posted to Anne Simoni’s Youtube, March 18, 2011. https://youtu.be/FNg07mKFwrI. Accessed Jan 26th, 2018.

sadness and relieve her boredom by drinking and dancing samba. Austin’s ethos, then, is performed and embodied via samba-dance fantasy.

Another example comes from 2016 when the Austin Samba adopted “Texas” as their enredo. In addition to their regular appearance at Carnaval Brasileiro, the group produced an independent show entitled Texas! A Horse Opera. which premiered at the

Stateside Theatre at the Paramount on February 6. With support from the Museums and

Culture Programs, a component of the City of Austin’s Park and Recreation Department,

Austin Samba gave an additional free performance of Texas! at the Zilker Hillside

Theatre on April 2.

The official advertisement for the show on Facebook opens with the following description: “Think cattle and cowboys, blues and rock, spangles and feathers, glitter and gold, samba and country…that’s the story of Texas’ musical history fused with Brazilian

Carnaval magic. Join us for the kitschiest Carnaval event in the weirdest town in the strangest state in the U.S.! (emphasis added).64 The advertisement specifically frames the bizarre juxtaposition of “Texas’ musical history fused with Brazilian Carnaval magic” as typical of Austin — “the weirdest town in the strangest state in the U.S.!” Texas is presented as strange precisely because of Austin’s “defiant” quirkiness persists as a liberal blue dot alternative to the conservative sea of red—a juxtaposition unto itself.

64 Austin Samba presents “Texas! A Horse Opera” Saturday, February 6, 2016 at Stateside at the Paramount. Facebook Event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/928227427224314/, accessed January 30, 2018.

Figure 8: Austin Samba School performing Texas! A Horse Opera. Photo: KLRU-TV. From “High-energy Austin dance group brings international flavor to Texas” by KLRU-TV/Austin PBS. http://austin.culturemap.com/news/arts/04-01-16- austin-samba-school-klru-arts-in-context-pbs-dance-horse-opera/#slide=0. Accessed January 30, 2018.

The advertisement continues and merits citing at length:

“Texas! A Horse Opera” is a unique fusion of classic Texana and Brazilian carnaval, where fifty performers from Austin Samba and Special guests will bring a whirlwind of sizzling rhythm, beautiful choreography, color and joy of life to the Stateside Theater state. The show is a wild ride through the music and cultures of our beautiful state presenting everything from “Rawhide” and “Happy Trails to You” to energetic tributes to Selena, Willie Nelson, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Mance Libscomb, Freddie King, Stevie Ray Vaughn, ZZ Top, Asleep at the Wheel and Bob Wills..who is still “the King”. Mix that all with traditional Brazilian drum and dance, and you’ve got an experience you can only find in Austin. Cinch up your saddles and hold onto your hats…and don’t forget to wear your boots (or feathers)! (emphasis added).

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Note that Texas’ musical culture is defined as a multicultural mix, further supporting the claim that Texas is ‘the strangest state” and lending a sort of natural authenticity to the

“unique fusion” of two-step and samba. Yet, Austin is unquestionably the catalyst that enables the mixture of “classic Texana” with “the heart-pounding beats of traditional

Brazilian drums, dazzling costumes and stunning, intricate dance numbers.”65 The promotion of the show celebrates not just Texas, but Austin—and Austin’s brand of eccentric fun and multicultural inclusion in particular. As Robert Patterson, the director of Austin Samba elaborates, “we wanted to make it campy, that was the other thing. We don’t want to make fun of anybody, but we wanted to have fun and not be afraid to have cows hoppin’ around and partying on stage.”66 Texas! A Horse Opera, a quirky spectacle of drummers dressed as cows performing “‘Rawhide,’ you know, [that] quintessentially

Texan song, on top of “samba Afro-beat”67 is indeed, “an experience you can only find in

Austin.”

It is worth briefly highlighting that the advertisement describes the “wild ride through the music and cultures of our beautiful state” by listing a number of famous

Texas musicians, all of whom are either Black or White men save one exception—

Selena, the only woman and the only Latinx performer included.68 Significantly, while

Texas’ musical heritage is diverse and legendary, the White western-swing band leader

65 This quotation is from the Facebook invitation for the April 2nd performance of Texas! A Horse Opera at Zilker Hillside Theater, which is an elaboration of “mix that all with traditional Brazilian drum and dance” found in the February 6th Hillside Theatre advert. For the April 2nd Zilker Hillside Theater ad, see https://www.facebook.com/events/545098092317726/, accessed Jan. 30, 2018. 66 “Arts in Context Shorts: Alegria do Samba” KLRU / PBS. March 29, 2016. http://www.klru.org/blog/2016/03/arts-in-context-short-austin-samba-schools-alegria-do-samba/. Accessed January 30, 2018. 67 ibid. 68 In informal conversations with an influential and long-time Austin Samba drummer, I was told that initial discussions included some performers dressed as Native Americans, although those plans were dropped.

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Bob Wills “is still ‘the King’.” Texas, despite diversity, is nevertheless constructed as a primarily White space. Musical sounds associated with a stylized rural Whiteness and personified in a White man maintain control over (O)ther representations and bodies. The

Bob Wills example illustrates the conflation of space, race, and sounds as registered or rendered through the body, a topic that I elaborate on in the final section of this chapter, below. In it, I present an ethnographic vignette that illustrates the ways in which Brazilian music performance fits within Austin’s urban brand while it simultaneously draws attention to how spatio-racial formations are enacted in the body. As such, the example serves to link two central components of this dissertation, connecting spatial analyses to the focus on embodied performance and racial drag.

Keeping it Weird with Bossa Nova and Kayaks: Race, Space, and Embodiment69 July, 2015:

Ana, a well-known (and successful) Austin-based Brazilian Singer, was booked to play Latino Moonlight Serenades,“a uniquely Austin event” that invites paddlers to “embrace the evening breeze while under the light of the moon.” Participants “float calmly on kayaks and canoes to a quiet area on the lake” where “local bands play and sing Latin romantic music.”70 The event organizers even encourage spectators to climb onto the musicians’ barge to dance. Since her full band would not fit and her keyboards are not ideal for what was rumored to be an unstable stage on a boat, Ana opted for more portable and flexible accompaniment: myself on acoustic guitar and João on percussion (pandeiro, cajón, and tamborim). Waiting for the boat to arrive, the three of us, unsure what to expect, joke nervously about the sturdiness of the boat and whether we should wear life jackets. The

69 Unless otherwise noted, all names are pseudonyms. 70 http://www.texasrowingcenter.com/latino_programs.htm (accessed Oct 20, 2015.)

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musicians’ barge—literally three canoes lashed together under a plywood platform, complete with a bench and a trolling motor—finally arrives late and we look at each other asking “what have we gotten ourselves into?” As we load our equipment, Ana says to João and me, “Only in Austin!” Joining us on the barge are two couples sitting in Texas-flag-decorated lawn chairs—the event’s founder and his wife, a Latino couple in their fifties; and the boat driver and his wife, a White American couple in their late forties. Once underway, we play mainly bossa nova standards mixed with a few MPB (música popular brasileira) classics and an original by Ana.

Figure 9: Latino Moonlight Serenades. Austin Tx. July 31, 2015. Right to Left: the author, Ana, and João. Photo: Laíse Viana.

Three songs into our set, Ana pauses to introduce the band. To her left she introduces João, pointing out he is from Olinda in the northeast of Brazil. In accented English, she explains that she is from Rio. Finally, she turns to me on her right, saying

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into the microphone, “and on guitar, Cory…, where are you from, Cory?” As I start to explain, the wife of the barge driver (a middle-aged, White American women with blonde hair) yells out, “He’s the White guy!” Laughing, we confirm that I’m the White guy from Houston. The songs are well received and the audience engages enthusiastically. Not surprisingly, the crowd-favorite is Ana singing both the English and Portuguese lyrics of The Girl from Ipanema. More than once, audience members leave their canoes and kayaks, climbing up on the barge to dance in the cramped space. I focus hard, trying to read the charts while not falling off my stool as dancers bump into my music stand and the boat rocks and sways heavily. Throughout the show the event’s founders express their love of the music, the Brazilian rhythms and Portuguese lyrics, although I detect some disappointment when, after a few unsuccessful attempts, they realize that they cannot play along with our repertoire using a güiro scrapper, normally on hand to accompany merengues. After the gig, as we’re packing up our instruments on the dock, Ana says to João and me, “Bom, foi muito divertido. Foi uma aventura!” (Well, that was a lot of fun. It was an adventure!). ______

While certain things about this particular event might be atypical—performing music in canoes, for example—the scenario is nonetheless representative of the broader

Brazilian music scene in Austin. Race, nationality, “Latinness,” authenticity, and urban branding are all explored, negotiated, and ultimately defined via the performance and reception of Brazilian music. Specifically, the Moonlight Serenade example demonstrates how Brazilian music performance is incorporated into both urban branding and racial formation.

Latino Moonlight Serenades fuses together three key aspects of Austin’s branding: as a center of live music, as a green city full of opportunities for outdoor sports and cultivating a healthy active lifestyle, and as a space of eccentric inclusion. Concert goers listen (and sometimes dance) to live music while paddling on an urban lake, gazing

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toward 6th street tucked away in downtown’s entertainment district as the setting sun strikes the city’s skyline. The juxtaposition of music and kayaks works to “keep Austin weird,” reproducing the city’s reputation as an exceptionally fun, environmental, and eccentric urban center.71

The alternative performance context features exclusively Latin music, creating a quirky space meant for non-racist, multi-cultural encounter. And yet race is centrally present and unproblematized. Shows take place in the heart of White Austin, functioning to exclude many non-White participants; concertgoers keep it weird and have fun by encountering and consuming the sounds and stereotypes of “Latinness.” Latinxs are stereotyped as exotics whose hypersexuality spills over into romantic music and sensual dance. The “Austin Area Paddlers” group on Meetup.com promotes Latino Moonlight

Serenades to their members, suggesting “You might ‘Get Lucky,’”72 that the Latino serenades may facilitate potential sexual conquests. Similarly, Austin Carnaval Brasileiro is overtly sexualized, and the promotion of nude and semi-nude bodies has become a principle marketing point.73 Samba and other Brazilian rhythms provide the soundtrack for this “peculiar winterfest of flesh and fantasy” which has gained a reputation as a

“pretty adult party.” As one White female Carnaval Brasiliero attendee referred to her experience in this way: “So sexy. So free.”74

71 For more on the development of Austin’s sense of place, see Swearingen Jr., 2010 who focuses on the natural environment, and Long 2010, who focuses on the “keep Austin weird” movement. For a discussion of the intersection of these issues with race, economics, and urban planning, see Busch. 72 ND, na. “Fri 7/31, 7pm, Latino Serenades, TX Rowing Dock, Newbies Welcome, Rentals RSVP” Austin Area Paddlers Meetup.com. http://www.meetup.com/AustinAreaPaddlers/events/224308363/ Accessed Oct 27, 2015. 73 I elaborate on stereotypes about mulatas, sexuality, and the male gaze in chapter 3. 74 Anonymous interviewee, quoted in the Carnaval Brasiliero Austin Official Video 2014. https://youtu.be/2bQBb21I4yE, accessed Jan. 26, 2018.

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Ultimately, what is most interesting about this and other performances in the

Brazilian music scene in Austin is not the racial stereotypes in-and-of themselves, but rather how the performance of stereotypes contributes to the construction of Whiteness via a cosmopolitan desire for the exotic-erotic. More than simply indicating the prevalence of stereotypes framing the event, the “you might ‘get lucky’” and “so sexy, so free” comments suggest that Whites can explore their own sexuality through a deviant excursion outside the supposed restraints of Whiteness by consuming and embodying an imagined (Afro) Latin sexuality.

Especially interesting is how race — Whiteness in particular — is performed and policed in performance contexts. While I was the only American in the Latino Moonlight

Serenades band, I was not the only “White person” performing. Ana, with White skin, freckles, light brown hair, and European features, is White by both U.S. and Brazilian racial/phenotype standards. And yet during the performance, racial boundaries tend to be aligned with nationality and Otherness: “American” is understood as White, “Brazilian” is not, regardless of phenotype. Sounds —from the perfect pronunciation of Brazilian

Portuguese, to accented English, and even performance on the pandeiro — establish certain bodies as Brazilian. In this case, Whiteness becomes a marker of (in)authenticity.

For Latino Moonlight Serenades participants (non-Latinxs especially), the object of desire is the authentic, sensual, and erotic-exotic Brazilian/Latinx. Further, Whiteness- cum-nationality is an identity status to be protected: Ana, therefore, cannot be “White.”

Similarly, the “he’s the White guy!” utterance is central and it reveals much about

Whiteness. It marks me as out of place, the only non-Brazilian. On one hand, the utterance might underscore that my performance of Brazilian music with Brazilians is

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“weird” and breaks with normal Whiteness. On the other hand, it identifies inauthenticity and might suggest a near comical or inept attempt to perform Brazilian music. Either way, within Latino Moonlight Serenades’ space of multicultural encounter, utterances such as these normalize Whiteness-cum-(U.S.)Americaness as well as the otherness of

Latinxs. I was the non-exotic, which heightened the exotic out-of-placeness of the

Brazilians. By virtue of occupying the same stage, I embodied the ability of Whiteness to not only gaze, but to touch and consume non-White Others. My presence, while certainly unanticipated, nevertheless became a mechanism with which to control non-White subjectivity and prevent its entry into the privileged realm of U.S. Whiteness.

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Ch. 2 Appendix

Map 1: 1880 Black and Latinx distribution. Historical data plotted on contemporary map of Austin. Source: Austin-American Statesman, Zehr 2015.

The African American population is distributed throughout downtown and in Wheatville.

“African American” Households “Hispanic” Households ▬ East Avenue/I-35 Downtown z Wheatville neighborhood z “Old Mexico” neighborhood

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Map 2: 1910 Black and Latinx distribution. Historical data plotted on contemporary map of Austin. Source: Austin-American Statesman, Zehr 2015

The African American population is still distributed throughout downtown, but with increased concentration in the eastside as well as Clarksville.

“African American” Households “Hispanic” Households ▬ East Avenue/I-35 Downtown z Wheatville neighborhood z Clarksville neighborhood z “Old Mexico” neighborhood

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Map 3: 1940 Racial Identification in Austin. Data from US Census which only registered two racial categories: White (which included “Hispanic”) and Black. Source: Tretter, 2012.

Note that by 1940, the African American population is mostly concentrated in the eastside. White Black ▬ East Avenue/I-35

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Map 4: 1980 Racial Identification in Austin. Data from US Census. “Hispanic” registered for 1st time in Austin. Source: Tretter, 2012. White Black Hispanic ▬ East Avenue/I-35

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Map 5: 1990 Racial Identification in Austin. Data from US Census. Source: Tretter, 2012. Note the increase in White population in both Black and Hispanic eastside neighborhoods. White Black Hispanic ▬ East Avenue/I-35

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Map 6: 2000 Racial Identification in Austin. Data from US Census. Source: Tretter, 2012. Note that the concentration of Whites in the eastside is roughly consistent with the 1990 map 5. However, by 2010 (map 7), the White population in East Austin increases dramatically. White Black Hispanic ▬ East Avenue/I-35

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Map 7: 2010 Racial Identification in Austin. Data from US Census. Source: Tretter, 2012.

Note the increased White, and decreased Black and Latinx populations on the eastside.

White Black Hispanic ▬ East Avenue/I-35

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Table 1- Racial Composition of the Population of Austin, Texas 1890-1930. Source: Tretter 2012.

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Name Address Location Sahara Lounge 1413 Webberville Rd Eastside Historic Scoot Inn 1308 E 4th St, Eastside Boteco Food Truck 1403 E 7th St, Eastside Esquina Tango 209 Pedernales St Eastside Antone’s 305 E 5th St Downtown Stateside at the Paramount 716 Congress Avenue Downtown One2One Bar 1509 S. Lamar Blvd. South-Central ZACH Theater 202 S Lamar Blvd South-central Zilker Hillside Theater 2206 William Barton Dr, South-west Central Market North 4001 North Lamar North-central Osker Blues Brewery 10420 Metric Blvd North Iron Cactus North 10001 Stonelake Blvd North-west

Table 2: Partial List of Venues where Brazilian Ensembles perform in Austin

This table presents a partial list of venues where Brazilian bands frequently perform. By including the addresses of these venues and their general location in Austin, my aim is to provide a quite point of reference for where Brazilian performance is occurring in Austin. Notice that performances are not concentrated in one area, but occur throughout the city. Most importantly, Brazilian bands perform primarily in Austin’s popular entertainment districts, and thus should be viewed as an active part of the city’s broader live music culture.

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[A1] Cansada de fazer nada, Alice segue o coelho Tired of doing nothing, entusiasmada. Alice follows the rabbit enthusiastically, Caindo no seu abismo, e encontrando a sua Falling in his abyss terra encantada. And finding her enchanted land Com suas noites cheia de energia With its nights full of energy Austin é sua fantasia Austin is her fantasy Calando a sua madrugada It is warmth in her dawn

[A2] Com a chave desse paraíso, With the key of [this] paradise Alice segue enxugando a suas lagrimas Alice follows wiping her tears Põe no rosto um novo sorriso She puts a new smile on her face E com as flores falantes And, with the talking flowers, she drowns her Ela afoga suas mágoas. sorrows

[Refrão] [Refrain] E assim ela vai And so she goes…

Vai de braços dados Goes arm in arm with the Cheshire Cat Com o gato risonho Through Zilker Park Pelo Zilker Parque She carries her dream vai levando teu sonho

Entrou o Rei de Copas, The King of Hearts enters Nesse jogo de carta, In this card game Entre claves e notas Between notes and clefs, Não tem trapaça There is no cheating. [B] Bebeu do chá dos loucos She drank the mad tea, Cresceu e ficou forte Grew and became strong Brigou com a Rainha de Copas She clashed with the Queen of Hearts Foi ameaçada de morte, Was threatened with death Sambou com o chapeleiro She danced samba with the mad hatter, Perdeu a suas botas And lost her boots Num enredo bem brasileiro In a very Brazilian plot/theme, Alice acordou ao som do pandeiro Alice awoke to the sound of the pandeiro

Table 3 “Alice in Austinland”

Samba Enredo 2011 Austin Carnival Brasileiro Music and lyrics: Anne Simoni Written for Acadêmicos da Ópera The Austin Samba School

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PART II RACIAL DRAG

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Chapter 3

Embodying Brazilianness: Performance, the Body, and Racial Drag

Maracatu Texas at Sahara Lounge The Sahara Lounge is on the eastside, on Webberville road, and the venue regularly holds world music performances. Brazilian bands perform at least once a month in an event that is promoted as Africa Night: Afro-Brazilian, Brazilian, and Afro-Beat music, with free buffet and parking. Shows at Sahara are consistently more racially diverse than other Brazilian performances spaces, although White Austinites still constitute the majority of attendees.

As Maracatu Texas perform, they sway back and forth in choreographed rhythm, and I notice that some audience members dance samba to the baque-virado rhythms performed on alfaias.75 I wonder why? Do they hear maracatu as samba? Do they hear an underlying rhythm that they can line-up samba steps with? What is clear, however, that they understand samba dancing as Brazilian and that maracatu is also Brazilian.

Until Joaquim, a Brazilian dance instructor based in Austin, takes a prominent position in front of the dance floor and begins a stylized dance based on the movements of the abê performers as well as those of the Royal Court of a maracatu-nação. His dance is the stylized maracatu dance developed and promoted by folkloric percussion ensembles that perform maracatu-nação (Maracatu Texas self-identifies as this kind of grupo percussivo). Immediately, dancers (and audience members who had not yet started

75 Bass drum, the most prominent and iconic instrument that characterizes maracatu-nação, also known as maracatu de baque-virado, an Afro-Brazilian musical and cultural form from Recife, in the northeastern state of Pernambuco. I elaborate on Maracatu, including the distinction between a “maracatu-nação” and a “percussion group” in the next chapter.

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dancing) join in and imitate Joaquim’s dance. Joaquim in turn leads them in a maracatu choreography. A group of twenty or so dancers, all moving exactly the same way as

Maracatu Texas sings “Nagô, Nagô, nossa rainha já se cororou!” (Nagô (person of

Yoruba descent) Nagô, our Queen has already been crowned). Maracatu Texas’ leader,

João, introduces the group saying they play “music from the northeast of Brazil,” elaborating that maracatu comes from Afro-Brazilian communities and represents a form of resistance. However, he does not elaborate on what is being resisted or how the music acts as a form of resistance. Additionally, the lyrics of the songs are not discussed. Thus, majority-White Austinites embody maracatu dance, copying Joaquim, an Afro-Brazilian, without understanding the lyrics or their significance.

______

Music is a profoundly corporal experience, whether performing (in the sense of producing musical sounds with the voice, body, and instruments) or via various modes of consumption, from dancing—obviously physical—to what might be called more

“passive” forms of listening. Suzzane Cusick argues that “musical performances … are often the accompaniment of ideas performed through bodies by the performance of bodies” (Cusick 1999: 27). John Burdick, in discussing the voice with Black gospel singers in São Paulo, concludes that timbre is an “eminently physical experience”

(Burdick 2013: 141). For audience members, the body is the “most readily available sign to interpret and understand” in the musical performance (Robitaille 2014: 235). For

Brazilian ensemble members, the body becomes the primary site for learning, knowing,

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contesting, negotiating, and ultimately performing and reproducing knowledge, including racialized stereotypes and notions of the self.

The opening vignette indicates the ways in which Austinites perform Brazil through movement. The little contextual and historical information presented by

Maracatu Texas is incorporated into the broader range of sounds and associations that audience members come to learn about maracatu, about Brazil, through movement. They participate for the most part by imitating the seemingly authentic movements of Joaquim; the authenticity of his movements is further established by his non-White appearance.

Whether audience members insist on dancing samba or follow closely Joaquim’s maracatu dance, Austinites drag Brazilian and, in the process, perform Austin’s quirky cosmopolitanism to the rolling sounds of alfaias and a gonguê (single bell used in maracatu-nação).

This chapter investigates the centrality and primacy of the body in Brazilian music and dance performance in Austin, Texas. I start with the ways in which the body emerges in discussions about Brazilian music. Particular the attention is paid to the physicality of the body—muscle memory, movements, postures, gestures— in learning the repertoire and effective performance. I then consider what processes of embodied knowledge mean for racial formation. Finally, I explore the various ways in which

Americans come to “embody” Brazilianness, analyzing this topic via performative theory, racial interpellation, and a broader (trans)national historical context of blackface minstrelsy.

My argument in this section is that the modes of embodiment (as analyzed through how performers discuss their performances of Brazilian music and dance)

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articulate a kind blackface, what I am calling “racial drag,” or playing at being Brazilian.

Here, Brazilianness is understood as non-White; it invokes an “Afro-Latinness” in which stereotypes about Latinx bodies and sensuality are enmeshed with stereotypes of Black physicality and sexuality. Further, the association of Latinness with sensuality emerges from historic linkages to Africanness across the Caribbean and South America, associations most commonly found in the mulata. As Alison Fraunhar (2002) observes,

“since at least the 18th century, tropic images of women of mixed African and European heritage, or mulatas, have been the privileged site for the production and projection of erotic, spiritual and nationalist fantasies” (219). Ensemble members in Austin are all aware of the Afro-Brazilian origins of the music and dance they perform. Thus, invoking

Brazilianness and Brazilian music in the United States invokes Blackness, and I use the terms Brazilianness and Blackness interchangeably in that sense. My use of Blackness and Brazilianness as synonyms is informed by Saidiya Hartman’s conceptualization:

“blackness incorporates subjects normatively defined as black, the relations among blacks, Whites, and others, and the practices that produce racial difference” (Hartman

1997: 57). Employing Hartman’s framework, performing Brazilianness/Blackness includes “various modes of performance and performativity that concern the production of racial meaning and subjectivity, the nexus of race, subjection, and spectacle, and forms of racial and race(d) pleasure, enactments of White dominance and power, and the reiteration and/or rearticulation of the conditions of enslavement” (ibid.).

Feeling the Inexplicable

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Vanessa and I are talking about her experience playing in Brazilian music ensembles in Austin. Vanessa is from Recife, and she didn’t play music in any organized way before joining Trem do Samba and Maracatu Texas. She laughs as she explains that her dad—whom she affectionately calls um boémio (a bohemian)—would bring her to bars in Recife and she would accompany his playing with a shaker. Our conversation switches between English and Portuguese as we wind through a number of topics. At one point, Vanessa relates to me the profound corporal affect that she often experiences playing afoxé music in Maracatu Texas. She tells me that when she was in college she worked at a cultural center where she facilitated tours for college students and foreign researchers with several local cultural entities, including Candomblé temples. She tells me:

When I was older and I went to Casa de Xambá76, I remember I almost cried there, talking to them. Many times when I’m playing [ijéxa rhythms of afoxé music] with Maracatu Texas… it really speaks to me and I feel like crying. It’s just, like so personal, and, I don’t know how to explain it—it takes over. It takes me to another place, it’s a moment I just want to take in and experience … Even rehearsing, there were moments where I told [the director]: “I felt this too close to me” [too personally]. Like, I had goose bumps, like my body [was] just… changing at the moment that we were playing: Ooh, [it was] too close [laughs] (emphasis added).

Vanessa’s story is just one example, albeit a profoundly emotional one, that highlights the primary role of the body in registering and experiencing musical performances. In this case, she felt certain rhythms viscerally. The experience reminded Vanessa of events, emotions, and connections from her past in ways that conflate both time and space—she feels transported “to another place.” The emotional reaction is overwhelming and

76 Vanessa is referring to Ilê Axé Oyá Meguê or Terreiro Santa Bárbara, commonly known as the terreiro Xambá or casa Xambá. Feeling religious discrimination in the neighboring state of Alagoas, babalorixá Artur Rosendo Pereira moved to Recife and founded the terreiro in 1930. After violent repression forced the terreiro to close in 1939, it was reopened in 1950 and moved to its present location in Olinda in 1951. See Oliveria and Campos, 2010, and www.xamba.com.br, accessed February 9, 2018.

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profoundly embodied, it “takes over” and triggers a corporal response; Vanessa can feel her “body changing.”

However, feeling music in the body may also be experienced not as a profound emotional reaction but rather as a mundane aspect of musicking. This is especially true of particular aspects of performance that are difficult to explain, articulate, and teach.

Samba “swing,” a concept that is widely understood as something that has to be learned by “feeling it,” is a prime example. James and I speak a length on the feel of the samba swing. He is a self-identified White American man and one of the principal drummers in

Austin Samba, a section leader. Austin Samba is heavily invested in “getting it right,” and James affirms that the group spends considerable time working on samba swing, something that he identifies as the “it” of an effective samba performance. James explains, “It’s really bizarre to think about how the focus is so micro [in our rehearsals].

So instead of [focusing on a macro-level performance and] saying, ‘play this rhythmic phrase,’ instead it’s ‘change the way you play rhythms to incorporate this feel’”

(emphasis added). James stresses that “the feel is more important. So if there was any one thing that I would say that “it” is, it would be the feel of the music, to be culturally accurate.”

As our conversation continues to explore the minutia of samba swing, James points out that the feel is not just about musical sound but also something that influences the movements of drummers and dancers alike: “[samba] has a completely different feel

[than U.S. genres], and its way—well, to call it ‘funky’ is not necessarily the right word—but it evokes a different kind of movement” (emphasis in original). I ask him to elaborate, and his response is worth quoting at length here:

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James: So in samba swing, there are there are gaps around each down beat. Each down beat is literally heavier than all the other notes. So as opposed to [he taps very straight rhythmic pattern on the table]. It’s more like [taps with space around down beats, i.e. the samba swing].

Me: um hum

James: So you have this notion of here’s the downbeat, and it has more weight. And suddenly the rhythm has this gait to it.

Me:.um hum

James: It’s like… when you walk, you don’t walk constantly. You don’t walk at a uniform pace. … Your head kinda’ …bobs up and down when you put your weight down [on each foot]. And it’s kind of like you have the weight down and then, on the other side, you have the notes that are closer together, and that’s the movement of you picking up your leg and going back down again. Picking up and going back down again. And so it’s like a lop-sided kind of tire, or like an egg rolling down a hill. Not on its side, but as if it were to roll.

Me. Right

James. So you have this weight. A kind of slow-down and then a speed-up, and then a slow-down and a speed-up, so it creates this anticipation for each beat. That’s an incredible concept to be able to convey just by changing the placement of notes. And it makes the rhythm that much more danceable because no matter what accents are being played … it’s subconsciously communicating not only this is where the beat is, but… it’s far more alive, it’s less sterile. And it communicates a way of moving (emphasis added).

Me: So these ways of explaining the swing. The weight and the speed up and slow down [James: yea] and the egg analogy. Where did you get those?

James: That was, that’s basically from me.

Me: From you?

James: Yeah, like in trying to find a way [of] how to explain it, not only to myself, but in trying to teach it.

In trying to express the inexplicable of samba swing, both to himself and to his students, one of the principal analogies James employs is about bodily movement—the bobbing up and down of walking. Significantly, samba swing is not only “felt” by performers, but it

(in)directly delivers embedded corporal information that evokes or compels the body to move in specific ways. The rhythmic swing “subconsciously communicates,” not only

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“where” the down beat is, but also “a way of moving.” Thus, samba swing becomes a vehicle for embodied knowledge.

James mentions that its swing makes samba “much more danceable” and “less sterile” than other styles—for instance drum core repertoire and Texas Two-Step, he suggests. His statement indicates the extent to which sound and corporal movement is racialized. “Sterile” articulates not only sexual impotence, but also blandness, concepts linked to Whiteness. Samba, as non-White, offers an exotic and spicy counterpoint associated with sexual virility and sensual “ways of moving.” Debora Wong reminds us that “the elision of music and the body (and race, labor, and the body) means that the musicking body is necessarily racialized” (Wong: 67). “Feeling” the music in the body is part of a broader racial formation of the performance. And this racialization crops up in subtle ways and unexpected places. For example, at one point in our conversation on samba, I ask James, “do you think its swing makes it harder to teach?” James responds,

“Yes, well, I think it makes it harder for—Brazil is in the Western hemisphere—but [for]

Westerners as we would call them, it [makes] it harder for us to teach ... I’ve heard so many Brazilian teachers say, ‘oh, you just gotta feel it’.” Significantly, the rhythmic feel of samba articulates a distinction between culture-cum-nationality. Although he checks himself mid-sentence, the understanding articulated here is that Brazil is outside of the

West, i.e. Brazilianness is not White.

The embodied phenomenology of Brazilian music performance in Austin is by no means limited to performers. Nor are the racial meanings produced and felt solely in the body. An anonymous attendee of the 2014 Austin Carnival Brasilierio, a White man featured in a promotional video, expressed “Austin Samba does such a great, great [sic]

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job, and this kind of music is very primal. It goes right down into your guts and your soul” (emphasis added). This audience member’s experience is profoundly embodied; samba music reached his soul, but only after he felt the music “in [his] guts.” His interpretation of this corporal sensation is that the music is “primal”—an association which greatly amplifies James’s “Westerner” assessment.

Knowing Brazil and Race through Bodily Movement

The body and how it moves is a focal point not only in how performers learn the repertoire, but also how they come to understand broader notions of “Brazilianness” and

“Afro-Brazilianness,” and how they perceive non-Brazilians and Whites move their bodies. For example, Adriana, who identifies as Mexican-American, expressed to me

“[chuckling] I thought because I knew how to do cha cha and mambo and, yeah, all sorts of other Latin dances, salsa, that [samba] would be just real easy for me to pick up. And that it would just be kind of like, more of the same. And it’s not, it’s very different. It’s a different way of moving your body (emphasis added).” I ask her why she assumed that samba would be the same, and her response not only elaborates in detail how the movements differ, but she points to the physical difficulty and stamina required for dancing samba:

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I don’t know, I guess I thought, “oh, well it’s just like any of the other Latin ballroom dances, and as long as I’ve got a base in one then I can apply that to the other.” But it’s not. It’s not like a basic mambo step, it’s more of a side to side movement, instead of a back and forth movement. And it’s hard to get it going, and especially if you’re trying to go fast. You can go fast for about a minute or two, and then you gotta slow it down and try to a different move, because it’s very [strenuous] … You know when I watch carnaval … I watch the women walking down the street in their heels and they do that for hours and hours. I don’t know how they do that. It’s work. And to keep up the energy—and to keep it up—and to keep going fast is difficult. So you know, when you try to learn something new like that at age thirty-five…

While she recognizes cultural similarities, it is through her embodied experience with samba that Adriana comes to distinguish Brazilian dance from other Latin dances. Maria, a long-time dancer in Austin Samba who identifies as Mexican-American, explains that she learned the hip movements rather quickly, “but my arms were a mess. I had samba hips and salsa arms, which do not go [well together].”77 Similarly, the physicality involved in dancing samba draws attention to the body—and the samba-dancing body emerges as the site of fascination and admiration.

The body, via its position and movements, registers, expresses, and performs notions of race and even place. For example, corporal stance and movement emerges as a primary mode articulating the difference between “Rio”-style samba and Afro-Samba, associated with Salvador. In the promotional video produced by Austin’s local PBS station, KLRU, Imani Aanu78, Dance Coordinator for Austin Samba, explains “If you’re dancing the Rio style, the elegant tall posture, like a ballerina, is the style of posture that you want to have, but if you’re dancing that northeastern style, you want to get a little bit more down close to the earth and funkier” (emphasis added). Imani equates the tall, upright postures of Rio style samba school dancing with European ballet—and by extension, Whiteness, deepening the contrast to “Afro-samba” styles from the northeast.

77 Interview, Oct. 27, 2017. 78 Imani identifies as “a person of African descent born in America.” Personal communication.

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While Imani does not specifically reference Africanness in this clip, the connection of the

“funkier” northeastern rhythms and dance style to Blackness is clear. Further, “close to the earth” literally links the dancing body to nature, (re)producing the stereotype of

Africans’ animalistic primitiveness.

Sara restates the same associations: “Rio style samba [is] where you see the girls in bikinis and heels and feathers, and then an Afro-Samba is more, um, culture— it’s more gritty and more African-styled….a little more tribal, flat-footed” (emphasis added).

I ask if the dance instructors used terms like “tribal,” and she replies that those are her terms, but that she probably picked them up from similar language from the instructors.

Sara also indicates that the different movements and postures relate to broader cultural associations. For example, she tells me that Afro-Samba came before Rio style (again, suggesting primitiveness). Sara explains to me that the dancing styles correspond to different social settings and contexts:

Rio-style is more of a performance, a Carnaval kind-of samba, but that’s not what you do if you’re just like hanging out, you know. At your house, at a pagode, you’re not going to do Rio-style samba, you’re gonna do something maybe a little earthier, not so flashy, ‘cause in Rio style you’re in platform shoes and your stature is a little more upright. Whereas in Afro-samba you’re more bent over, and knees bent and lower to the ground and its more about connecting with the Orixás79 (emphasis added).

Like Imani, Sara also explains that Afro-samba is near the earth, quite distinct from the

“upright” Rio style.

Both Sara and Adriana point out that the movements of Afro-Style often correlate to specific Orixás, I ask Adriana to tell me know she learned about the Orixás:

they all have a back story. This one was married to this one, you know, and this one … they have different weapons if they’re warriors or ….if it's a beautiful woman she’s got all this jewelry on or she’s got a mirror or whatever. So, I just found that very interesting and you know, and it helps with the movement. So [the instructors will] tell you … this

79 Dieties in Afro-matrix religions, like Candomblé.

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person’s [sic] a warrior and you’re gonna move this way. This person’s [sic] a, you know, goddess of wind or fire, you know, and you’re gonna move this way. And that’s how you learn what each kind of [movement] means (emphasis added).

Adriana affirms that it is through specific movements that dancers in the Samba School being to learn about Candomblé and the Orixás. And in a separate conversation, Sara explains to me “so your movement will be more of what an Orixá might do, so if you’re doing—the Orixá that is our patron is—she comes from the sea,80 so a lot of our dance moves may be water-based, where you may make a movement where you’re like scooping up water and washing yourself, or something like that.”

Adriana, Sara, and Imani Aanu all highlight the extent to which their knowledge of Brazilian culture is registered in the body via postures and specific movements. The corporality of the performance practice includes imitating the Orixás and embodying various stereotypes associated with Blackness/Africanity: a sense of being funky, close to earth, tribal, primitive. As such, the body is a central site in the production of racial meanings in Brazilian music ensembles.

Embodying Brazilianness in North America

The body figures prominently in scholarship on Brazilian performative cultures in North

America (Robitaille 2014, Pravaz 2010 and 2013, Mercier 2013). As Robitaille points out, “The (sustained) consumption of capoeira involves a deeply embodied experience and necessarily leads to the production of “renewed” bodies shaped by intensive training.

The practitioner’s body becomes the medium of acquisition of a new cultural knowledge,

80 Sara is referring to Iemanjá, the Orixá that Austin Samba School adopted as their protector.

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the place where it is articulated, and the means through which he or she can signify a new cultural affiliation and sense of self” (243, emphasis added). Pravaz (2010: 214) also reports bodily transformation in samba performance in Toronto, noting that, “players surrender themselves through the microscopic yet continuous transformation of their bodily practices and sensorium.” It is through embodied knowledge and bodily transformations, Robitaille argues, that even foreign bodies can successfully embody

Brazilianness (243-244, emphasis added).

However, with the exception of Robitaille, who considers global frames of

Blackness in her investigation of capoeira in Canada, the remaining others do not address race in their discussion of embodiment. None of the authors consider blackface performances or racial drag. How is Brazilianness understood racially? And what does it then mean for a (White?) Canadian to embody “Brazilian sensuality”? In order to uncover the racial formations of such performances of embodied racial play, it is important to consider the implications of both performativity and interpellation.

Racial Performances and the Body: on Performativity and Interpellation

Performativity theory is helpful for understanding the possibilities and the limitations for how through musical performance, sounding bodies and bodily transformations can constitute forms of racial drag that enable practitioners to cultivate a new “sense of self” and “cultural affiliation.” The sort of bodily transformations described above by Robitaille and Pravaz are achieved through sustained, embodied practice, which involves repetition. From the perspective of performativity, race, like gender, has no prediscursive existence; it is only constituted via performative acts of

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signification.81 Butler (2006) argues that the discursive field where identities are rendered intelligible is governed by rules that operate through repetition (198). In other words, within this approach, what enables Robitaille’s notion of “global frames of blackness” to operate is that race is constituted discursively through the repetition of signifying practices which express the traits and stereotypes associated with a given racialized identity. A subject’s agency exists in variations of this repetition, in play and parody that challenge the limitations of the discursive sphere.

Thus, global frames of Blackness are intelligible to North America audiences in part via the repetition of ideas and stereotypes of Blackness and Brazilianness. By providing variations on the repetition of these ideas, performers challenge racial essentialism. This is how non-Black, non-Brazilian bodies come to “successfully embody

Brazilianness.” It is racial drag or parody of this nature embedded within the embodied practices of Brazilian performance ensembles that enable Robitaille and Pravaz to suggest they ultimately challenge racial stereotypes and subvert racialized hierarchies

(Pravaz 2010, 2013; Robitaille 2014).

However, Christen Smith (2016: 14) argues that “although race is performative, it is not somehow fluid, contingent, and wearable.” That is, while certain elements of race are performative, other aspects of it are anchored to the body ways that resist performative change. For this reason, she suggests that we “move away from an analysis that overdetermines race as an elective identity marker” toward a discussion of race as a

“social marker” that links “popular interpretation (phenotype coupled with class, geographic location, education…)” to “structural antagonisms” based on racial

81 See Butler 2006: 34. Further, as Butler explains, “the ‘doer’ is variably constructed in and through the deed” (194-195).

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hierarchies (ibid.). Louis Althusser’s [1971] notion of interpellation is helpful for uncovering how race is determined through forms of structurally informed “popular interpretation.” Althusser posits that ideology “recruits” individuals into subjects “by that very precise operation which I have called interpellation or hailing,” and he gives the example of a police officer shouting, “Hey!, you there!” (174). The hail demands a response, and in turning to answer the call the individual is interpellated into the ideology

(of the state) and thus subjecthood. If, as Eduardo Bonilla-Silva argues, race/racism is the ideology that emerges from a racialized system, then racial subjectivity is interpellated via the interactions of social actors and the state (474). This is similar to Frantz Fanon’s famous “Look, a Negro!” example, where his racial subjectivity is constructed in the gaze of a young White boy (Fanon (2008 [1952]:89-96). George Yancy (2017:52) theorizes these “instances in which the Black body is reduced to instantiations of the white imaginary” as the “phenomenological return” of the Black body (from the White gaze).

Similarly, Smith links performativity, ideological interpellation, and the violence of the phenomenological return of the Black body when she explains that in state violence against Black Brazilians “not only do police officers…identify black people when they enact violence on the black body, by they also produce blackness through these acts” (14, emphasis in original).

The contradictory nature of race, the fact that certain aspects of race are performed, and yet its performative malleability can be negated by interpellation, emerges in how Vanessa explains her racial identity. I first met her at the founding roda of Trem do Samba, the pagode off-shoot of Austin Samba. We quickly discovered that we had mutual friends in the Brazilian music community and that my wife is from

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Vanessa’s hometown, which facilitated our friendship. But in the five years I have known

Vanessa, I never knew how she identified racially. Early in our interview, I put that question to her, and her response is worth citing in length.

So I actually never question[ed] myself in terms of my identity when I was [in Brazil]. My mom is White, my mom’s family is White. My dad’s family, they are Black, but not like dark dark skin, but still Black. And the practices that I had at home were definitely more Black. Like the food [we ate] and the way … I behaved, to the point that my mom would say things like, “you need to learn this and you need to learn that, and you need to do this and do that in order to be accepted.” But I never understood [her attitude] as prejudice, I never understood it as “oh I’m Black and they are White and they don’t like me.” But I grew up like that, and I grew up even with my uncle from my mom’s side saying, “why do you eat farinha?82 Don’t know you know that it’s Black people’s food? … Why do you eat that?” So there were those comments which definitely [told] me that I was Black (emphasis added).

Note that Vanessa begins to understand herself as Black because of comments about certain “behaviors” and embodied “practices,” such as the food she eats. Her discussion highlights the ways in which she experienced race as performative—her cultural practices at home performed or articulated it. However, as she continues her explanation, the ways in which race is inseparable tied to the body also emerge.

There were comments…growing up, my grandma from my mom’s side, she would say things like: “don’t let your kids sit in the sun too long, they [will] get too dark.” And “don’t let them be darker than they already are”, because you know, that’s not cool… there was a certain way that your hair needed to be and there’s a certain thing that you needed to be able to be accepted, [we understood] all of those things… (emphasis added).

In this example, Blackness is affixed to physical features of the body. Altering hair texture, spending more or less time in the sun to change skin tone—these activities may be understood as performative practices, but they are in constant struggle against the body and underscore the limits of performativity. For example, no matter how Vanessa behaves, if she is too dark she will be interpolated as Black.

82 Ground cassava/mandioca flour. The working classes put it on top of various dishes in order to make them more filling.

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As Vanessa continues to tell me about how she came to understand race in order to elaborate on how she currently self-identifies, the complex relationship of race as performed and race as interpellated comes into focus.

I never look[ed] at myself [and thought] “oh I’m Black, or I’m White.” I never really thought about it until … I went to college, until I came here … I see myself as mixed- race because when I say that I’m Afro-Brazilian … I get a lot of ... backlash. Because the Black community in Brazil [does] not feel that I went through the things that they went through… That’s why I cannot say I’m Afro-Brazilian ... Because I did have some privileges that the Afro-Brazilian community … in general, do[es] not have. So, despite the fact that [my practices at home] were mostly, Afro-Brazilian . . . I prefer to identify myself as biracial, as mixed, as White and Black, just because I don’t think I own my Blackness.

Me: You don’t own your Blackness?

Vanessa: Yeah, in Brazil, when, there was the movement, I forget, …the movimento negro, that was…back in the 90s … At that time, when I was in college, if I dress[ed] a certain way, … if I engaged in conversations with Black people who had less than I did, if I considered myself Black, then they would say “but you’re not really [Black] because you had this and you had this and you had that.” So I didn't own my Blackness, basically. I didn’t go through the same struggles that they did. So therefore, I’m not fully Black, and I respect that because it’s true. So I consider myself biracial because I also need to consider the things that I had in life, the education and all the other behavior that it was instilled in me so I would not go through the things that Black people would go through. So basically I was trained to navigate the different races, the different social status[es] in Brazil, and I think education allowed me to do that, so because of that I had a White education, White people’s education.

Here, Vanessa’s use of the English word “education” refers less to her academic schooling than it does to the way in which she was raised and educated at home, the manners and behaviors she learned—i.e., to be bem educado (well mannered). She explains that she was able to avoid certain forms of discrimination because she was

“trained” to behave (perform) in different ways in order to “navigate the different races.”

In other words, Vanessa performed different racial types in order to more successfully negotiate varied socio-cultural settings. And yet, despite her performances, how she dressed, her race was only conditionally performative. The Afro-Brazilian community claimed she was not fully Black because she did not experience the same “struggles” that

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they did, struggles derived from being interpolated as Black. Vanessa’s recognition that she had certain privileges is in part performative—i.e., she learned to behave “White” and thus avoid associations with Blackness in some instances. She does not consider the impact of her light complexion in navigating racial status in Brazil and avoiding discrimination, however. Embedded in her analysis is the notion that being Black means not having to endure certain experiences.

Significantly, Vanessa’s self-identification as biracial is solidified by an experience where she was interpolated—literally hailed by the state—as a racial subject.

Vanessa explains that on one of her official U.S. government forms—maybe it was related to social security, she can’t remember—she marked “Black” or “of African descent.”

I remember that I walked in there … and [after I dropped the form off] the women’s like, “Ma’am, please come back.” And I said “Yes?” And she said, “You cannot say that you’re Black.” And I was like “Why not?, I am Black.” She said “Because if the police look for you, they’re not going to look for someone like you.” And I was like, “but I am Black.” She said “but you cannot say that you are. You can choose both, but you cannot say that you are only one.” So I identified myself as mixed. So right now, in the United States, I identify myself as bi-racial: White and Black.

Regardless of how Vanessa self-identifies, regardless of how she performatively expresses her race, the U.S. government interpellated her as nonBlack based on phenotype. The police need to know what to look for. Thus, Vanessa’s racial subjectivity is determined for her in ways that performativity cannot push back against.

The Moonlight Serenade example from chapter 2 offers another example of the limitations of racial performativity. I am actively performing Brazilianness, playing

Brazilian music alongside Brazilians. If I successfully embody “Brazilianness” during the performance, it is nevertheless subject to how I am –not “read,” but how I am— “hailed.”

When Ana asks me where I am from, before I can explain myself, I am quite literally

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“called” into racial subjectivity as “the White guy.” This hailing is not the result of my ineffective performance of Brazilianness, it is not dependent on my skill as a performer of bossa nova songs. It is specifically the way in which a constellation of intersecting factors—gender, phenotype, social hierarchy, and in this case nationality—are interpreted and anchored to bodies: I have the lightest complexion of all the performers, and the women who identifies me as White had met us just 30 minutes prior and knew I was the only American. Most importantly, in being interpolated as White, I come to occupy and embody Whiteness, effectively foreclosing it to Ana despite her “White” phenotype.

Thus, Ana too is (in)directly interpolated as non-White.

The point here is that race is “inscribed onto the body” in ways that involve various modes of performance, interpretation, and interpellation (Smith 2016: 12-13).

Racial meaning, both in terms of performativity and ideological interpellation, emerges from the embodied repetition of a collection—what Diana Tayor (2003) refers to as the repertoire—of racialized knowledge, ideology, and social scripts.83 I suggest that rather than challenging Whiteness through a performative reference, we should read

“embodying” Brazilianness as a performance of racial drag or racial play in which the racial subjectivity of the performer is reaffirmed by trying on Brazilianness.

Are you Brazilian? Embodiment and Racial Drag In her assessment of Blackface minstrelsy, Saidiya Hartman argues that “the ability to put on blackness must be considered in the context of chattel slavery and the

83 Taylor distinguishes between the archive and the repertoire. She defines archival memory “as documents, maps, literary texts, letters, archeological remains, bones, videos, films, CDs, all those items supposedly resistant to change.” Repertoire refers to “embodied memory; performances, gestures, orality, movements, dance, singing—in short, all those acts usually thought of as ephemeral, nonreproducible knowledge.” For Taylor, the repertoire “both keeps and transforms choreographies of meaning.” See Taylor 2003: 19-20.

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economy of enjoyment founded thereupon” (Hartman 1997: 26). While I fully acknowledge that Hartman is specifically addressing the enslaved Black body and

“antebellum formations of pleasure,” I contend that her analysis is nevertheless helpful for uncovering the racial implications of embodying Brazilianness. This is because enjoyment within Brazilian music performances is similarly “unimaginable without recourse to the black body” and the “fantasies launched by the myriad uses of the black body” (ibid.). While not suggesting the literal ownership of an enslaved body, racial drag implies ongoing links to a “figurative occupation and possession of the [black] body”

(ibid.). As such, racial drag is performative of Whiteness in that it projects the White subject’s power (mastery and control) over non-White bodies and their cultural forms.

In thinking of musical performance as productive of racialized subjectivities it is important to remember Deborah Wong’s (2008) discussion of taiko. She explains “I simply wanted to learn how to be Asian American through the loudness and physicality of taiko” (79). “If you are not Asian American and perhaps have had a similar response to seeing taiko performed, your response doesn’t contradict or negate mine. It’s not impossible that your subjectivity and mine have points of overlap, but our responses are not, and can’t be, equivalent” (ibid. 79-80). In the same way, my examination of

Americans’ experiences performing in Brazilian music ensembles is not meant to be a negation of their engagement with the music, or their genuine feelings of response to it, or in any way a question/critique of their motives. Rather, I am acknowledging that Black

Brazilians’ engagement with samba is fundamentally different—though not entirely distinct—from Americans’ experiences. Here, I am simply suggesting that these

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performances generate racial meanings, and that via Brazilian performance Austinites reaffirm and articulate their own subjectivities.

We can see the extent to which samba comes to constitute who Becky is as she reflects on the choreographies and dance moves that she has accumulated over nearly a decade of dancing samba: “I’ve been learning licks and licks and licks. So now it’s just like putting them together [laughs] you know, in a way that’s like my voice. And so I can sing, you know, but …it’s just in my body instead of with [an instrument] or something like that” (emphasis added). Over years of intense practice, Becky has “internalized” samba movements to the point they are an integral component of who she is—they are a means of expressing her voice and her body.

The body and ways of “being” or “moving” like Brazilians came up repeatedly in conversations with performers in Austin. Cristina explains to me that “in the Samba

School, there are two passistas84, . . . the women who are really passistas—they like what they do. They dance and really feel the samba. When we start the samba school rehearsal, and they arrive in the room, they enter already dancing. Only Brazilians do that. If I hear a “tum tum tum tum,” I start to move my feet.”85

When I ask performers about their interactions with audience members, both

Brazilians and Americans, they frequently told stories of being asked if they were

Brazilian. For example, Rachel tells me “I’ve done quite a few private gigs now…they always ask, ‘are you from Brazil? Are you Brazilian?’ … They ask that consistently…

84 Members of the principal dance wing in Austin Samba. 85 “na samba school tem duas passistas, né, ..., as mulheres que realmente são passista, elas gostam do que elas fazem. Elas dançam realmente sentindo o samba, quando a gente começa o ensaio da escola, que elas chegam na sala, elas entram sambando já. E isso quem só faz é brasileiro. Eu se escuto um tum tum tum tum eu começo a mexer os pezinho.”

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‘are we from Brazil, you guys look Brazilian, you dance like you’re from Brazil,’ you know, we get that quite a bit” (emphasis added). James reports similar experiences. “In meeting Brazilians at shows, they’ll ask me if I’m Brazilian. They will say, brasileiro?’ and I’ll be like ‘não’? [Laughs]”.

Becky nearly brags about how convincingly she dances samba like Brazilians.

She exclaims, “they can’t believe I’m not from [Brazil]!” She tells me “it happened last week at One2One Bar, when I went to that Brazil Night. There was a [Brazilian] woman

[there], and [she] was like, ‘Where are you from? Are you American?’ [laughs]. ‘Cause I had been dancing with some [other] Brazilian women there. I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m Texan,

I’m from Houston …” Becky breaks into laughter, recalling the situation that she found slightly awkward and funny. An unknown Brazilian woman expressed shock and confusion to learn that an American can dance samba as well as Becky. That she danced with other Brazilians conflates the distance between Becky’s dancing body and those of the Brazilians; in this example, Becky is embodying Brazilianness, figuratively possessing the Brazilian body. She finds humor in the interaction, and her “I’m from

Houston” response, on two levels. The first borders on self-deprecation in that revealing she is a Houstonian is read as a “let-down”(Houston is understood as less exciting, sensual, and cool than Brazil). Second, part of the awkward humor derives from the way in which Becky’s dancing body dismantles the Brazilian woman’s stereotype about the

Brazil-versus-non-Brazilian ability to dance samba. This interaction also reveals White privilege in embodied performances of Blackness. Becky can don Brazilianness during the performance, and yet when she leaves the bar her daily lived experience is one of a

White American woman. The Brazilianness doesn’t stay with her. Unlike Brazilian

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immigrants, Becky is unquestionably White in the United States and she does not have to navigate the difficulties of immigrant status here. As we have seen in chapter 1 (examples of Ana and Cristina) such experiences frequently involve the loss of racial/class status previously held in Brazil. As Cristina put it, “My friend told me, ‘Cris, you will always be an immigrant in the United States. You can have a green card, citizenship… [but] you will always be an immigrant first’.”

Samba and Racial Drag: Linking Brazil and Austin In his analysis of the famous Brazilian86 singer Carmen Miranda, Darién J. Davis asserts that “despite the outer appearances of gentrification,87 Miranda’s performance did not cease to be genuine—her live and radio audiences recognized that. Her charm and movements, particularly the use of her head, hands, and hips, indicated that her body had been shaped by Afro-diasporic customs” (Davis 2009: 79). Davis places enormous importance on Miranda’s bodily movements, suggesting that Miranda’s caricatures amount to “genuine” performances of Blackness-cum-Brazilianness. Echoing Pravaz’s

(2010 and 2013) and Robitaille’s (2014) arguments, he suggests Miranda successfully embodies Brazilianness by moving her body in a “Black” way. Here it is also worth recalling the Brazil/choro origin story recounted in Stanyek’s research with musicians in

New York. Brazil is danced into existence precisely at the moment an African’s rhythmic

86 Born in Portugal in 1909, Miranda moved to Brazil with her Family in 1910. Her performances of Blackness enabled Miranda to discard her Portuguese origins and embody Brazilianness. See Davis 130-32, 148). 87 Davis is referring to Miranda’s exaggerated costume of Black working-class women known as “baianas.”

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cunning causes a European to “wiggle his butt” (Stanyek 2011: 113). Thus, Whites performing Blackness constitute Brazilianness.

Davis concludes with this assertion: “the very possibility that White Brazilians like Miranda could represent and claim Blackness in an authentic manner signals a distinct Brazilian mode of thinking of and perceiving of Blackness from that in the

United States” (Davis 2009: 79). I challenge Davis’s assessment that Miranda’s performances amounted to genuine performances of “Africanity,” and instead posit that her racial satire was a mechanism through which Brazilian racial democracy was enacted.

Much in the same way that Austinites performing samba are articulating a hip and sensual cosmopolitanism which distinguishes themselves from the mainstream of

Americanness, Brazilians promoted a hybrid Whiteness. It is understood as drawing on elements of Africanness in order to express a hip sensuality distinct from European sensibilities.

Brazilian pop singers continue to perform racial democracy via musical practices that include racial drag and cultural appropriation. This is perhaps best seen in White axé singers such as Daniela Mercury, Ivete Sangalo, and Claudia Leitte.88 Axé is a style of popular dance music that emerged from Black youth culture in Salvador, Bahia in the

1980s and has since become a staple of Salvador’s carnival.89 Released in 1992 at the height of the rising axé craze in Brazil, the title track of Mercury’s second album, O

Canto da Cidade, begins with the lyrics “a cor dessa cidade sou eu/ o canto dessa cidade

é meu” (I am the color of the city/the song of this city is mine). Note that she literally

88 Despite self-identifying as “preta de pele branca” (“a Black women with White skin”), Daniela Mercury is widely interpellated as White by Brazilian scholars and activists. See Terto 2017. 89 For more, including the use of the religious term axé (taken from candomblé) to designate this genre, see Henry 2008.

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claims the “song” of the city as her own. This figurative possession of the Blackness is similarly repeated in the cover image of her 1996 album Feijão com Arroz (Beans with

Rice, see image). Mercury looks directly into the camera while embracing a naked Black woman whose back is turned toward us. The image—as well as the title ([black] beans and [white] rice)—(re)produce the ideology of Brazilian racial democracy as Mercury incorporates Blackness by engulfing and possessing the Black body, pulling it into hers.

Reflective of the mechanisms of Brazilian racial discourse, the image suggests that Black and White blend well together, provided that Whiteness is highlighted as the ideal “face” of Brazil. African ancestry, depicted as raw, nude, and primitive, remains faceless, nameless, and faded into the background. The image on the back cover projects this idea further. This time, we see the faces of both women staring at us; Mercury, wearing a black dress, sits in front, between the spread legs of the nude Black women. Mercury, as representative of Brazilianness, is thus born of Blackness. Her White appearance, as well as her ability to perform “Black,” is celebrated.90

90 See Black Women of Brazil, N.A. (2012).

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Figure 10: Cover and Reverse of Daniela Mercury’s album Feijão com Arroz (1996).

Claudia Leitte, another White axé singer whose appropriative relationship with the music is further complicated by the fact that she is not from Salvador, similarly claims

Blackness via embodied performance of racial drag. In 2012, she released a live album entitled NegaLora: Íntimo (NegaLôra being colloquialisms for Negra-Loura, or blonde

Black women, and íntimo meaning intimate). Promotional materials include a photo of her with half of her face painted White, the other black (see figure 11). José Roque

Peixoto claims that Leitte’s appropriation and racial drag “resuscitates the ‘myth of racial democracy,’” and thus reflects Brazil’s the subtle, yet profound, racism (Peixoto 2011).

Including “Intimate” in the title further reinforces the repetition of Brazilian racial discourse by both invoking the celebrated sexuality and erotic desirability of the mulata as well as underscoring that Brazilianness racial mixture is quite literally the product of the sexual act.

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Figure 11: Claudia Leitte as “a NegaLôra.”

Clarence Bernard Henry, echoing Davis’s assessment of Carmen Miranda’s performances as genuine, characterizes Mercury as “one of the most talented axé musicians” and suggests that “although Mercury is a White Brazilian, the song [“O Canto da Cidade”] captures her “blackness” and African heritage within” (Henry 2008: 152 ebook). However, scholars and activists have harshly critiqued Mercury’s career as cultural appropriation (Pereira 2009), including an incident as recently as 2017 when

Mercury performed during Salvador’s Carnaval with visibly darkened skin and wearing an Afro wig (see figure 12). Activists denounced the performance as blackface and evidence of continued cultural appropriation of Black cultural forms that support White supremacy (Terto 2017; Blogueiras Negras, N.A., 2017).

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Figure 12: Daniela Mercury performing during Salvador’s Carnaval in 2017.

The figurative possession of Black bodies/culture via embodied performance, as well as the racial meanings and stereotypes (re)produced by Miranda and other Brazilian popular singers are strikingly similar to those articulated in the United States. Davis himself admits that “Brazilian racial humor often came at the expense of blacks” and while “[Miranda’s] racial satire often carried a humorous social commentary, her songs frequently reinforced stereotypes prevalent in the 1930s” (Davis 2009:146). He cites

Miranda’s hit song, “O negô no samba” (The Black in samba) as an example.91 Miranda sings:

Samba de nêgo Black people’s samba quebra os quadris flexes the hips Samba de nêgo Black people’s samba tem parati has liquor in it Samba de nêgo, oi, oi Black people’s samba, Sempre na ponta always on your toes Samba de nêgo, meu bem Black people’s samba, baby

91 Composed by Ary Barroso, Marques Porto, and Luiz Peixoto, all White, middle-class composers. Miranda recorded the song with the Victor Orquestra Brasileira in 1929, and the disc was released in 1930.

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me deixa tonta makes me dizzy92

Num samba, branco se escangaia In samba, White people can’t keep it Num samba, nêgo bom se espaia together93 Num samba, branco não tem jeito, meu bem In samba, Black people move around well, Num samba, nêgo nasce feito In samba, White people don’t have skill, baby

In samba, Black people are born ready94

Carmen Miranda not only (re)produces the stereotype that Blacks are naturally good dancers, but in highlighting the difficulty Whites have in dancing samba she underscores her skill in embodying Blackness.

Stereotypes about Black’s supposed ability to dance—and drum—inform racial discourse in Brazilian ensembles in Austin. In our conversation, I ask Rachel, an African-

American dancer in Austin Samba, if she experienced any racial stereotypes in the samba school. She responds:

“Of course microaggressions happen, but I don’t think anyone ever told me directly, ‘oh Rachel, you’re Black [so] you should be able to do this or this comes easier to you.’ I have had someone say…, “oh, well Rachel, you’ll get this because you just automatically have natural rhythm, or you just have good rhythm.’ Yeah, so they never said like, ‘because the color of your skin,’ but they will say that. Yes.”

I should mention that Rachel stressed to me that such incidents were rare, she can “count the number of times on [her] fingers,” and that she explained to me that as part of her strategy to navigate racism in Austin, she surrounds herself with open-minded people who are “willing to have those difficult conversations” (referring to discussing race). The point I want to make here is that racial stereotypes about Blacks’ ability to dance, and

92 Alternatively, Davis translates the phrase “me deixa tonta” as “drives me crazy.” Given the overall theme of the lyrics—Whites physical inability to dance samba—I opted for a more literal translation: “makes me dizzy.” 93 A tricky translation, escangalhar-se carries multiple meanings: 1) to become disorganized or unarranged, broken-up, disheveled, 2.to lose composure, or 3. to ruin, waste, or destroy. 94 Alternatively, “born with it,” born to groove.”

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conversely the inability of Whites to master samba, are circulating at least with some members of Austin Samba.

Racial stereotypes about the body also inform how Austinites interpret performances of samba. Becky shares a story with me about an interaction she had with an audience member after a Samba School performance at Central Market. A White man in his 50s or 60s—Becky laughs and tells me she’s not good at guessing ages, but that he had white hair—approached her and introduced himself as a doctor, a “researcher in that field of orthopedic medicine, and he said ‘I’ve never seen a Caucasian person be able to separate their pelvic platform from their whatever [while] dancing’.” Becky breaks into laughter, “Yeah, he used these technical terms for [the] lower body and how [the upper and lower bodies] were moving independently [laughs] it was really funny.” The doctor tells Becky that he is working with a graduate student who is video recording people dancing, “‘and he’s noticing these trends by ethnicity, like you totally defy like everything we’ve ever [concluded in our analysis]…’ [chuckles]. And he’s like, ‘will you come into our lab and I’ll take a video?’ and I was like, ‘erh, why don’t you just come to a [samba school] rehearsal and there’s like 100 women all defying your stereotype!’

[laughs].”

The examples from Rachel and Becky underscore that racial stereotypes about the physicality and skill of the Black dancing body circulate in Brazil and the United States, informing how Brazilian music is received in Austin. Becky’s stereotype-defying pelvis appears to confirm the point made by Robitaille and Pravaz that Brazilian performance in

North America can, at least momentarily, challenge racial stereotypes and (as Pravaz argues) perhaps even upend racialized social hierarchies. By the same token, the

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embodied performances of Brazilianness in Austin operate in similar fashion to earlier blackface performances. Eric Lott asserts that, “the very form of blackface acts—an investiture in black bodies—seems a manifestation of the particular desire to try on the accents of ‘blackness’ and demonstrates the permeability of the color line” (Lott 2013: 6).

However, Hartman reminds us while minstrelsy “enabled acts of transgression licensed by the blackface mask, blackness was also policed through derision, ridicule, and violence; thus, in the end, the White flights of imagination and transgressive exploits facilitated by donning blackface ultimately restored the racial terms of social order”

(Hartman 1997:29). Davis argues that Carmen Miranda’s racial performances provide satirical social commentary about the Brazilian nation. However, such commentary is not dissimilar to the racial parody found in U.S. blackface, the humorous antics of sambos or

Jim Crows and the “costuming of contented slaves” (Hartman: 39): in short, an obsession with depicting happy, dancing, and comical Blacks effectively restages “the seizure and possession of the black body for other’s use and enjoyment” (ibid., 31-32).95

Placed within the broader context of blackface performance, Becky’s transgressive donning of Black Brazilian samba to defy stereotypes provides an arena for

White self-exploration (of her own body as well as in challenging notions of Whites’ inability to dance), but it is predicated on the naturally happy and dancing Black body.

Becky and the other “100 women defying stereotypes” in Austin Samba do not subvert

Black racial stereotypes but rather reinforce them, since the challenge to Whiteness is effective only with the understanding that Blacks are skilled dancers. That is, White

American samba dancers distance themselves from bland, boring, and awkward White

95 Davis, also, cites “Carmen Miranda’s performances were metaphors for popular class joy and recently achieved respectability” (124).

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corporality via an embodied performance of momentary proximity to—and figurative possession of—Blackness. Whiteness is challenged only in as much as Whites embody

Blackness, but in the process, both Blackness and Whiteness are reified, and the

Whiteness that emerges is “cooler” and more desirable. In the same way, Davis suggests that in 1920s-30s Brazil it was advantageous for “white women [to] perform ‘black’ while maintaining the privileges of whiteness” (Davis 126-127).

Sounding Brazilian, Racial Drag, and Authenticity “I am often mistaken for a Brazilian until I open my mouth [laugh].” Jessica, currently a percussionist with Austin Samba, expresses a sentiment I heard repeatedly in conversations with American ensemble members. Sound — musical sound but also lyrical (singing) and linguistic (speaking) sound — intersects with the body in performance. As Jessica suggests, the voice can betray an embodied performance of

Brazilianness.

Davis underscores the importance of the voice in enacting racial drag in Brazil.

He argues that blackface—applying make-up— was not “widely used nor widely accepted” there.96 Instead, “Brazilian white performers passed as blacks by assuming the black voice without blackface. In so doing, black idioms became Brazilian” (Davis 2009:

79). Robin Moore documents a similar dynamic in Cuba (Moore 2014). The verbal dimension of blackface performance reveals a need for further ethnomusicological research. Scholars of blackface do discuss caricatures of Black speech. For example, Eric

96 He does acknowledge that performers such as Carmen Miranda did occasionally don blackface. However, he does not equate Miranda’s exaggerated costume, gestures, and the lyrical content of her songs with blackface. In fact, as I stated earlier, he reads Miranda’s performances as genuine expressions of how the African Diaspora has shaped Miranda’s body and movements (Davis 2009:79).

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Lott draws our attention to the use of dialect and accents throughout his book Love and

Theft. In one section, he even considers the use of non-Black accents in U.S. blackface, highlighting “the ease with which blackface songs and skits incorporated Irish brogues and other ethnic dialects, with absolutely no sense of contradiction; blackface, bizarrely enough, was actually used to represent all ethnicities on the antebellum stage prior to the development of ethnic types” (Lott 2013: 98, emphasis in original). Moore (2014) discusses the “bozal” dialect used in blackface songs in Cuba’s teatro bufo. Similarly,

Geoffrey Baker (2007) and Simão (2017) point to White performers imitating caricatures of Black speech in villancicos negros in Mexico and Portugal, respectively. Despite evidence that ridiculing Black speech was a common practice throughout the Americas, we lack (trans)national or comparative studies. Moore begins this work, highlighting some of the parallels between blackface minstrelsy in the United States and teatro bufo in

Cuba (2014:26-27). However, there is room for sustained and focused ethnomusicological analysis of the sounds of blackface, specifically an investigation that links dialects and accents with other musical features. Revisiting both verbal and instrumental timbres can provide coherence to modes of (trans)national blackface performance, facilitating not only how we conceive of racialized performances in the

Black Atlantic, but also the development of tools to more effectively trace the lingering impacts of such performance in contemporary forms.

(Re)possessing the Black body in performance, then, involves a form of “sonic” embodiment that extends beyond musical sounds to occupy the highly personal space of the voice. It should be noted that Brazilians can gather important information about the identity of a speaker (e.g., what region they come from and, often, their socio-economic

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class background/status) via accents and vernacular expressions, but not his or her race.

Although Davis points to White singers adopting a Black voice in the 1930s and 1940s, contemporary Brazilian speakers cannot infer the racial identity of a speaker by accent alone; a particular Black Brazilian accent does not exist (see Burdick 2013:88-91). Thus,

Austinites are not attempting to “sound” like Brazilians of any particular race; rather, they are concerned with sounding as close to a “native Brazilian” speaker as possible.

American performers in Austin generally feel comfortable with their abilities dancing and drumming Brazilian music, but singing and by extension speaking in

Portuguese prove more difficult skills to acquire. For some, language competency is a source of anxiety. This issue emerged more frequently in the pagode group Trem do

Samba because their repertoire is sung— Roughly four of the regularly performing members of Trem do Samba are solely vocalists,97 and nearly all members double as singers. I ask Adriana, a vocalist in Trem do Samba, if she ever worries about, or feels uncomfortable, learning and presenting culture that is not her own. She immediately brings up language as the aspect that highlights her distance from the material. She explains:

I understand very well that that it is not my language. And I had to learn what all the songs actually mean, I had to look them up in English and figure out what I was actually singing about. There are some people in the group who are Brazilian, or have Brazilian people in their families, and they know exactly what they’re doing. And I feel like I want to honor what I’m learning by doing it correctly. But, you know, my pronunciation isn’t always good, and I don’t know all the words to every song in Portuguese, I know what the songs basically mean…

Adriana is very concerned about pronouncing the lyrics as correctly as possible and expresses frustration with her difficulties. She gets help from the two Brazilians in the

97 It should also be noted that all of the vocalists are women. Two of the regular percussionists are women, and all of the men in the group play guitars, cavaquinho, or percussion in addition to singing.

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group, but claims she “can never pronounce it as beautifully as they would.” She reports,

“no one has complained, but I feel when actual Brazilian people do show up to our shows, you want to do the best, you don’t want to screw it up too badly or make it sound like you really don’t know what you’re doing. So far I’ve been able to pull it off but, you know…”

Adriana seems satisfied with trying her best: “I guess I could just not get so wrapped up in all that and say, ‘hey, maybe I could just be respected for the fact that I’m learning’.” However, issues surrounding pronunciation continue to bother her:

you know I’ve had somebody ask me that at [a] performance, am I Brazilian. And, I was like, “No.” And she didn’t say anything one way or the other, like “Oh, well you did a good job” or, “oh well, you know, no wonder you didn’t sing it right

Embedded in Adriana’s comments is the notion that her voice—specifically her

Portuguese pronunciation—will betray her as non-Brazilian. But her response also reflects a sentiment widely shared among American performers in Austin: the belief that audience members, Brazilians and non-Brazilians alike, will recognize and appreciate the effort they are putting into learning the repertoire.

Most of the performers I spoke with were less preoccupied with pronunciation.

The following comment from Becky reflects a typical attitude: “So when I go to Brazil,

I’m like: ‘eh, my Portuguese is [only fair], but man, I can dance!’ And like, we can talk

[that way] you know?” Speaking like a Brazilian is, then, less important than moving like one, and language skills are not required for cultural exchange, interpersonal connection, and communication. Austinites, then, feel they can literally communicate by dancing and drumming like Brazilians.

Whereas verbal sounds (singing, speaking) might be understood as potential weakness in Austinites’ performance, other musical sounds—specifically drumming—

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can also serve as a source of pride for performers, acting as a sonic marker of their skill and a measure of authenticity. Cristina exclaims, “Seriously, Cory, when I found the samba school, I never expected one year ago that they would be the way they are. I didn't expect a samba played so well, and that brings me to the point: Whites, Americans, playing samba—many of them play tamborim98 better than a Brazilian.”99 Arnold, a professionally trained musician who has played percussion in Austin Samba for more than 5 years, expressed it this way:

There’s also just a, you know, a “bad-ass-ary” to it as well, and you can quote me on that. You know, like, man, when you hear some of these groups … they are just unstoppable, some of these groups are just bulletproof, man. When they get moving they can be so powerful, and that’s us! We’re a bunch of White people from North America, [but] we [sic] can get stuff sounding really cool and really powerful and really big, you know, and it gets moving like a locomotive, you know?... I’ve never heard a Brazilian escola de samba in person doing it, up right there, front and center. But if what we’re doing is as awesome and powerful as it is, then, just…I can imagine what it would sound like being there (emphasis in original).

In Cristina’s and Arnold’s comments, White Americans’ ability to play samba “as good as they do” is surprising. On one hand, these examples support Pravaz and Roubitaille’s assertion that non-Brazilian bodies can successfully embody Brazilianness. On the other hand, as I argue in this chapter, instances of White Americans embodying Brazilianness constitute a form of racial drag wherein ideas about both Blackness and Whiteness are reified. The samba-dancing/drumming White American body appears to challenge prevailing stereotypes about Whites’ supposed lack of rhythm and smooth, sensual physically. However, the racial drag performance simultaneously stages White

(re)possession of the Black body, simulating ownership over Blacks and Black cultural

98 Small frame drum. 99 Sinceramente, Cory, quando eu encontrei o samba school, eu nunca esperava ao um ano atrás, como que eles eram o jeito que eles são. Nunca esperava um samba que tocassem tão bem. E aí eu vou pro ponto: Brancos, americanos, tocando samba—muitos deles tocam o tamborim melhor que um brasileiro.

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expression alike. On one level, the spectacle of White Americans performing samba does project a rearticulation of Whiteness: the awkward physicality and blandness of White movements is seemingly conquered. On another level, White dominance and privilege remain intact. This performance of Whiteness requires that authentic samba sounds and movements remain firmly affixed to the Black body.

It’s still Missing Something: Authenticity, the body, and Spatio-Racial Formations Our discussion in this chapter of embodiment and racial stereotypes illustrate the ways in which authenticity is registered in racialized bodies as well as sounds, musical as well as linguistic. Here, I want to draw attention to a third intersecting component of authenticity—spatio-racial formations. In Chapter 2, I argued that spatial production is often profoundly racialized to the point that racial formation is more accurately characterized as a spatio-racial formation. Within the Brazilian music scene in Austin, notions of authenticity are linked not only to Black bodies, but Black bodies in certain spaces. For example, Cristina describes the samba school as “still missing something, you know. It’s still missing that feeling (sensação) of samba.”100 We can see the intersection of Black bodies and racialized space in determining / locating authenticity as she elaborates on her point:

I think [most Austin Samba members] don’t know what samba really is. . . They [can] dance samba [well] because [their instructor] dances well, because [he or she] teaches well… But, it’s not the same as [being] a passista in Rio who was born either in Manguiera, or in Salgueiro, or in Vila Isabel, and has danced since they were little.101

100 “Mas ainda faltava alguma coisa, sabe. Ainda faltava aquela sensação de samba” 101 Eu acho que eles não sabem o que realmente o samba. Eles não estudam o samba. Eles dançam o samba porque Imani dança bem, porque Tammy ensina bem, elas dançam muito bem…. Mas, não é que nem um passita no Rio que nascia ou na Mangueira ou no Salgueio ou na Vila Isabel, e dança desde pequena.

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The “real” feeling of samba, as Cristina articulates it, comes not only from direct exposure over a long period of time but rather in being raised in the neighborhoods of mostly Black Brazilian communities (Mangueira, Salgueiro, or Vila Isabel).102

Authenticity is thus housed not only in Black Brazilian bodies, but in the embodied, lived-experiences of race and racism. Without such a reference, Cristina argues,

Austinites must rely on teaching and learning only the “technical side” of samba—i.e., specific choreographies, rhythms, and what Cristina characterizes as myopic attention to counting sub-divisions. For her, “the real sentido (feeling or meaning) of samba is sometimes left out… missing.”103

Musicians in the Brazilian performance community frequently post and share videos on Facebook. The videos serve not only to reaffirm the affinity community around the music, but also frequently share instructional videos featuring performances from

Brazil as models to emulate or strive toward. As such, they videos embody notions of authenticity of a spatio-racial quality. For example, a Brazilian musician living and working in Austin posted a video to her Facebook page of the youth wing of the

Mangueira samba school with the caption, “Mangueira! Now, this is a true Batucada!”

(Figure 13).

102 These are famous samba schools in Rio de Janeiro, named after the neighborhood in which they are located. Both in Brazil and in the United States, these communities are commonly known as favelas, or shantytowns, a term which carries with it connotations of poor Blacks, criminality, and gang violence. However some Black activists in Brazil refer to them as urban quilombos—autonomous communities established by Africans who escaped enslavement. 103 Mas o real sentido do samba, eu acho que as vezes fica… falta.

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Figure 13: Still from a video that an Austin-based Brazilian musician posted to their Facebook.

The example is significant for at least three reasons. First, the act of posting establishes her authority as a Brazilian to determine a “true” samba batucada, and the appropriate beat/sound of the samba school bateria. Second, in providing an authentic counter example, we can read the post as a not-too-subtle criticism of Austin Samba, whose batucada can never be “true.” Finally, the image locates samba authenticity in Black bodies—mostly young boys—from Mangueira. “True” samba, as manifested via embodied performance, is Black, poor, and relegated to specific spaces racialized as

Black.

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We can see the extent to which Austinites look to Brazil for authenticity, and how this intersects with notions of race in one final story from Cristina. She and I are talking about racism in Austin broadly. I tell Cristina that over the course of my research I have heard (anonymous) stories of microaggressions from samba dancers, and I ask if she ever experienced something like that. She explains that she never felt racial discrimination,

‘But, [since I am] the only Brazilian [drummer in Austin Samba], I sometimes feel the opposite. They idolize me so much because I am Brazilian. ‘Oh, you should know about this.” Cristina then suggests that, while she doesn’t interpret these interactions as racism, race is nevertheless a factor in how Americans view her as an authentic source on all things samba: “I don’t feel [racial] prejudice but I feel the inverse, but isn’t true that

[Austin Samba members idolize me] because I am Black?”104

Racial Drag: Embodying Brazilianness and Weird Whiteness in Austin Embodied Brazilian music performance reflects, at least partially, the racial discourse in

Austin, specifically the city’s branding as an alternative, quirky space. One the one hand, racial drag enables White Austinites to parody Whiteness: a Whiteness coded as bland, unhip, desexualized, and awkward corporality. The skillful embodied performance of

Brazilian music ostensibly challenges the dominant construction of Whiteness, presenting instead a “weird” variant of Whiteness. On the other hand, however, this embodiment also amounts to figurative possession of Black bodies and culture. The privilege and

104 “Em relação ao racismo, nunca senti na samba school racismo, mas, por ser a única brasileira, eu sinto que as vezes as pessoas, é o contrário. Eles me idolar tanto porque eu sou brasileira. Ai tu, tu deve sabre isso, Tu fazia isso, tu tu, né? Então eu não sinto preconceito mas eu sinto o inverso, que as vezes não é verdade também porque eu sou negra

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power of the racial drag performer’s Whiteness is reified, not challenged. As such, embodying Brazilianness unintentionally maintains structures of White supremacy, including the (re)production of racial stereotypes and the myth of racial democracy.

This chapter has focused on the primacy of the body in various modes of

Brazilian ensemble performance—as a sign of authenticity, a site upon which racial meanings are enacted, of phenomenological experience with Brazilian music, and embodied knowledge. Racial drag, however, involves noncorporal aspects as well, including material culture and narrative tropes. In the next chapter, I examine the materiality of racial drag. Specifically, I explore how things interact with bodies to produce racial meaning.

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Chapter 4

Musical Instruments and the Materiality of Racial Drag

Forró de Quintal at Sahara Lounge

At the Sahara Lounge, I am performing with Forró de Quintal on cavaquinho. We start our performance after Maracatu Texas, and indeed three members of the group perform in Maracatu Texas. We play songs with a range of rhythms typical of forró (baião, xote, and arrasta-pé) as well as a few songs in samba rhythm (Including the famous forró singer Jackson do Pandeiro’s song “O ordem é samba”) as well as “Sinhá pureza,” a song in the carimbó rhythm from the northern state of Pará. João, the band’s leader, lead singer, and zabumba player (the double-headed bass drum of forró ensembles that produces two tones, a low bass tone on the top drumhead, and a higher pitched, snappy, snare-like tone on the lower head), encourages and thanks the audience for dancing. One of the crowd favorites of our performance is when we play the song “Pagode Russo” for them to dance quadrilha—a kind of square dance popular at northeastern harvest festivals (festas juninas) where dancers form two lines, standing shoulder to shoulder with fellow dancers and facing their partners who form a second line. Partners raise their arms and lock hands, forming a triangle or roof, and the two lines create a tunnel.

Partners at the end then dance through the tunnel and form a new link on the other side.

The quadrilhas at Sahara always end in a “conga line,” with partners placing their hands on the shoulders or hips of the dancer in from of them and snaking through the entire venue, encouraging others to join in.

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Before we begin the song, João encourages the crowd to join in the dance which he describes as typical of Brazilian northeast parties, and he invites one of the Brazilians in attendance (usually Vanessa) to lead the crowd. The audience following Vanessa’s lead, participates enthusiastically by forming a rather large tunnel after we’ve played for only about two minutes. I watch the dancers while keeping an eye on my band mates in case something unexpected occurs, and to make sure I catch the return of the head melody. The harmony of the song is simple; the verses just cycle between i -V7. But João doesn’t always follow a set form—often repeating verses, or skipping some of them —so I watch João and the accordion player for the return of the introduction melody when I play a couple extra chords (iv-i-V7-i). Most of my attention, however, is focused onlocking my cavaquinho with the triangle player’s part, and reminding myself to keep my arm and wrist relaxed. Arrasta-pé is a quick, up-tempo rhythm; the cavaquinho plays a rapidly strummed and syncopated pattern. Admittedly, since I don’t practice this rhythm enough my arm muscles naturally tense up in order to execute the strum pattern correctly at tempo. However, if I don’t loosen my muscles and relax my wrist and arm, I will quickly tire well before the end of the song. Despite my awareness of my right arm, I join in with my bandmates’ enjoyment of the challenge to play so fast and the enthusiastic response from the crowd. We always push the tempo, playing faster and faster to end the song. The crowd cheers loudly when we finish, and we take a brief moment to recover, smiling knowingly at each other with sweat running down our smiling faces.

______

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The quadrilha vignette serves as an additional example of the ways in which

Austinites engage with and (re)produce specific, localized performances of Brazilian music through embodied participation. Following the movements of authentic Brazilian guides, Austinites perform Brazilianness and come to register and recreate ideas about not only Brazil but Austin itself as they consume Brazilian culture. However , by focusing on my own embodiment and my negotiation with my cavaquinho, I draw attention to the material aspects of racial drag.

This chapter seeks to uncover the materiality of ethnic drag in Austin’s Brazilian music scene by focusing attention on musical instruments. Material objects, and specifically their connection to and frequent inseparability from human bodies of distinct genders, are often highlights or focal points of Brazilian performance abroad. Recall the comments cited in chapter two: the samba school “just busts in with all their drums and dancers and feathers.” Material objects not only catch the audience’s attention; effective performance is dependent upon them. This is especially the case in terms of how bodies engage with material objects—drums and feathers are inseparably linked to dancers and performers. Thus, the embodied experience and spectacle of samba in Austin occurs through particular interactions of bodies and things.

A Facebook advertisement for the 2018 Austin Carnaval Brasileiro presents a telling example of such linkages. Beneath an image of partyers from a previous Carnaval, the ad lists four attractions/ reasons to attend the party: “BIG Drums! Samba! Costumes!

Mayhem!” (figure 14). Things comprise half of this list—not just drums, but “BIG” drums, and costumes (clothing and worn artifacts). Of interest is not only that things are important enough to be foregrounded individually in the advertisement, but that the

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material objects are indispensable for establishing the immaterial elements of the list.

Without “big” drums, there is no samba. “Mayhem” appears as a specific assemblage born out of the combination of people and costumes with samba and big drums.

Figure 14: Advertisement for Carnival Brasileiro 2018 posted to Facebook.

This chapter draws from thing theory, scholarship on material cultures, as well as a renewed body of work by ethnomusicologists on organology to reexamine the social significance of musical instruments in the Brazilian music scene in Austin. Performers

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and audience members imbue musical instruments with multiple meanings, but they also interact with instruments in ways that compel us to consider instruments as social actors in their own right. I explore how instruments facilitate social networks within the

Brazilian music scene, and how, as part of those networks, they articulate and sound out racialized and gendered ideas about Brazilianness. However, more than just sonic and visual markers, instruments convey information about how to position and move the body. I employ Bernstein’s notion of “scriptive things” to conceptualize material objects with an agency that permits them to “assert” themselves, demanding that humans interact with them in specific ways and thus scripting or broadly structuring the performative encounter (Bernstein 2009). Viewed from this perspective, instruments emerge as a fundamental part of processes of embodiment in Brazilian music and dance performance.

As such, focusing our attention on instruments enables us to uncover the mutual constitution of the subject-object that performs embodied subjectivities. In this way, instruments are fundamental components of the embodied practices that enact racial drag or play in Brazilian ensembles in Austin.

I begin by reviewing a growing body of scholarship that can be described as “new organology”—a resurgence of ethnomusicological interest in musical instruments characterized by its focus on their social significance. This trend is heavily influenced by developments in Material Culture Studies as well as Science and Technology Studies and

Sound Studies. In my review of this work, I highlight the manner in which instruments establish connections with humans, whether social networks, archives of memory, or embodied human-instrument assemblages. I introduce scriptive things as a helpful analytical tool for conceptualizing how instruments engage with humans to produce

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meanings in embodied performance. I then turn to case studies from my ethnographic work in Austin, first noting that like the body (chapter 3), material objects—and one’s corporal engagement with objects—emerge as significant elements in how ensemble members discuss their experience. I suggest that, as scriptive things, instruments structure human-object interactions in ways that draw upon both an archive (Taylor 2003) of symbolic, textual meanings as well as a repertoire of performed, embodied knowledge, to ultimately produce racialized and gendered meanings.

Revisiting Organology Organology, the study of musical instruments, has been a central component of ethnomusicology since the origins of the field of comparative musicology. Until recently the dominant view of organology comprised the study of (dead and dusty) instruments in museums105 and “seemingly outdated” courses devoted to documenting physical artifacts—the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system, which Maria Sonevytsky rightly identifies as the field’s “locus classicus” (Sonevytsky 2008:103; Bates 2012:365). This colonial legacy is difficult to overcome. Kevin Dawe, drawing on James Clifford, indicates that the “need” to collect, classify, and organize instruments is entangled in

105 Bates provides the Musical Instrument Museum (MIM) as an example: “Instrument museums are mausoleums, places for the display of the musically dead, with organologists acting as morticians, preparing dead instrument bodies for preservation and display. Visitors to MIM walk by a glass display case containing a Turkish saz and hear a commercially available recording of saz music through their FM- equipped headsets. Yet, the display (like many displays in the museum) reads simply ‘Saz. Turkey. Long- necked lute,’ bereft of stories about the particular instrument, how it came to be in the museum, or its pre- death life in the hands of living players” (2012:365).

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processes of possession, power, and consumption that effectively colonize the object, reproducing it in “our own image” (2003:282).

Since about 2000 a growing number of scholars (Qureshi 2000, Ryan 2003; Dawe

2005; Doubleday 2008; Bates 2012; Ragheb 2012; Rancier 2014) are calling for a new organology that “replaces the traditional typological or taxonomical project of organology with an ethnographically motivated examination of a specific musical instrument in a particular social context” (Sonevytsky 2008:103). Ethnographic studies of the socio-cultural significance of instruments are certainly not new (Berliner 1978; Zemp

1978; Becker 1988; Racy 1994). What sets this body of work apart, however, is the extent to which authors seek to decolonize organology and to (re)conceptualize instruments as social entities rather than mere physical objects. In this regard, the resurgence in organological studies is heavily influenced by anthropological developments in material culture studies (Appadurai 1986; Miller 1998; Brown 2001) as well as the theoretical attention paid to objects, technological design, and non-human social actors—including musical instruments—in Science and Technology Studies and

Sound Studies (Bijker 1995; Pinch and Bijsterveld 2004; Bijsterveld and Schulp 2004;

Latour 2005; Théberg 1997; Pinch and Trocco 2002; Pinch 2008). The centrality of material objects as the focus of ethnographic studies in these fields has sparked renewed ethnomusicological interest in the social life of musical instruments as well. The tenor of such publications can perhaps be best summarized by the following assertion from

Sonevytsky: “musical instruments, the musician's extra-corporeal “voice” that produces sound in time, mediate the act of sound-making between the musician and the music, and

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therefore constitute a unique category of ‘things’ to submit to the question: how does an inanimate object express its ‘social life’?” (102).

Musical Instruments and Thing Theory In his seminal essay, Bill Brown (2001) draws from Heidegger to distinguish between objects and things. Brown utilizes the metaphor of a window to articulate the separation: as a mere object, we look through windows to see what lies beyond, yet if the window pane becomes dirty and smudged, we notice the window itself as our view through the window is obstructed. In other words, objects become things when they assert themselves as things. Brown explains that we “confront the thingness of objects when they stop working for us: when the drill breaks, when the car stalls, when the windows get filthy, when their flow within the circuits of production and distribution, consumption and exhibition, has been arrested, however momentarily” (Brown: 4).

Building on Brown, Robin Bernstein describes an object as “a chunk of matter that one looks through or beyond to understand something human,” whereas a thing “asserts itself within a field of matter” (69). Objects are tools, a means to an end, whereas a thing alters the human-object relationship. By “demand[ing] that people confront it on its own terms,” Bernstein points out that “a thing forces a person into an awareness of the self in material relation to the thing” (69-70). Brown similarly concludes, “the story of objects asserting themselves as things, then, is the story of a changed relation to the human subject and thus the story of how the thing really names less an object than a particular subject-object relation (Brown: 4).

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Conceptualizing musical instruments as things puts “particular subject-object relations” into focus, giving us a more nuanced understanding of racial formations constructed via the embodied consumption and performance of Brazilian music.

Figure 15: Surdos, caixas, repeniques, chocalhos, bells, and members of Austin Samba School.

For musicians in the Austin Samba School and related groups, mostly drummers, the instrument is the first and primary contact that links them and their bodies to Brazilian music. Additionally, for audience members, dozens of drums stand out in Austin’s live music soundscape. Audiences members do not see forty people, nor do they see/hear forty drums; audience members’ exposure to Brazilian music arrives as forty drummers—a mutual subject-object that performs, and upon which are placed, a

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multitude of meanings. As Bernstein reminds us, “agency, intention, and racial subjectivation co-emerge through everyday physical encounters with the material world”

(69). Conceptualizing instruments as scriptive things is especially helpful because it draws attention to the ways in which humans adapt their bodies in response to the materiality of the instrument, giving a more nuanced understanding of embodied knowledge and the gendered-raced performances of Brazilian music in Austin Texas. The role of things or objects within the subject-object relationships that constitute racial formations is further complicated by George Yancy’s observation that “whites construct themselves as subjects in relation to those (in this case, Black bodies) who are thereby constructed as ‘things’” (126).

It what follows, I examine musical instruments in Austin’s Brazilian music scene from a number of perspectives, including attention to their sounds and associated meanings. I explore how, as scriptive things, instruments structure social networks (in addition to human bodies), borrowing from Elliot Bates’ (2012) work on instruments as social actors that facilitate and articulate networks of meaning and affinity. I explore the corporal/material phenomenology of the musical encounter with drums, and examine how the material of instruments establishes a boundary of authenticity in maracatu performance outside of Brazil. Then, I explore the role of instruments in ethnic drag and the performance of gendered-racial formations.

Instruments and Social Networks Vanessa is telling me about her first experience playing with the group Maracatu

Texas (then called Maracatu Austin) in 2013 or 2014. She had heard about the group and

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decided to go and check them out. She is from Recife, but had no previous experience playing maracatu. In fact, the only musical experience she had, as mentioned, was when she occasionally accompanied her father to local bars where he would play pagode samba on the cavaquinho. As a child, Vanessa joined in with a shaker (ganzá).

Years later, in Austin, she sat to watch the rehearsal. One of the group leaders, a professional percussionist in Austin, an American who self identifies as Latino, encouraged her to play with the group. Vanessa tells me, “I’m like ‘oh I don’t have an instrument, I don’t know how to play,’ and he’s like ‘here, here [sic], take this!’ and he gave me a ganzá.” Vanessa immediately thought it “really interesting” that her first (and only) instrument in Brazil was the ganzá shaker, and it is the first instrument offered to her in Austin. Vanessa felt an immediate personal connection to the music via the ganzá, and successfully played along with the group during the rehearsal. She explains that it was “very natural to me because I knew how to play, you know what I mean, I never trained but I knew how to play. So I start playing and I was like, ‘is this right?’ and he was like, ‘yeah! That’s really good!’”

Vanessa has played and performed with the group ever since. Over the years she has learned to play the alfaia106 as well, but for the “whole first year” the ganzá was her

“instrument of choice.” Her relationship with the ganzá is so strong that she feels compelled to return to it; “there are some songs that [make me feel] ‘I need a ganzá!’”

She describes the ganzá in affectionate terms: “I tell people, ‘oh my gosh! You’re gonna get the ganzá? I’m gonna get jealous!’ Because it’s like, ‘Ah, this is mine.’ It’s not of course, but I’m like ‘ah, ah!’ you know, ‘this is my baby’.” Vanessa discusses the instrument in terms that reflect less a sense of ownership of a passive object and more a

106 Bass drum used in maracatu.

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deeply person(al) relationship. As her “baby,” the ganzá exists as an independent subject, and yet it was born of her; Vanessa’s subjectivity is partially embodied within the ganzá and it represents a sounding extension of her.

Elliot Bates points to the frequency with which we “conceive of musical instruments as not only having some degree of agency, but even as protagonists of stories—as actors who facilitate, prevent, or mediate social interaction among other characters” (364). He observes that “much of the power, mystique, and allure of musical instruments … is inextricable from the myriad situations where instruments are entangled in webs of complex relationships—between humans and objects, between humans and humans, and between objects and other objects” (ibid.). In the example above, not only does the ganzá enable Vanessa to enter the roda of maracatu musicians and sound her voice, thus establishing a local social network of performers (and audience members) for her, but the instrument also possesses the special ability to enact connections and memories that conflate time and space. Vanessa explains, “It’s interesting because my dad … when he came here he saw me playing with all of these groups,107 he was talking to my mom [and said] ‘Do you remember when she was young and we were in a roda de samba, she would take the ganzá and start playing?’, and my mom [said] ‘yeah.’ They

[thought] ‘wow, she’s playing now’.” It was meaningful for Vanessa that her parents’ point of reference were the memories of her as a child. She restates this point to me, as if to let the significance of the connection echo: “my first instrument with my dad was ganzá, and my first instrument here was ganzá.”

107 When her parents came from Recife to visit her in June, 2016, Vanessa hosted a party that included performances by Forró de Quintal and Trem do Samba. Thus, in addition to seeing her perform with Maracatu Texas and Trem do Samba, Vanessa’s parents also glimpsed her involvement with a broader network of Brazilian performance.

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Musical instruments are an important component of establishing networks and communities within the Brazilian music scene more broadly. Instruments, as sounding symbols, (re)present and perform myriad ideas about Brazil and Brazilianness, and the networks established via instruments tend to reflect those associations. One example can be found in the group Forró de Quintal and leader/founder João’s desire for a more authentic sound. Before moving to Austin, João was a professional musician who toured

Europe with internationally renowned groups like Quarteto de Olinda and Rabecada.

Figure 16: Forró de Quintal performing with an accordionist at the Sahara Lounge, Austin, Texas.

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João started the group Forró de Quintal in 2014 in order to take some gigs that opened up at the Sahara Lounge. Without an accordion player or rabeca (Brazilian folk fiddle) player available, João invited a keyboardist, something that never set well with him. While the keyboardist’s playing was excellent and contributed a unique, almost hybrid sound to the group, João explained to me that he never felt comfortable leading a forró group without one of the iconic harmonic/melodic instruments of the genre: rabeca or accordion. He has repeatedly invited accordionists and violinists (an instrument which can approximate the sound of the rabeca) to perform, and has been especially invested in helping those musicians learn the style. The first time an accordion player joined, he was so excited that he even offered to use some of the band’s profits to pay for Skype-lessons with accordion players in Recife to help the individuals learn the intricate details of the local playing style.108

Another example of instruments as social actors occurred Monday June 13, 2016, at a rehearsal for the group Samba Bamba. Chico, the group founder and principal cavaquinho player, is going to be out of town for the group’s upcoming gig, so he asks me to play cavaquinho in his absence, switching from my usual role playing the 7-string guitar. Chico also wants to change singers, and so he organizes a rehearsal with the new singer and myself to make sure we’re ready to perform without him, and to double check that the keys of each song complement each singer’s vocal range. In addition to myself,

Chico invites Forrest to join us, who recently arrived in Austin after living in Brazil for five years, in an effort to “give us more flexibility.” Chico and the singer are Brazilian,

108 After the keyboardist moved out of state, an accordionist who previously played forró in Austin with the group Gente Boa joined Forró de Quintal in early 2016. The instrumentation of the group remained stable until that accordionist also relocated in January 2017, and since Forró de Quintal has largely been on hiatus. I acquired a rabeca and there are plans to revive the group.

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and when I arrive, Chico explains to the singer that he can speak Portuguese tonight, that the “gringos já falam” (the foreigners can already speak it). We proceed with our rehearsal, switching between English and Portuguese. Charlie arrives late, and declares that he “knew he was in the right place when he heard the cavaquinhos.” We break to let

Charlie get organized and join in, and Chico reminds the singer again that Charlie also speaks Portuguese. From this point on, we converse almost entirely in Portuguese, rehearse for another two hours to run through the entire set list. That three cavaquinhos were all playing together was frequently a focus of conversation; jokes were made about a noite de cavaquinho (cavaquinho night) and the adjective cavacado (roughly, cavaquinho’ed) employed. One participant posted a selfie to Facebook, where it garnered numerous comments and likes from many in the Austin Brazilian scene.

Figure 17: "Noite de Cavaco!!” post on Facebook. 4 men, 3 cavaquinhos, 1 abê, 2 Brazilians, and 2 Americans.

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Comments on the picture, entitled “Noite de Cavaco!” include “little cavaquinho club” and “se um ja é bom, imagine tres! (If one of them is good, imagine three!)

In this case, the cavaquinho becomes an object that helps to establish a network of

Brazilian performance in Austin while simultaneously acting as a symbolic stand-in for constructed notions of “Brazilian” culture. Very specific cultural practices, i.e. almost exclusively male musicians getting together to perform pagode-style samba, joke, eat and drink, is extrapolated to signify Brazilian cultural ambience and viewed as an example of

Brazilian joie de vivre. If one cavaquinho embodies this notion, three cavaquinhos amplify it, reinforcing feelings of collective belonging among performers. In short, the cavaquinho serves as a link that enables ideas about Brazilian culture and musicking practices to be (re)articulated here in Austin. Similarly, the ability to play cavaquinho is one of the elements that enable non-Brazilians to participate in such performances of

Brazilianness.

Drums and Marketing Brazil

Robitaille argues that the body becomes “a marketing device” for Brazil and capoeira

(231). I argue that the same holds true for instruments. The prominence of “BIG Drums!” on the advertisements for Carnaval Brasileiro represents one clear example. But consider also an advertisement (figure 18) for samba dance classes.

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Figure 18: Advertisement for samba dance classes posted to Facebook

A dance instructor arranged to have live percussion for all of her samba dance classes at

Esquina Tango, a popular Latin dance-studio by day/performance venue by night on

Austin’s eastside. The incorporation of drums is the main marketing point: these samba classes offer an advantage over others “Because Samba is SO MUCH better with

Drums!” The advertisement implies that live drums provide a more authentic, energetic, and embodied experience with samba. Especially significant is how drums amplify the local brand of weird (but hip) cosmopolitanism (see chapter 2): “the coolest little Tango

Corner in Austin!”

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Mercier notes that audience members’ expectations for Brazilian music hinge in a large part on instruments. Audience members connect Brazilian music with percussion and “exotic” or “weird” instruments such as the berimbau (musical bow) and cuíca

(friction drum) (Mercier: 60). It is certainly the case that dozens of drummers capture the attention of Austinites and set expectations for Brazilianness. Instruments and the sounds they produce are central components in establishing expectations and stereotypes of

Brazilian music. Mercier’s research demonstrates the difficulties many non-Brazilian audience members have in hearing forró as Brazilian music, for instance, largely because the accordion is not understood to be “Brazilian.”109 This tendency to perceive Latin music in overly narrow terms is present to an extent in the ethnographic vignette discussed previously, as the Latino Moonlight Serenade organizers expected to play along to Brazilian bossa nova and MPB with their Puerto Rican güiro. Conversely, João’s discomfort in the Forró de Quintal example illustrates that for Brazilians, instrumentation can be a marker of authenticity.

On “Paper Drums”: The Materials and Physicality of (Racial) Authenticity in Maracatu-Nação

I want to draw attention to the materiality of instruments— the visual and audible effects of the materials used in their construction—as it pertains to notions of authenticity, stereotypes, and broader associations about race and Brazilianness.

Specifically, I focus on the wood and leather construction of alfaias—the bass drums used in Afro-Brazilian maracatu ensembles and that contrast with the metal and synthetic

109 She suggests that some audience members even project their stereotypes of Brazilianness onto forró, drawing connections with sensual Latin dance. See Mercier, 35.

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drums used in samba—as a case study.110 Cristina underscores the effect of the sound of samba drums: as noted, she describes the moment that the samba school, with their dozens of drummers, starts to perform: “when they arrive, they really arrive (eles chega chegando). Similarly, Christina declares that Maracatu Texas “chega com aqueles tambores bem graves, chega chegando” (arrives with those really deep drums, [they] really make an impression). Cristina identifies the alfaias as the element that not only distinguishes the sound of maracatu from that of samba, but that enables a group with less than half as many drummers to produce a similar effect on the audience.

The materiality of drums is significant beyond the timbral effect it produces as audience members and performers project primitivist desires for the “raw,” “real” and

“natural” energy they produce (Mercier: 85). One local Austin drummer makes pandeiros and alfaia drums, and he has posted images of a newly finished alfaia to his Facebook page (figure 19). Note that the terms “fresh baked” and basking in sunlight (which reveals the “vibrant colors” hidden in the wood) suggests an organic, natural product.

Similarly, a promotional photo posted to Maracatu Texas’s Facebook page (figure 20) reinforces the association of wooden drums with nature. The advertisement reads

“Heating up the drums!!” above a photo of an array of percussion (three alfaias, one djembe, and one conga drum) sitting in the grass bathed in sunlight. Mercier adds that participants often characterize these “natural” drums as even closer to the human body than samba drums (ibid.).

110 The metal and synthetic drum head construction of samba school drums is clearly visible in figures 15 and 18. In contrast, the leather heads and wooden shells of alfaias are visible in figures 19, 20, and 22.

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Figure 19: A newly constructed alfaia, soon to be shipped to customers in New Orleans.

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Figure 20. Promotional photo of alfaias, djembe, and conga drum from Maracatu Texas Facebook page, 25 April, 2016

The wood an alfaia is made from can also serve as a boundary between the instruments (and their timbres) used by maracatus-nação in Recife and the percussion groups (grupos percusivos) that perform maracatu rhythms elsewhere. The distinction is important and addresses a history of racism, cultural appropriation, and spatio-racial formations in Recife. Maracatu-nação (maracatu nation) also known as maracatu de baque virado (flipped-beat maracatu), is a Black Brazilian cultural form from Recife and surrounding municipalities. Likely related to the King and Queen of Kongo coronation ceremonies of colonial-era Catholic lay brotherhoods, Maracatu-nação emerged as a

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distinct form of parading in Recife’s carnival of the 19th century.111 The ensemble consists of a royal court whose procession is accompanied by a drum battery, traditionally composed of alfaias, tarol (a shallow snare drum), gonguê (single bells), and ganzá or mineiro (cylindrical shakers).112 Historically, White elites in Recife viewed maracatu with distain, linking it with anti-Black stereotypes including criminality, poverty, “noise,” and “witchcraft” (in reference to Afro-matrix religions). Between 1930-

1945, officials undertook an intense campaign against Afro-religious practices in Recife that impacted maracatus as well (Guillen 2007). During the 1960s and 1970s, scholars and folklorists, worried the cultural manifestation was in decline, attempted to “save” maracatu from extinction (Lima 2012: 22).

However, due to the international success of the “mangue beat” music in the

1990s, an in particular groups like Chico Science and Nação Zumbi, maracatu gained renewed attention. White, middle-class residents of Recife, who had long scorned maracatu, suddenly began to celebrate it, ultimately adopting it a symbol of Pernambucan identity (Galinsky 2002; Avelar 2011). In the wake of this renewed attention, Whites in

Recife started to perform maracatu, often forming their own ensembles known as grupos percussivos. Tensions emerged between such percussion groups and the longstanding

111 The first record of a coronation of an African ethnic royalty (The King and Queen of Angola) in Brazil is from Recife’s Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos Pretos (Our Lady of the Rosary of the Blacks) church in in 1666. However, the ritual dates back to at least 1642 in Portugal (Metz: 67). In fact, African Royalty coronation ceremonies connected with catholic brotherhoods occurred throughout colonial Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula (Andrews, 69-72; Crook, 147-148; Freyer, 61; Metz, 67). Ivaldo Marciano da França Lima is highly critical of the predominant view in maracatu historiography that the maracatu represents a continuation of the King of Kongo rituals in Africa, “as if maracatus were a mere survival, sometimes understood as totemic, of old/ancient (antigos) African customs brought by the slaves and perpetuated/maintained (perpetuados) by their descendants that did not even know what they were doing” (Lima 2012:67-69). For more on this, including the influence of Herskovitsian retentionist theories on maracatu scholarship, see LaFevers 2014). 112 Ivaldo Marciano da França Lima reminds us that; “the Black king and queen are accompanied by a royal in which each element has its own function and symbolic significance” (Lima 2012: 48).

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Afrodescendant maracatus-nação in Recife, with activists and maracatuzeiros/as critiquing middle-class interest in and performance of maracatu as cultural appropriation, a critique substantiated by the privileged position of the new percussion groups in the

Brazilian media (Carvalho 2007; Esteves 2008).

The debates between maracatus-nação and the middle-class percussion groups highlight the role of musical practices in defining spatio-racial formations in Recife.

Lima describes maracatus-nação as a community-based cultural form headquartered in the neighborhoods in which most of the (overwhelmingly Black) members live.

Traditional maracatus-nação have strong ties with Orixás and Afro-matrix religions of their community (Candomblé, Jurema, Umbanda). The calunga, the eguns, or ancestral

Orixás embodied in a doll that accompanies maracatu processions, is just one example of such a tie (Lima 2013:52). In contrast, newer percussion groups are comprised of mostly

White or light-skinned, middle-class youth who live across the Recife metropolitan area; they meet up, usually on the weekends and in iconic neighborhoods (Recife Antigo), to rehearse and perform (ibid.: 54; Esteves 2013: 77). As such, the community-based aspects of traditional maracatu-nação, and its religious significance, are not perpetuated in such percussion groups; they typically reduce maracatu-nação to its distinct aesthetic elements—“dance, music, lyrics, and performance” (Carvalho 2007:17).113

In September, 2017 Maracatu Texas hosted Dudu, a percussionist and long-time active member of Maracatu Nação Estrela Brilhante do Recife, for about a week of group rehearsals, workshops, private lessons, and guest performances. I attended one of the group rehearsals led by Dudu. I arrive very excited and eager to both speak to Dudu

113 Maracatu-nação as a community practice falls into what Turino terms the ‘cultural formation” of Black Recifenses, whereas grupos percussivos might be described as “cultural cohorts” (Turino 2008:159-161).

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about Recife, get his take on teaching maracatu to non-(Black)Brazilians, and to learn from him. However, I am unable to introduce myself when I arrive. He and João are both very busy tuning drums. I find them both either on their knees or squatting over alfaias that are on the floor, their left hands bracing the wooden shells of the drums, their right hands pulling hard the ropes that tighten the leather drum heads. There isn’t time for me to chat with Dudu prior to the start of the rehearsal; as we form a circle, I am offered an agogô and join in.

Speaking to the group of thirty drummers in Portuguese with one of the four

Brazilian members translating, Dudu repeatedly talked about Estrela Brilhante in ways that stressed a separation between a real maracatu-nação and a percussion group.

Addressing Maracatu Texas as a grupo percussivo, he articulated his excitement that the members were interested in learning about his culture and playing this music, but cautioned that they need to understand where it comes from. Dudu repeatedly framed maracatu as a form of cultural resistance to enslavement and racism, stressing the close ties between maracatu-nação and Candomblé terreiros. Reinforcing the distinction between “real” maracatus and the activities of percussion groups is one way in which maracatuzeiros/as and Black activists combat cultural appropriation and the consumption of Black cultural forms removed from the bodies and communities that created them.114

Interjected throughout the presentation were explanations of how maracatu is performed in Estrela Brilhante (discussed and understood by the audience as an example of maracatu-nação authenticity par excellence). Dudu linked Afro-Brazilian cultural and religious resistance (resistência) against oppression to physical endurance (also resistência in Portuguese). The linguistic play and broader allegory of resisting racism

114 On the necessity of emphasizing Afro-matrix religiosity, see Koslinsky (2013).

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and resisting fatigue while playing strenuous and physically demanding music was no doubt lost in translation on the vast majority of the English-speaking attendees.115

Figure 21: Dudu leading Maracatu Texas rehearsal.

Significant for our purposes here is how often Dudu articulated maracatu authenticity by conflating the physicality of the body’s interaction with the materiality of the alfaia drums. “Real,” authentic rehearsals (unlike what takes place in Austin) last for hours, and “we don’t put the drums down.” Dudu makes a clear separation between

115 It is unclear if the five Americans with some Portuguese language skills picked up on this linguistic association.

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authentic maracatu-nação performance practice—maracatu-nação is physically demanding—and that of the aficionados in percussion groups that perform maracatu rhythms. This distinction is embodied in the drums themselves. Dudu points to the padded nylon straps most of the drummers use to secure their alfaias, explaining that in

Estrela Brilhante, drummers use rough and hard ropes that cut into the skin. Further, the group uses alfaias made of macaíba wood, a local palm tree. Alfaias made of macaíba are

“stronger,” “heavier,” more demanding to play physically, and produce a louder and distinct timbre. Dudu strikes a Maracatu Texas member’s alfaia and then beats his own

(macaíba) alfaia for comparison. Maracatu Texas drummers express awe at the loudness of the drum. Dudu explains that drums in the U.S. also have foam inside, which dampens the sound. “It’s no good, take that out!” he admonishes, “it’s only good if you’re going to make a recording.” Dudu stresses his point by saying, “We call these drums “paper drums!” The point is clear: performers in Austin are not, and can never be, a “real” maracatu, and our lightweight attempts at performing maracatu only serve to reaffirm the boundaries between the authentic Black expression of maracatu-nação and the music of percussion groups that celebrate the form and play its rhythms.

After a few minutes of drumming, a man interrupts our rehearsal; He is from the liquor store next door. He is very polite and claims to love the music, but asks if there is anything that can be done: the shelves of expensive liquor against the wall are shaking and he is afraid the bottles will fall. Our original setup had the alfaias against the right wall of the studio, where, despite being “paper drums,” their loud bass vibrations apparently reached and shook the shelves next door. The news was met with “yeahs!” and enthusiastic laughing! We flip positions, lining the snares against the wall in

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question, which seems to solve the problem. Although we will never be an authentic maracatu, and we might not “faz a terra tremer” (make the ground shake) like maracatu- nação Estrelha Brilhante, we nonetheless feel quite proud of our powerful and disruptive weirdness vis-à-vis the adjacent business.

We can understand Austinites’ performance of maracatu as a form of racial play or drag, an embodied performance of Blackness from the Brazilian northeast (especially when heard alongside the other northeastern Afro-Brazilian genres the Maracatu Texas plays, coco and afoxé). Drums—alfaias especially—establish human-instrument assemblages that encode the performance of Blackness, acting at the same time as

“sounding costumes” as well as markers of (in)authenticity.

Figure 22: Maracatu-Nação Estrela Brilhante do Recife. The dark macaíba wood is clearly visible in the alfaias. Compare with the “paper drum” alfaias (made from laminated wood) in figures 19 and 20.

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Instruments and the Body Kevin Dawe suggests that “musical instruments are, after all, the human externalised and extended, and, if not a part of the human body or making use of its cavities, they are the materials of the physical world shaped into ‘human-friendly' form” (2005:59). Veronica

Doubleday further acknowledges the link between instruments and the human body by pointing out the nomenclature of instrument’s “body parts” includes “’head,’ ‘neck,’

‘belly,’” as well as “sexual parts that indicate a female or male identity” (2008:12). And

Regula Qureshi asserts that musical instruments “have meaning through cultural knowledge permeated with physicality and affect: embodied knowledge” (2000: 810).

Instruments, then, from their material shape to the sounds they produce, are inseparably enmeshed with both the human body and socio-cultural meanings derived from the musical experience.

Important for our purposes here is that instruments are similarly involved in the processes of embodiment that articulate gendered and racial meanings in Brazilian performance internationally. Writing about Brazilian performance groups in Toronto,

Natasha Pravaz argues that through embodied practice, samba performers “slowly

[change] their corporeal dispositions and [develop] an intimate relationship with their instruments” (ibid.). But instruments also play a key role in how audience members embody and experience Brazilian music. Mercier indicates that the tendency for audience members to “perceive music… as having so much power on their bodies that they nearly personify it” stems from the connections they make between drums and their bodies:

“many feel as if their bodies merged with music or as if there were close similarities between drums and the body” (85). Recall the comment from an Austin Carnaval

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Brasileiro attendee cited in chapter 3: “this music is very primal, it goes to your guts, to your soul.”

Again, the notion of instruments as “things” as opposed to mere objects is helpful here. Brown suggests that we imagine things as ““what is excessive in objects, as what exceeds their mere materialization as objects or their mere utilization as objects—their force as a sensuous presence” (5, emphasis added). Greg Downy’s work on the phenomenology of the music experience in capoeira highlights the importance of instruments’ “sensuous presences” and their relationship with the human body, what he refers to as “the corporality of sound.” (Downey 2002: 495). He argues that by

“[suspending] one’s presuppositions about what the musical object is in capoeira,” it becomes clear that capoeristas do not hear musical sound through concepts like melody, tone, or rhythm. Instead, they tend to refer to the material and physical qualities of the instrument and its relationship to the body that produces the musical sound (ibid.: 496).116

Downy asserts that the corporality of the sonic experience involves “the visceral nature of sonority, the distinct culturally-specific materiality of sound experiences. A capoeira adept, who must necessarily be a musician [and is] accustomed to feeling the instrument meshing with his or her own body both physically and sonically, feels the instrument present in the sound it produces” (ibid.).

The ways in which humans and their bodies respond to and engage with musical instruments indicates the ability of instruments to assert agency as scriptive things. Of course, humans are not powerless beings captivated by instruments; Bernstein stresses:

“that which I call a “scriptive thing,” like a play script, broadly structures a performance

116 Examples include the tightness of the berimbau string, whether the player is using a smooth stone or metallic coin to press against the string, and the material used to make the caxixi (Downey 2002: 496).

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while simultaneously allowing for resistance and unleashing original, live variations that may not be individually predictable” (Bernstein: 69). Two examples of this dynamic, one from a samba drummer, illustrate the ways in which performers negotiate and come to terms with the physicality of drums as ‘scriptive things’. On the one hand, they react to specific “demands” from the drum, and on the other they negotiate their own physical relationship with the instrument (e.g., postures, ways of holding the drum and drum sticks, and corporal techniques of striking the instrument).

The first example of performer-instrument interactions comes from talking with

Arnold, a professional musician and an accomplished percussionist in Austin Samba

School. Arnold joined the group after playing drum set for roughly ten years, an experience or period of engagement with an instrument that forced him to have “some awareness of my hands,” yet he still encountered challenges in learning to play samba.

Arnold explains, “I’d never ever played a snare drum on a strap over my neck. So that alone was super challenging, just from a grip perspective.” I asked him to elaborate and his response is worth quoting at length:

Me: so it seems that much of the initial difficulty was position, like grip?

Arnold: Just taking the drum off of the stand in front of me and having it pressed up against my tummy and what [that] causes you to have to do [is significant] (emphasis added). [I’m talking about the] traditional grip.117 You know, the left hand [of the caixa player] plays traditional grip, and as a drum set player I didn’t have to learn traditional grip to be in a rock band. But even then, when you play a caixa,118 depending on where you hold it, [it’s] gonna feel different than playing traditional grip on a drum set, you know. If you have the drum mounted up higher on your chest, so it’s not sloshing around and wagging on your waist while you’re marching, then even that is a different kind of traditional grip. So yeah that was a big adaptation for me.”

117 An underhand technique for holding the drum sticks. 118 A particular kind of snare drum used in samba.

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In this example, the agency of the drum as an object that asserts itself—a scriptive thing—comes into view as Arnold literally struggles to control the seemingly independent “sloshing” and “wagging” movements of the drum. That the drum is pressed against his “tummy” demands (“causes”) him to engage with it in specific or scripted ways. His agency emerges as he continues to explain his process of coming to terms with the instrument. As a professionally trained musician, Arnold is familiar with corporal position and economy of movement in playing instruments, and he applied this experience to a methodical approach to learning caixa:

Ok, where am I, where am I holding the drum, where do I want to hold the drum, what’s gonna be most comfortable? I think maybe playing it, holding it higher, is gonna be comfortable. If I hold it higher, what happens to my elbows, my wrists, my fingers? How can I, you know, target the muscles that help me play efficiently? … It’s not like I had to [learn a new technique on my own]. Had I really known [the caixa section-leader] well enough to ask about that kind of thing, I probably could have. But even so, he came from a different culture. [For instance], in drumline, the [snare] drum is flat, you hold it lower and it’s on that shoulder holster that keeps it super rigid. With [its] strap, [by contrast, the caixa] is sloshing around. To me it just kind of required [a different technique]. I was like, “alright, I’m gonna find my approach. I’m gonna find a new way to hold the sticks that works with where my body is and that helps me be relaxed and let my arms hang. So I put a lot of time into it, a lot of thought (emphasis added).

In learning to play the caixa, Arnold becomes meticulously aware of his body. He notices how adjusting one aspect of his playing posture alters the rest of his bodily position and movements. He not only has to pay particular attention to the way he holds the sticks to correctly execute rhythms, he also has to learn to control—or move/dance with—the independent sloshing of the drum in relation to his own body. Thus, Arnold is confronted with the drum on its own terms, and learning to play the caixa “required” that

Arnold develop an approach to engage with the drum. As such, the example reflects the ability of “things” to hail humans into subjecthood. Bernstein observes that interpellation can occur “through encounters in the material world: dances between people and things”

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(73). A hail “demands a bodily response,” and in responding to the caixa, Arnold

“enter[s] the scripted scenario, the individual is interpolated into ideology and thus into subjecthood” (ibid.).

The ability to produce sounds presents an added dimension to conceptualizing musical instruments as scriptive things. As samba drummer James suggests, the scriptive scenario extends beyond the corporal engagement of the instrument-player to (via sonically encoded information) evoke or structure specific movements by dancers. James explains:

As far as how these rhythms elicit a type of movement, the best way that I can create an analogy for the Brazilian swing, the samba swing, is [this] idea … If I played the kind of samba rhythm that [we play on the caixa], it’s this [taps the rhythm while counting 1 ee and ah, 2 etc]. There’s a variation in the sticking, and the variation of the sticking is actually there to elicit a kind of difference in swing.

That is, James points to a relationship between the bodily posture and sticking required

(by the drum) to produce the musical sounds and the sort of bodily movements suggested by the sounds themselves.

David, an alfaia drummer in Maracatu Texas, offers an additional example of the embodied musical experience of performer and instrument and how this interaction exists within broader webs of social meaning. I talk with David after the workshop with Dudu; he reflects about the experience and questions he has about the broader social significance of certain movements and corporal positions:

David: So for example, today, when Dudu was saying it’s important you [execute] this movement [demonstrating how to hold and strike with the stick] I’ve always kind of thought, “That’s actually not important to me, you know, and I don’t know if he was saying that because it’s a religious [thing], there’s something about …

Me: like holding [the stick] at the end?

David: Yeah, and [that making] a big difference. When I was first starting to play I was trying to do that movement and it never felt natural to me. And then at some point I was like, “why don't I just hit the drum like I want to hit the drum?” And it was really helpful.

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I felt like I was playing better all of a sudden. And so when I hear him say [what he did, I’m not sure how to react] … I didn't ask the question today but [in] a private lesson I would have stopped and said: “Why does that make a difference? Is it something about … the way that you guys play when you’re in a terreiro? Or does it help with actual rhythm?” I was curious about it.

David’s agency clearly emerges as he negotiates with the alfaia, responding to its script.

But significantly, hearing a professional maracatu player (who throughout the rehearsal spoke about the specific cultural significance of the maracatu in Recife) stress the importance of holding the stick and striking the alfaia in a specific way highlighted for

David the possibility that such embodied actions could be culturally significant.

Black Drums, White Hipness, and Masculine Power As I’ve attempted to argue in this chapter, musical instruments are not mere objects but rather social actors, ‘things’ that script and articulate specific relationships to human bodies. But instruments also carry embedded within them (and thus also project) ideas about race and gender. Sonevytsky asserts, “through their morphological, metaphorical, and historical contexts, musical instruments index a variety of socially prescribed attributes” (102). Victoria Doubleday observes that “instruments exist independently of the performer as tangible objects, with identities and cultural capital of their own” (4).

Applying Turino’s reading of Peircian semiotics, Rancier argues that instruments are indeed indexes of musical meaning, suggesting that the meanings of “a musical instrument result from repeated experiences of the sign (musical and non-musical associations) and its object (the instrument) together. These experiences are not limited to the individual, but grow into collective, culturally conditioned responses to the meanings that are activated by a musical instrument” (385).

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Rancier conceptualizes musical instruments as national archives, and states that all instruments have three archival qualities: “1) documentation of historical, social, musical, and emotional information, 2) accumulation of meanings, and 3) accessibility to those accumulated meanings for the purpose of (re)interpretation” (386). For Sonevytsky,

(re)interpretation of an instrument’s accumulated meanings involves engaging with the

“various stereotypes associated with the instrument, including the racialized or classed associations that specific instruments possess: in their physical appearance, in the sounds they produce, and in the stylistic markers that are associated with particular genres” (103-

104). In the same way, Rancier refers to musicians as “‘historians’ who access, negotiate, and interpret the meanings stored within their respective musical archives” (385).

In this final section, I want to explore the gendered racial formations created as musicians engage with instruments as archives of cultural association. Ultimately, the mutually constituted human-instrument (subject-object) relationship that emerges to produce and perform racialized and gendered meanings. But considering instruments as archives, the objects in this subject-object relation bring their own set of meanings that are negotiated and performed through human interactions. To borrow from Doubleday,

“gendered meanings”—to which I would also add racial meanings—“are constructed within relationships between humans and musical instruments” (3). Doubleday notes that we often endow instruments with personhood; “gendered meanings are part of an instrument's personhood, and as such they are fluid and negotiable” (4). But, as Rancier and Sonevytsky have illustrated, this negotiation requires the performers to engage with, challenge, or reify the index of accumulated associations and meanings embodied within

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the instrument. I argue that these negotiations produce a sort of gendered-racial drag among Brazilian music performance groups in Austin Texas.

In order to uncover the relationship between instruments and humans that constitute (gendered) racial drag, we need to extend Rancier’s notion of instruments as indices of signs to consider the ways in which archived cultural meanings are enacted via embodied performance. Rancier does not draw on Diana Taylor’s archive and repertoire framework, however Rancier’s notion of archive aligns to an extent with what Taylor terms archival memory—a collection of documents, texts, objects, films, sound recordings (19). However, Taylor also draws our attention to embodied practices of nonarchival memory, or repertoires comprised of “performances, gestures, orality, movements, dance, singing—in short, all those acts usually thought of as ephemeral, nonreproducible knowledge” (20). Viewing musical instruments through the lens of scriptive things enables us to connect the archival memory held within them with the repertoire of embodied meaning performed by them. Bernstein claims that scriptive things “are simultaneously archive and repertoire,” and that when a scriptive thing enters into a repository, ‘the repertoire arrives with them” (89). That is, “scriptive things archive the repertoire,” which is enacted when as they script and structure humans’ interactions with them” (ibid.). Therefore, instruments as scriptive things interpret the meanings indexed in their repertoire, according to Rancier’s conceptualization of musicians as historians. The repertoire emerges from embodied engagement/interpretation with the instrument.

In her introduction to a special edition of Ethnomusicology Forum, “‘Sounds of

Power’: Musical Instruments and Gender,” Veronica Doubleday outlines a number of

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scenarios in which musical instruments encode and perform gender expression. One area that she identifies as “another outcome of male dominance” is that women “rarely enjoy a gender exclusive relationship with a musical instrument” (19). Indeed, there are instruments that women are forbidden to play, even touch (Pryor 1999; Sayre 2000).

Certainly there are instruments strongly associated with female performance, but as

Doubleday points out, “in most cases men also play [those instruments] if they wish”(19).

Figure 23: Austin Samba surdo section posing for a picture posted to Facebook.

Samba drumming has long been associated with male performers. In the Austin

Samba School, women perform in each of the percussion sections, yet the number of women in each section varies widely so that predominant gender associations persist. For example, performers on the surdos (large bass drums) remain overwhelmingly male (see figure 23), whereas the chocalho section contains only one male performer (see figure

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24).119 In formal interview settings when I ask performers about women playing the drums, I am reminded that women play all of the different drums and that there are no restrictions. While not intentional, the gender imbalance of the surdo and chocalho sections reflects broader historic gendered associations: the deep frequencies and loud tones of large drums are linked to masculinity, and the higher registers and lighter timbres of hand percussion tend to be associated with femininity. The prevalence of women in the chocalho section is certainly noticed by Austin Samba members. I overheard jokes and comments about “poor Tom, the only guy in the chocalho section.”

For example, during a Trem do Samba performance at a backyard party in January 2018, members who also play chocalho in Austin Samba began talking about a possible new choreography they could incorporate while playing. Tom was not present, but the women were quick to point out that the new moves couldn’t be too feminine. “Can you imagine

Tom doing this!”

Kevin Dawe provides an example of the Cretan lyra that allows us to view instruments as scriptive things structuring human interactions in ways that ultimately articulate and perform gendered constructions, in this case of masculinity. Dawe observes that male “lyra players also have to take great care of their nails! (The playing technique of the lyra demands long nails)” (Dawe 1996:108). If we view the lyra as a scriptive thing, we uncover the ways in which it demands to be played in a specific way that includes human bodily transformations. The goal is to achieve the correct lyra sound, but this is accomplished through human-object interactions wherein the lyra prompts or elicits a specific playing technique. Interestingly, in Dawe’s example we see that the

119 While images 19 and 20 do not depict the entire membership of the performing sections of the surdos and chocalhos, they are nonetheless representative of the gender imbalance of these two sections.

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performer is not devoid of agency and subservient to the lyra, but rather that the unique subject-object confluence, the musician-lyra, co-articulates masculinity. As part of this process, the man assumes control: “taking care of his appearance shows the performer is in control, not only of his music but also of his body: he is signaling that he will be in control of the celebration too” (Dawe 1996:108). It is the human’s decision to grow nails, but it is a description “scripted” by the lyra, and it is together that the lyra and human construct a performance of masculine control.

Figure 24: The Austin Samba chocalho section poses for a photo posted to Facebook.

Instruments are also repositories of racial meaning. Victoria Sonevytsky investigates the accordion in twentieth-century United States, particularly via the nationally famous figure of Lawrence Welk, as “represent[ing] a particular kind of

‘Whiteness’ that also operates as a distinct kind of ‘otherness,’ a ‘Whiteness’ that is both

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‘ethnic’ - reflecting one dominant stereotype of the accordion as the instrument of

European immigrants in the US, and also ‘square’ - that is, conservative and corny” (105, emphasis added). She seeks to move beyond the “artificial” Black and White binary of race by analyzing the role of the accordion in construction what she calls “ethnic whiteness.” She explains that “this brand of whiteness is not the hegemonic, unmarked whiteness that serves as the normative counterpart to the ‘other’ of blackness, but rather a

"whiteness" that is defined by its associations with immigrant backwardness, lower-class status, and/or marginalization from mainstream American culture” (ibid.). A similar dynamic is at work in the sorts of Whiteness being performed in Austin. In this case, rather than a corny and square Whiteness associated with immigrant backwardness,

Austinites strive to project an alternative, hip Whiteness performed via the symbolic masculine power of Afro-Latin drums that mitigates an otherwise square, corny, and bland mainstream Whiteness.

Sonevytsky supports her argument by drawing on Steve Waksmen’s work on the rise of the electric guitar as “a sonic, physical, and symbolic emblem of a sleek, young, sexy, and predominantly masculine Americanness” in the youth culture of the 1950s. I understand that she is trying to complicate the often over-relied-upon binary of White and

Black racial frames in the United States by exploring nuanced, ethnic and classed modes of Whiteness. However, I think she misses an important aspect that supports her argument when she fails to examine the racial implications of White America’s embrace of the guitar during the 1950s and 1960s. White teenagers explored their sexuality by consuming and colonizing subject-object performances of stereotyped Black hypersexuality within rhythm and blues / rock and roll music, which included the electric

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guitar as a symbol of supposed Black male phallic power. Drawing on Eric Lott’s study of blackface minstrelsy, Waksman observes that “electric guitar performance in the

1960s, like blackface minstrelsy in the 1840s, followed a ‘gendered logic of exchange within which white males sought to compensate for their supposed deficiency by drawing upon the sexual excess that African-American men were thought to embody” (4). Thus, the guitar was/is linked with the body and performance in articulating a White masculine sexual power constructed in part by embodying narratives, stereotypes, and performances of assumed Black sexuality. The corny “ethnic whiteness” of the square, chunky, and non-phallic accordion was further accentuated as the guitar-cum-sleek masculine power symbol gained increasing success in mainstream (White) American culture.

In Austin, samba drums constitute one of the primary ways in which White men develop a symbolic and performative proximity to the musical cultures of (Black)

Brazilian Others. As such, the drums carry with them centuries of racial, gendered, and sexual meanings, including stereotypes of tribal, Black masculine sexual power (Agawu

1995; Radano 2000). Bernstein’s article demonstrates that people posing for photographs with racist figurines and Jane/Tarzan cutouts are interpolated into subjecthood; by temporarily “dancing” with a performative tradition of Blackness, they ultimately construct and perform a White identity. Bernstein uses the term “enscription” to refer to the way that interpellation occurs through scriptive things that “[combine] narrative with materiality to structure behavior” into “identifiable, historicized traditions of performance from both the stage and everyday life” (73, 83).

White male drummers similarly (re)assert Whiteness by temporarily embodying and performing Blackness via their relationship to their instruments. The liberal,

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cosmopolitan Whiteness constructed by proximity to Others (articulated via embodied performance) is a Whiteness informed by racialized notions of masculine sexual power.

Radano discusses Tarzan and the role of drums in affirming “‘tribal’ projections of White

American manhood specific to the colonialist era (470). However, the echoes of such a

White manhood still reverberate today in what Yancey refers to as the “racist historical sedimentation of the white gaze” (Yancy: 243). Just as Radano (470) acknowledges it is the sound of drums that provides a “pathway toward tribal belonging, the journey that enables Tarzan to descend from (white) civilization into the black wholeness of jungle

Apes,” it is through their engagement with samba drums that Whites can slip into performances of Blackness and thus embody all of the stereotypes archived within the drums—including a tribal, primitive, Black hypersexuality often depicted as masculine power and control over women’s bodies.

The gendered implications of cross-racial play and proximity involved in samba performance are perhaps most clearly observed in a TV interview/presentation to promote Carnival Brasileiro 2016 on KTBC, Austin’s Fox channel. The promotion includes a brief demonstration of samba drumming and dancing presented by a few members of Austin Samba School. The special group features five White men drumming and one Black woman dancing in a full passista costume (in this case a gold bikini and feathered headdress; see figure 25). The men in the TV clip articulate a hip White masculinity via their embodied performance on Black drums and their proximity to

Blackness, with a Black woman literally dancing in front of them. Analyzing the gendered implications of instrumental performance in Crete, Kevin Dawe indicates that

“men are in control: even though women take up the dance, it is to the tune of a lyra-

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playing male. The lyra player comes to epitomise the control men have in these contexts”

(99).

Figure 25: Still image of video of Austin Samba promoting Carnaval Brasileiro 2016 on Austin television channel KTBC. Posted to a Austin Samba member’s Facebook page.

In the Austin Samba KTBC performance, masculine control is performed as the dancer responds to the drumming; a “primal” masculine power is projected by the performance via the corporal responses of the dancer to the rhythms men produce. In addition, an exoticized sexual desire for the Other is evoked by means of the male gaze of performers

(and undoubtedly that of television audience members as well) on the feathered costume and exposed Black flesh. By slipping into a performance of Black masculine power, the drummers symbolically reaffirm the historic sedimentation of White men’s domination over Black women’s bodies. As bell hooks reminds us, “when race and ethnicity become

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commodified as resources for pleasure, the culture of specific groups, as well as the bodies of individuals, can be seen as constituting an alternative playground where members of dominating races, genders, [and] sexual practices affirm their power-over in intimate relations with the Other” (hooks 23).120

This chapter demonstrates that material objects, and musical instruments in particular, are key elements in the process of embodying Brazilianness (as described in chapter 3), and as such, implicated in the racialized and gendered meanings produced by such performances. Instruments are implicated in racial drag because they are one of the most tangible (material) ways in which Whites can “try on” or slip into a performance of

Blackness. However, to a greater extent than make-up or costumes, instruments as scriptive things carry within them an archive of racialized and gendered memory (ideas, stereotypes, associations) which, through scripted engagement with human bodies,

(re)produce and perform a repertoire of racialized and gendered knowledge. In this case, rather than challenging stereotypes or disrupting the White male hegemony, racial drag tends to reify the centrality of the White subject and perform its figurative possession of, and eroticized control over, non-White bodies. This operation simultaneously seeks to project an alternative Whiteness that is understood to be tolerant and multicultural. Thus, drums help to keep Austin weird, performing a vision of quirky liberalism through a temporary proximity to otherness.

120 On a related note, Doubleday argues “male tendency to create cross-gender instrument-human relationships could also be linked to masculine objectification of women as sex objects” (15).

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Chapter 5

Infectious Joy: Performing Narratives of Blackness

No carnaval eu sempre saí sorrindo (During carnival I always paraded smiling me divertindo só pra desabafar having fun just to let off steam três dias pra sorrir, um ano pra chorar three days to smile, one year to cry mas dessa vez a ilusão não vai me pegar but this time I won’t fall for the illusion)

—“Sem Ilusão” by Élton Medeiros121

“In Brazil there’s a famous saying,” explains Robert Patterson, founder of Austin Samba, in a KLRU (Austin’s PBS channel) Collective video interview: “Quem não gosta do samba, bom sujeito não é. Someone who doesn’t like samba is not a good guy

[laughs].”122 We see in the video a small group of Austin Samba members parading down a brightly light street in downtown Austin during a street festival, the sides of the street congested with festival attendees (including children and strollers) who are watching the performance intently. Austin Samba members wear matching blue T-shirts and white bottoms—the men, with just one exception, are all playing percussion and wear either pants or shorts. The women, all dancers in this scene of the video, are wearing skirts and

121Medeiro’s samba “Sem Ilusão” was released in 1977 on the album Quatro Grandes do Samba (RCA). Additional versions not included above include: No carnaval não vou querer me fantasiar não vou querer me vestir de rei não quero mais colorir a dor e se alguém quiser me aplaudir vai ter que ser assim como eu sou não quer dizer q não vou nem brincar só não quero é enganar o meu coração

No carnaval não vou mais sair fingindo que passo a minha vida inteira a cantar eu vou me divertir, na certa eu vou sambar mas dessa vez a ilusão não vai me pegar 122 KLRU Collective. 2013. “Austin Samba School,” https://youtu.be/9eTKscUm8mI, accessed March 24 2018.

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their T-shirts are tied or modified to expose their stomachs. Everyone is smiling and appears to be genuinely having a lot of fun.

The image cuts to a view of three samba dancers on a canopied stage. One dancer helps a woman, who is not wearing the Austin Samba School costume, onto the stage where she promptly joins in the dancing. We hear Patterson’s voice (and later cut to see him sitting in a chair among samba drums) explaining “samba is just [about] impossible to resist. And [I’ll] tell you what it is: alegria. The happiness. The joy. That’s the thing that’s contagious, that makes this music irresistible, the joy. You cannot play or dance samba and look sad. It’s not possible.” While Patterson is explaining this we see images of percussionists engaging with the crowd, young children playing “air drums” to the rhythms, and a sequence of the samba school dancers performing for an attentive audience. The notion that it is impossible to look sad while playing (or dancing to) the irresistible rhythms of samba is a common one. Members of Austin Samba repeatedly discussed samba as alegria and joy. Arnold provides an example, describing samba to me in the same way: “You know, it’s happiness converted into music and dance . . . that is what it boils down to, basically.”

______

In this chapter I examine the discursive dimension of racial drag in Brazilian music ensembles in Austin, Texas. I draw heavily on Saidiya Hartman’s (1997) and Christen

Smith’s (2016) work uncovering the performative scenes that couple terror/violence with pleasure/enjoyment in racial formations in the United States and in Brazil. Hartman’s study is focused specifically on Whites’ performative and possessive investment in simulations of Black happiness, the “innocent amusements” and “seemingly casual

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observations about black fun and frolic” that obscure the violence enacted on Black bodies within racialized slavery in the antebellum U.S. (Hartman: 25). Christen Smith’s elaboration of racial formations in Salvador, Bahia—and specifically her concept of

Afro-paradise—demonstrates the (trans)national and historical continuity of the joy/subjection described by Hartman. Smith defines Afro-paradise as “a paradoxical relationship between Bahia’s identity as an exotic, black, jovial playland where anyone, especially tourists, can enjoy black culture and black people, and the state’s use of terror against the very black bodies that ostensibly produce this exotic space” (3). In this chapter, I trace how ensemble members’ descriptions of samba and maracatu

(re)articulate three interconnected, (trans)national narrative tropes of Blackness—alegria

(joy, happiness), hot/infectious rhythm, and community in ways that, like the concept of

Afro-paradise, “[hide] the economies of black suffering that sustain [them]” (5).

The (re)occurrence of narrative tropes of joy, infectious rhythm, and community among performers in Brazilian music ensembles in Austin Texas indicates a discursive layer of racial drag in addition to the forms of embodied performance discussed in previous chapters. Diana Taylor’s concept of scenarios as “meaning-making paradigms that structure social environments [and] behaviors” (28) is helpful here, particularly in connecting metaphors to embodied performance. This is because scenarios “[demand] that we also pay attention to milieu and corporeal behaviors such as gestures, attitudes, and tones not reducible to language” (ibid.). I am more focused on language than Taylor, however, because I consider the discursive metaphors mentioned earlier—alegria, energy, infection, irresistible rhythm, community—to be part of the meanings or attitudes constructed around Brazilian music, and its scenario as a “culturally specific [imaginary]”

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framed by (trans)national racial discourse (13). Narrative metaphors operate like scenarios because they too include the possibility for occlusion. That is, embedded within narrative tropes of Blackness is a scenario that “by positioning our perspective … promotes certain views while helping to disappear others.” (28). Finally, the discursive layer of racial drag works (like scenarios and instruments as scriptive things) to access both the archive and the repertoire (29). I argue that the incorporation and (re)articulation of key metaphors in Austin’s Brazilian music scene works to both circumscribe the possibilities of Blackness (limiting it to specific stereotypes and negating the full humanity of Blacks) while simultaneously reifying the power and cohesiveness

Whiteness.

Pure Alegria Emphasizing alegria as the essence of samba, as we see in the KLRU Collective video described above, reflects the (re)production of a common (trans)national narrative trope of Black enjoyment and happiness. White racial discourses throughout the diaspora characterize Blacks as naturally happy, childlike, and carefree.123 Famed Cuban Fernando

Ortiz, for example, made reference to the “undoubted childishness of [Black] culture”

(Moore 2018:17). Hartman refers to “the pervasiveness of the spectacle of black contentment and abjection,” linking desire (joy, pleasure) with disgust, abjection, and fear (Hartman: 56). The assemblage of pleasure/terror helps us contextualize the image of

Blacks as naturally happy as part of a larger racial formation that solidified Whiteness by framing Blackness as deviant, such as stereotyping Blacks as lazy, unintelligent, violent,

123 See Davis 2009; Hartman 1997; Hertzman: 28; Lott 2013; Moore 2018:13,17

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criminal (Hertzman 2013; Moore 2018: 8). Black music, or more precisely the singing and dancing Black body, emerged as one of the principal sites of (trans)national racial formation, part of what Robitaille calls “global frames of blackness.”124 While members of Austin Samba do not overtly link characteristics of samba to Blackness or Black music in their descriptions, samba is nevertheless read as non-White by North American audiences.

Hartman uncovers the extent to which enslavers invested in crafting scenes of dancing Black bodies, drawing our attention to descriptions of the coffle. A coffle is a line of enslaved individuals (or animals) chained together for transport, “driven” or marched between different plantations or to and from auctions. Hartman notes that the enslaved were often forced to sing and play fiddles and banjos while marching in the coffle, as well as on the auction block.125 She explains that, “in spectacles like the coffle, it appeared not only that the slave was indifferent to his wretched condition, but also that he had nonetheless achieved a measure of satisfaction with that condition” (25). Briton J.

P. Robertson, after witnessing the musical practices of enslaved Africans in Brazil, arrived at the same conclusion, writing “of the many conditions in the world, that of the

African slave is one of the most happy” (Ctd. in Hertzman:19).

Thus, African enjoyment-in-spite-of horrendous conditions became one of the principal images employed to defend and maintain slavery. The spectacle of the coffle continues to reverberate today, both in Brazil and in North America. Christen Smith

124 Clarke and Thomas (2006) also investigate (trans)national processes of racialization, exploring how globalization “has shaped and reshaped the ways that people experience, represent, and mobilize around racial, class, national, generational, and gender identities” (9). 125 Hartman notes that forcing the enslaved to sing and dance on the auction block, including the “comic antics of the auctioneer,” were so well known and commonplace that auctions “attracted spectators not intending to purchase slaves” (37). Additionally, she asserts that planters used administered amusements and coerced musical performances as disciplinary tactics on plantations (42-50).

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highlights the uncanny reappearance of images of Black Brazilians chained together

(155-164). Such images, as part of the broader pleasure/terror mechanism of Afro- paradise, depict “the spectacular and mundane repetition of state violence against the black body” that is required to maintain “racial democracy as a national ideology in

Brazil” (25).

By emphasizing the joy of samba, alegria discursively renders anti-Black violence transparent, “conceal[ing] the affiliations of white enjoyment and black subjection”

(Hartman: 25). While the intention of Austin Samba is to celebrate Brazilian culture, the incorporation of the discourse of Black enjoyment into (re)presentations of Brazilianness nevertheless reasserts Whiteness in relation to the subjection of the Black Other. Hartman and Smith both argue that the cohesive integrity of Whiteness, including White supremacy and its ideological constructs such as notions of Brazilian racial democracy, require racial formations forged out of pain/terror and pleasure/enjoyment. As Hartman observes, “investment in and fixation with Negro enjoyment… provide an opportunity for white self-reflection,” however, “these musings are utterly indifferent to the violated condition of the vessel of song” (34).

As a whole, Austin Samba ensemble members may express a desire for, and engagement with, the Other, but only so long as that encounter (re)affirms their preconceived expectations of self and Otherness that are tied to scenes of happy dancing and singing Black bodies. An example of many group members’ indifference to the uglier aspects of racial dynamics surrounding samba may be found in Jessica’s experience of being called a racist after attempting to discuss with her ensemble members the plight of poor Black Brazilians. In a related example, Ryan, who is a member of both Austin

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Samba and Maracatu Texas, feels that in general the samba school very much discourage[s] any sort of political, religious, or “social debate over our network, our

Google group, where we send out messages and get announcements.” Ryan, a U.S. White male college student who has studied in Brazil, recalls:

I remember [someone] at one point shared a New York Times article on Rio just because it was about Brazil. She [told us] “Oh, the New York Times has a thing on Rio today.” It was this reporter [who] went to Rio and was …having an ethical debate with herself over whether it was acceptable to go on a favela tour. [Ultimately, she] saw Rio from the privileged tourist [perspective], and then closed her article by saying “well, I still don’t know how I feel about this and that but, at least I got to visit one of the other racial democracies on earth” [chuckles]. I immediately blasted the article; I cut that quote out, put it in quotation marks, and [replied saying] “spoken like a White New York Times reporter staying in a $250-a-night hotel room in Rio” [chuckles]. You know it was like, look at the history of that country and look at the actual reality and you will see that it is not one bit of racial democracy.

One of Austin Samba’s directors responded shortly afterwards, not to “argue with any of my points” as Ryan explains, but to say “let’s keep all things political and religious and non-Samba off of this forum.” Ryan tells me that he understands the practicality of that position. “It’s just not necessarily the place … to have the argument [with the group],” and he understands the importance of keeping the network free of clutter so that important messages about rehearsals and gigs are easily and clearly disseminated.

However, he also read the response as an active attempt to shut down any discussion of political issues, including race.

Overall, engagement with the narratives surrounding Black Brazilian musical/cultural expression within ensembles like Austin Samba School and Maracatu

Texas ontologically reduces Blackness to “joy-in-spite-of-suffering.” Instructors and members discuss conditions of violence and economic hardship only to the extent that the alegria of samba can emerge as victorious against such conditions. For example, in the

KLRU Collective video interview cited above, Austin Samba Dance Director Imani Aanu

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invokes this dynamic when she appears to refer to Black Brazilians who created and continue to perform samba as a “culture of people,” explaining:

They know that what they have in common is a love for life and a recognition that despite the external circumstances there’s always something to celebrate. Within the Austin Samba School, we do all that we can to stay authentic and make sure that we’re portraying that spirit of pure joy and alegria.

Arnold expresses similar sentiments to me during our conversation. He explains that as a group, Austin Samba doesn’t spend much time talking about contemporary socio- economic or racial issues in Brazil. However, when Arnold speaks personally with long- time members (who also travel to Brazil), he learns more about “the socio-economics at play, and the racial composition of the escolas de samba in Rio.” I ask Arnold if he feels that talking with section leaders and learning more about the racial and socio-economic dynamics in Brazil helps him better understand the music. He replies, “Yeah, absolutely!

You know there’s something to be said for people of humble means living in tiny shacks, in close proximity with one another, finding pride and personal and local identity in this very unique expression of joy.” Arnold’s celebratory comment is by no means intentionally malicious, but it is strikingly similar to the musings of White writers astonished by Blacks’ apparent infantile contentment under slavery. That is, the trope of poor, docile, childish, smiling Blacks who are sambando (dancing samba) (re)produces

(trans)national racial formations.

Both Imani Aanu’s and Arnold’s statements unintentionally reinforce an ontology of Blackness as joy-in-spite-of-suffering, and it is important to place these statements about samba within the broader historical and (trans)national racial frame laid out earlier in this chapter. As part of the knowledge circulated about samba and Brazilianness, the narrative trope of Black joy is also embodied in performance. For example, dancer

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Adriana tells me that in Austin Samba she learned the importance of giving “good show” to the audience by smiling while performing. She explains, “you can’t go out there and not smile and not [put on a] show. You have to engage the audience and look happy or else they’ll be bummed out… [If] you look like you’re enjoying it, then other people

[will] enjoy it too.” Such a statement, indeed, is widely applicable to any number of performance arts. However, when considered within the discourse of samba as pure alegria, we cannot separate Adriana’s smile from the trope of Blackness as joy-in-spite- of-suffering.

Irresistible Rhythm A number of scholars have investigated the constructed nature of “African/Black” rhythm and its juxtaposition with European/White musical sensibilities, as well as the

(trans)national and historic circulation of the metaphor of Black rhythms as irresistibly contagious (Agawu 1995; Browning 1998; Radano 2000, McClary 2012). Agawu’s 1995 essay “The Invention of ‘African Rhythm’” draws attention to the “epistemic violence” enacted in the pervasive reduction of “African music” to a medium that is primarily rhythmic in nature.126 Radano highlights the centrality of the “hot rhythm” metaphor to

“modern American culture and, in particular, to the ontology of ‘blackness’ itself” (459-

460). Radano builds on Agawu’s study to specifically focus attention on “hot rhythm” as

“part and parcel of a cross-racial American cultural experience,” that is simultaneously

(trans)national: “the idea of hot rhythm depended on the material existence of traditional

126 Passim. On epistemic violence, see 393-395.

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African-American performance practices that were ultimately commodified as a “black form” through the (trans)national interplay of romantic and colonialist writing (460).

Barbara Browning notes the prominence of ‘infectious’ Black rhythms throughout history, noting that the global spread of these forms is “accompanied by equally

‘contagious’ dances, often characterized as dangerous” or overly sexually explicit by

White critics (6). Browning cites Susan McClary’s description of the ciaccona as an example of the long history of the contagion metaphor, paying particular attention to the two modes in which the metaphor operates. In McClary’s observation, “hot black rhythm” –even samba—could just as easily be substituted for the ciaccona (chacona or chaconne):

The chacona sparked a dance craze that inspired a familiar set of reactions: on the one hand, it was celebrated for liberating bodies that had been stifled by the constraints of European civilization; on the other, it was condemned as obscene, as a threat to Christian mores. But all sources concurred that its rhythms—once experienced—were irresistible: it’s practitioners had only to shout “Via Bona!” (The good life!) to signal the beginning of the music that would pull everyone within earshot into its compelling groove. (McClary 2012: 172 of ebook).127

Historical examples of similar comments can be found across the diaspora. For example,

Hertzman indicates that travelers to Brazil and local elites alike “looked upon slave music and religion with a combination of fascination and fear” (19). Alan Merriam explains that critics of jazz music in the United States considered it a source “of almost unmitigated evil, and it was used as the symbol for a wide variety of ills which were supposed to afflict the society as a whole” (241-242, emphasis added). The societal ills linked to

127 Browning (1998) cites the nearly identical passage in McClary’s 1994 essay “Same as it Ever Was: Youth Culture and Music.” In Microphone Fiends: Youth Music and Culture, edited by Andrew Ross and Tricia Rose (New York: Routledge).

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jazz’s infectious nature include “primitive and savage animalism and lasciviousness”128.

Black musical practice triggered these fears in Whites because, as Ronald Radano observes, “as Euro-America’s blackened musical other, hot rhythm signified the antithesis of civilized artistic practice (Radano 473). Madrid and Moore demonstrate that

Mexican danzón dancers express similar opinions about Cuban danzón movements, citing the views of one contemporary dancer, “[Mexican dancers] feature a technique that characterizes a ‘civilized’ body, [whereas] Cuban dancers are ‘undisciplined,’ ‘unable’ to follow the music, and adopt movements associated with the black ‘barbaric’ body, especially the hips” (Madrid and Moore:198). Fernando Ortiz, influenced early in his career by (racialized) theories of crime and deviance, viewed Black music as social pathology, at one time characterizing Afro-Cuban religious music as “ulcers” and liking the increased popularity of Afro-Cuban dance musics to yellow fever and infection

(Moore n.d.).

My discussion of popular Brazilian singers Carmen Miranda and Daniela Mercury in chapter 3 is an additional example of the prominence of the Black rhythm metaphor in constructing both Black and White racial formations. The racialized notion of infectious rhythm continues to structure interactions amongst performers in Austin, as evidenced by the stereotypical views Rachel was forced to confront (“you’ve got natural rhythm”).

Similarly, Cristina interpreted her ‘idolization” by Anglo-American members of Austin

Samba as due at least in part to assumptions of racial authenticity.

128 Reverend Dr. A.W. Beaven of Rochester, ctd. in Merriam: 242).

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In a promotional video produced by Austin 360.com,129 Austin Samba School founder Robert Patterson explains that “samba, when it’s really churning … it’s somewhat like a train. Choo-ge-cha-ka, du-ge-ta-ka, du-ge-ta-ka, du-gu-ta-ka, TA! You know it’s irresistible. Anybody [sic] has to pat their foot.” In the same video, dance director Imani Aanu claims, “it’s uplifting, it’s liberating, it’s energizing, just the rhythm of it and then when you walk in and everything is already going, the energy level is so high.”130 Recall also Arnold’s commentary in chapter 3, referring to the music of the samba school as moving like a locomotive, “unstoppable,” “bulletproof,” and “really powerful.”

The contagious “energy” of Afro-Brazilian rhythms as perceived by Anglophone listeners is not limited to samba. George and David, White American percussionists in

Maracatu Texas, discussed the energy that maracatu drumming inspires in audiences.

They explain to me that since the fall of 2016, the group has played a number of political marches in Austin, experiences which both drummers really enjoyed. David says “when we go play a march, nobody knows we’re playing maracatu, you know they might not even realize it’s Brazilian [music] at all. But it’s really valuable in those circumstances.”

“In what way?” I ask David, and he replies:

It just brings a lot of energy to the march. We (David, George, and Allison) were talking about that this morning. It brings a lot of energy for the march, and in many cases there would be no other drums… The women’s march, they had other drum groups … And then the music itself is so suited to the, [to] being played in the streets, being played in big crowds, and in marching kind of situations.”

At which point George interjects, “It gets people’s blood going.”

129 Patterson’s comment begins 16 seconds into the video. Austin 360. 2015. “Austin Samba School Brings Brazil to Texas” Austin 360.com. https://youtu.be/7TnHiC0Wv3A, accessed March 24, 2018. 130 Austin 360, see .42-.53.

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Here, the irresistibility of Brazilian rhythms, and the liberating energy of samba in particular, articulate not only the reoccurring trope of Black rhythm as contagion, but also the notion of Blackness as joy-in-spite-of-suffering. Browning notes that the infectious rhythms metaphor is often deployed in “seemingly benign forms (‘infectious rhythm’ as a dispersal of joy)” (7). Note the striking similarity in Imani Aanu’s comments from the

KLRU Collective video: “We’re a group of people who come from all different walks of life, different shapes and sizes and colors, but [we bring] that spirit of pure joy and alegria to anybody who is around and has an opportunity to experience us.” From Aanu’s perspective, the two most prominent elements of Black samba drumming—alegria and contagious rhythm—are clearly linked to the third element addressed in this chapter— community. However, before exploring the notion of community, I wish to highlight the ways in which the positive depictions of samba as an irresistible and joyous experience relates to racial formations and anti-Black racism.

Browning argues that Black diasporic communities often recuperate the notion of

“African ‘infection’” and reframe it in a positive light, “suggesting that diasporic culture is contagious, irresistible—vital, life-giving, and productive. The life-giving plague redeems the very qualities Western stereotypes have scorned, especially sensuality” (7). I don’t disagree with Browning regarding the powerful use of the metaphor within African diasporic communities, but I do caution against her “invoke[ing] it [her]self at strategic moments, always in the hope of activating its healing potential” (7). Healing for whom?

It is important to remember Susan McClary’s discussion of the role of “lascivious”

African rhythms and dances in saving Europeans from their stifling and repressed forms of expression. Indeed, Hartman (57) encourages us to question the “status of what is

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being performed” when we invoke alegria or the healing power of infectious Black rhythms: is it a celebration of Afro-diasporic culture, or “the power of whiteness” to construct itself through what George Yancy characterizes as “complex acts of erasure and denigration of Black people (Yancy: 52)? He argues that “whites affirm (or make firm) their identities through the discursive or nondiscursive act of negating the reality of full

Black humanity” (113, emphasis in original). Hartman refers to this sort of

“circumscribed recognition of black humanity” as an ‘exercise of violence” enacted as

“songs, jokes, and dance” (the combined effects of alegria and hot rhythm) that

“transform wretched conditions into a conspicuous, and apparently convincing, display of contentment (35).

Employing the metaphor of infectious and joyous rhythms, even with the intention of celebrating Blackness, ontologically defines Blackness as a cultural remedy of sorts for White consumption. What is articulated in the performative repetition of the metaphor is a kind of Whiteness that, because it is “contaminated” and “infected” through embodied proximity to non-White elements, projects a hip and sensual alternative to mainstream Whiteness. Yet simultaneously it reifies Blackness and characterizes it as subservient to Whiteness, a White commodity, an anecdote to the perceived negative qualities of Whiteness.

It is dangerous to over romanticize the healing qualities of Black music, a point

Browning herself seems to recognize when she observes that “the metaphor of contagion, even when invoked [strategically] by Europeans…can also often lead to hostile, even violent, reactions to cultural expressions. It is the conflation of economic, spiritual, and sexual exchange that has allowed for the characterization of diasporic culture as a chaotic

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or uncontrolled force which can only be countered by military or police violence” (7).

Examples of violence against Black musical practices abound—a history of prohibiting drums and large musical gatherings (Hertzman:18); historical and contemporary attacks on Candomblé terreiros (Guillen 2007); the early repression of samba—to name but a few.131 However, I read Browning’s point as referring less to attempts to control specific musical practices and more to the broader forms of disciplinary state violence deployed to counter the perceived threat of Blackness generally. Hot rhythm as an irresistibly desirable yet infecting corrupting marker of Blackness is an easy stand-in for the fear and fascination, desire and disgust, of the Black body itself. Radano explains: “such imagined instabilities of an infecting and affecting hot rhythm suggest that the figurations of contagion were to be taken quite literally. The copious repetition of references to black music as a fever, drug, disease, and intoxicant indicate that the threat of black music related above all to fears of miscegenation, through which hot rhythm becomes a metonym of the black male body” (474).

My point is that the seemingly benign consumption and celebratory repetition of narrative tropes of samba and maracatu as irresistible alegria, “infected” through energetic rhythms, is part of a broader historical and (trans)national racial formation formed around musical performance. The metaphors represent a discursive layer of racial drag that is embodied in performance. It is in this way that Brazilian ensembles in Austin unintentionally (re)produce, rather than challenge, racial stereotypes.

131 Marc Hertzman calls this the “punishment paradigm—the widely held but rarely researched idea that samba was directly and systematically repressed before it ascended to the level of national symbol” (32). He challenges this notion, suggesting instead that police did not specifically target samba, but Black Brazilians in general as part of violent and brutal campaigns “meant to ‘civilize’ low- income, mixed- race, and black populations” (35).

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Community Ensemble members refer to “community” more than any other concept when describing their experiences playing Brazilian music in Austin. Here, community most closely resembles Shelemay’s definition of an affinity community:

A third type of community, defined largely by affinity, emerges first and foremost from individual preferences, quickly followed by a desire for social proximity or association with others equally enamored. Music proves to be a particularly powerful mechanism for catalyzing affinity communities, in which straightforward aesthetic and personal preferences may, but do not necessarily, intersect with other powerful diacritica such as ethnic identity, age cohort, or gender identity. But ultimately, affinity communities derive their strength from the presence and proximity of a sizeable group and for the sense of belonging and prestige that this affiliation offers (373).

Significantly, alegria and irresistible rhythms are concepts that facilitate the construction of affinity in Austin’s ensembles. As Rachel explains, “I think that we focus less on the aesthetics and we focus more on just the alegria, the happiness, the joy of dancing together as community.” As such, I want to briefly explore the role of “community” as an additional narrative form of racial drag within performance groups.

Austin Samba constructs their conceptions of self-worth in part through their community building. Robert Patterson observes “In Brazil … the samba schools

[originate in a particular] community. Like Mangueira is from the community of

Mangueira. When I started [getting involved in samba], it was about drumming, you know. But it was really about trying to create a space where people could be part of something positive and, samba and the costumes, and all that stuff is a side-effect.” Other performers in the samba school, and in Maracatu Austin, articulate similar sentiments in that they view samba as a means of generating community. Clark says “For me [the group] is community. You know, it’s the people and the opportunity to play with them and have fun with them that keeps me coming back now, going on 5 years.” And Sarah

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tells me “it’s about community, it’s not necessarily about performing, I mean you do perform and stuff but that’s not what samba is for.”

George, who lived briefly in Brazil and speaks some Portuguese, is even more frank in stating that his interest in performing maracatu has little to do with learning about Brazilian culture: “What’s important to me about the group is less about Brazilian culture and more about … our own community of folks who play it and … the opportunities that we’re exploring, like where we play in town, and how we participate in

Austin as a group.” He elaborates on the relative importance of learning about the roots of maracatu in Austin by suggesting that knowing “this rhythm is for…a particular]

Orixá and it connects to this and [that]”—is like learning about your extended family history from your parents. He explains that the information “helps inform, it helps me understand some of what’s going on with what we’re doing, and [to] put some context into what we’re doing. It’s interesting, but then, our family itself is also its own thing, separate from its history. It’s present today, you know.” While he finds Afrodescendant culture interesting, George is ultimately indifferent about exploring the origins of maracatu-nação and the racial significance of the genre. He views the activities of

Maracatu Texas, and the community bonds they form together, as distinct and only vaguely related to contemporary maracatu-nação performance practice in Recife.

The ostensible healing power of samba’s joyous rhythms also emerges in the discourse of performers. Aanu argues that “we’re not just coming together for fun, and it’s not just samba, but it’s the healing environment of this overall community and culture that we’ve created here, where people come and feel better, and after a while, we’re all hooked on that” (Austin 360). Adriana tells me that joining Austin Samba was

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“therapeutic” for her, “there was a sense of community there, and I met a lot of new people and they were real nice. You know I made some new friends, some that are very good friends, but even if you’re not ‘besties’ with everybody there, it’s still kinda fun to just hang out with some of the same people every week. You learn together, and there is a sense of camaraderie.” Adriana’s comments align somewhat with Thomas Turino’s discussion of an old-time music cohort, whose members come together in part because the discourse and performance practice surrounding such music offers “a temporary alternative to the values and lifeways of the ‘modern’ capitalist formation” to which the cohort members also belong (161). Perhaps some of the fascination with Black musical traditions in the Americas draws on its historical construction as atavistically “primitive”; it certainly represents an attempt to recreate community in the face of modernity.

However, in the case of Austin, I suggest that rather than viewing the cohort as a temporary escape, Brazilian music performance—through its proximity to exotic-erotic

Otherness—becomes one of many different “habits” that perform a hip, cosmopolitan sensibility.

My aim is not to distract from or dismiss the powerful bonds of community experienced by ensemble members. However, I do want to highlight the discursive forms of Blackness—communities of joy articulated through infectious Black rhythms—to explore the ways in which the narrative presentation of samba and maracatu, as musical practices inspired by communal expressions of resistance in Brazil, is also part of a broader dynamic of racial drag. Hartman observes “as it is traditionally invoked, [the notion of] community offers us a romance in place of [a more nuanced view of] complex and contentious social relations.” She suggests that “to reify the social relations [and the

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cultural forms] of enslavement via the romance of community is to fail to recognize both the difficulty and the accomplishment of collectivity in the context of domination and terror” (60). While Hartman’s research is specific to the period of slavery in the United

States, it is nevertheless extremely helpful in uncovering the unproblematized and romanticized deployment of “community” in reference to samba schools and favelas in the aftermath of racialized slavery in Brazil.

From this perspective, we can see that that the initial conceptualization of Black musical practices as powerful forms of cultural and political resistance is often coopted and transformed into a discourse emphasizing community only. Such is the case in

Natasha Pravaz’s analysis of Brazilian music ensembles in Toronto, which frames White consumption as transformative. Referring to the ensemble’s ability to “command attention” and take over a public space with loud drums, she claims: “seduced by tambor

[de crioula]’s subversive strategies, participants surrendered to an alien culture in ways that hardly spoke of detached autonomy or possessive individualism” (Pravaz 2013: 835).

Note that her use of “surrender” (re)produces the trope of infectious rhythm. She continues, “rather, this surrender signaled a heartfelt desire for the emplacement of community bonds” (ibid.) In other words, for Pravaz, participation in and consumption of

Black Brazilian cultural practices has less to do with cosmopolitan erotic-exotic desire than they have to do with forging interpersonal connections. Both Pravaz (2010) and

Roubitaile (2013) suggest that samba and capoeira performance in Toronto—even if only momentarily—disrupts, challenges, and even transforms social norms and hierarchies along ethnic and class lines. By contrast, in her critique of White hipsterism and jazz performance, Indrid Monson interrogates “the function of African Americans as symbols

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of social conscience, sexual freedom, and resistance to the dominant order in the imagination of liberal white Americans,” pointing out that ultimately “this view of blackness, paradoxically, buys into the historical legacy of primitivism and its concomitant exoticism of the “Other” (Monson 1995:398).

Thus, when Austin Samba school dancer Becky claims “I think it’s just about community, and you can take it out of Brazil but it will always, there’s like certain sentimental things that it will always be about like resistance, community, healing, [and] connection,” it is important to recall not only Monson’s point, but Radano’s assertion that

Black music often serves “as a primordial cure for the ills of a civilized and increasingly mechanized modern society” (460). Additionally, Becky’s comment reflects Turino’s argument that cohorts can provide temporary relief from the restraints of a modern, capitalist society. I am not dismissing Becky’s association of samba with acts of resistance, or her assertion that it “really healed [her] physically and emotionally.”

Nevertheless, her discursive engagement with samba also reflects and (re)produces common White narrative tropes.

In her analysis of the commodification of Afro-Brazilian cultural forms in

Salvador, Christen Smith notes that the “pastishe [of] smiling black faces…dissociates black bodies from their social context and their recent past. The faces have no family and no history beyond their scripted association with the representations they are contracted to portray (in this case, baianas). They are devoid of all politics. They don’t have communities. And most important, they are always smiling. Few observers even suspect the violent histories that haunt this image” (52). The scripted disassociation of happy

Black bodies from their social context is found in Arnold’s association of celebratory

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samba school enredos with U.S. high school fight songs. He tells me that after playing samba enredos for one of the Samba School’s Carnaval Brasileiro performances, the lyrics began to remind him of his “high school fight song, you know, like our school song that I always thought was so lame.” He then sings me a verse in a silly tone of voice,

“Grapevine [we sing for] you, … our hearts pine plzzz [imitating flatulence].” He explains that as a teenager, “we always thought that was so stupid, this pageantry.” And yet drawing associations between enredo samba and fight songs:

caused me to kind of have [an] adorable appreciation for [enredos]. There’s something kind of innocent about that, like, if you’re gonna come together, this big group of people, obviously you’re not going to come up with something controversial [to perform together]…I’m sure there have been plenty of enredos that have, maybe, even dealt with [controversial] concepts as well, ‘cause I’m not like an expert on what everyone’s enredos have been for the last, you know 90 years. But, I just thought it was kinda funny that that was the first corollary that I could come up with was anthems, like national anthems, college [or] high-school football team rah-rah-rah fight songs [chuckles].

Arnold’s intent is celebratory, and yet the alegria of samba is dissociated from the anti-

Black violence that shaped the communities originally producing samba. Blackness emerges as “adorable,” a manifestation of child-like “innocence” articulating a depiction of “happy slaves” content with their status. As Hartman explains, “melancholy spectacle remains at an emotional and contemplative distance, and musings about Negro character displace the hideous with the entertaining” (33).

White racial discourse about Blackness pervades discussions of Brazilian music in

Austin’s ensembles. Reference to the alegria of samba, its irresistible rhythm, and its relationship to communities of Brazilians “of humble means” indicate the extent to which

Austinites associate samba and maracatu with not only “Otherness,” but with Blackness specifically. Beyond framing the knowledge about Brazilianness that ensemble members and audiences access, these tropes also obscure the structures of anti-Black racism that

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sustain them under the guise of celebratory admiration. They therefore limit the ability of

Brazilian ensembles to challenge racial stereotypes.

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PART III PEDAGOGY

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Chapter 6

Toward Community-Engaged Anti-Racist Pedagogy

What am I doing? The year is 2012, and I’m playing cavaquinho with Gente Boa, a forró band that I joined about a year before. We are performing at the Sahara Lounge, an Afro-beat/world music venue in Austin’s Eastside. Tonight, I notice the members of Las Krudas, a Cuban hip- hop and queer Black feminist/activist group, in the audience. I think about the song we are play, Alceu Valença’s “Morena Tropicana” (Tropical Dark Woman), and I am immediately embarrassed. I had been uncomfortable with the song for a while, specifically the manner in which the lyrics sexually objectify a dark-skinned woman, likening her to a litany of sweet tropical fruits (and thus a reference to the slang usage of comer (to eat, or to fuck). The refrain of the song is especially catchy—in fact, audience members who don’t speak Portuguese learn the lyrics quickly and sing the chorus with us.132 With Las Krudas looking on, I suddenly feel “found out,” exposed—as if my complacency in the maintenance of racial formations that reduce Black women to objects of [White] male sexual desire—embodied in my performance of the song—was reflected back at me. After the performance, I express my concern and discomfort with my bandmates, all White men and only one of whom is Brazilian. They collectively decide that they like the song regardless of the lyrics; it is a crowd pleaser, and they feel we should continue to play it. In response, whenever we perform Morena Tropicana in the

132 The refrain lyrics are: Morena Tropicana, eu quero teu sabor (I want [to taste] your flavor)/ Ai, ai, ai, ai.

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future, I leave the stage. I stay with the group for about another year before ultimately leaving to pursue other projects.

Sometime after this incident, Trem do Samba is formed by members of Austin

Samba. I am uncomfortable with the patriarchical machismo of one of the well known songs that the group proposes to learn, “É Preciso Muito Amor” (You Need a Lot of

Love).133 I talk privately with one of the founders whom I did not know. Initially, he is hesitant to drop the song, especially since it’s another crowd favorite. However, he eventually agreed with my concerns and we decided to learn other pieces.

From Community Groups to Ethnomusicologists in Universities Much of the motivation for this project emerged from interactions such as those described in the “What am I doing?” vignette above. I wanted to know what racial and gendered meanings were constructed by the performance and consumption of Brazilian popular music in Austin. Specifically, in what ways did the music (re)produce or potentially challenge stereotypes about Brazil, race, gender, or other subjects? And did musicians consider such issues, reflect on them? If audiences don't understand lyrics in

Portuguese, does it matter what we sing about? Are racialized and gendered meanings constructed outside of the lyrics? Additionally, why would some musicians choose to continue to perform music that others find offensive or problematic? What was attractive about such songs to them?

I realized that my refusal to perform “Morena Tropicana” had little impact in terms of changing the minds of my Gente Boa bandmates about the appropriateness of

133 É preciso muito amor, pra suportar essa mulher” (you need a lot of love to be able to put up with this woman)

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the group’s repertoire. On the other hand, my experience with Trem do Samba suggested that there is potential for Brazilian music groups to collectively explore the gendered- racial implications of the music they perform, ultimately altering their practice and how they engage with audiences.

In this chapter, I shift from a focus on community music making to consider what ethnomusicologists can learn from such groups that might help strengthen our pedagogy in university settings and leading world music ensembles. By focusing on this limited context, I do not mean to suggest that ethnomusicologists are somehow superior to community ensemble performers. Far from it. However, I view our activities in the university as the first space where we can apply new pedagogical approaches. In short, I want to reflect here on how I want to teach Brazilian music—world music in general—to students in universities. How ethnomusicologists intervene or engage with community ensembles is an important topic, and one that I hope to elaborate on in the future. But my concern here is adjusting pedagogical practices in classroom or rehearsal spaces based on fieldwork I have undertaken for this dissertation.

Historically, ethnomusicologists have championed music’s ability to mediate cross-cultural understanding, a theme readily supported by the rise of multiculturalism in

U.S. education discourse since the 1970s. Our work, which includes teaching world music survey courses, leading world music ensembles, and often working as advocates for the communities we research, necessitates that we critically engage with notions of cultural pluralism and social justice. I agree with Sonia Seeman, who asserts that “since our field demands that we address the question of why and how music matters,” ethnomusicologists have a great deal to contribute to music education broadly.” And yet

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as a discipline she notes we “have been slow to recognize the implications of our research for pedagogy” (Seeman 2017: 201). It is crucial that ethnomusicologists continue to refine best practices and work toward developing effective anti-racist teaching and work methods. This chapter dialogues with critiques of and strategies for world music and social justice pedagogy, reflecting on Brazilian music ensembles in Austin to develop suggestions for new approaches that aim to reduce stereotypes of the Other and the reification of Whiteness while bolstering the potential of the music ensemble as a space of cross-cultural understanding, critical self-reflection, and anti-racism advocacy.

I begin by outlining the critiques of multiculturalism in music education and the shortcomings of world music ensembles in addressing race and gender oppression or social justice issues. I cite examples from Brazilian groups in Austin to highlight that exposure to different musical cultures in and of itself is ineffective in challenging racial bias or White privilege. I then extend Debora Bradley’s argument that the tendency in

Western education to isolate music as an aesthetic object occludes its socio-political context, demonstrating that within Austin’s ensembles this not only reifies Whiteness (as

Bradley suggests) but it also perpetuates myths of Brazilian racial harmony and severely limits how non-Brazilians understand the music they perform.

The following two sections explore possibilities and limitations for moving from multiculturalism into more effective social justice work. The first explores the implications of Nancy Fraser’s recognition-redistribution-dilemma for ethnomusicologists. The second considers Mathew Hughey’s criticism of anti-racist education as a clear path forward. In the remainder of the chapter, I explore potential

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solutions to related issues, suggesting a number of approaches that may help transform world music ensembles into more effective platforms for ideological change.

Critiques of Multiculturalism World Music ensembles frequently serve as a means of presenting the work of ethnomusicologists to a wider audience; they represent an interface of public exposure and a means of developing sustained interactions outside of academia. As such, ensembles offer considerable potential for raising awareness of a “diverse” array of social-cultural issues. Both Robitaille and Pravaz argue that, in addition to “sharing” aspects of the music and culture, Brazilian ensembles in Canada can disrupt and challenge racial stereotypes and social hierarchies, even if only momentarily (Pravaz

2010, 2013, Robitaille 2014). While I don’t disagree, I argue that for performers and audience members alike, participating in Brazilian music and dance performance by itself is not a guarantee that individuals will embark on discussions about race, racism, and in particular self-reflection about concepts like White privilege. Indeed, various authors have long made similar critiques of multicultural music education (Volk 1998; Bradley

2006), and their writings support the conclusions of my own research. Katrin Sieg (2002) expresses similar concerns. Likening the history of farcical impersonations of Jews in

German theater to U.S. blackface minstrelsy, and, in particular, the combination of desire and fear that motivated them, Sieg argues that “the self-criticism, even self-contempt, that sometimes inspires ethnic masquerades does not necessarily translate to changing one’s own behavior, or engaging in collective political action” (Sieg 21-22). Placing Sieg’s point within the context of Brazilian ensembles in Austin, we can understand processes of

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embodying Brazilianness as potential antidote to the perceived negative qualities of

Whiteness.

One can see the disconnect between an involvement in Brazilian music and a lack of sensitivity to racial dynamics play out in the following incident in which one ensemble member committed a micro-aggression against another. Racial micro-aggressions are subtle verbal or non-verbal expressions that, with or without intending to, are read as demeaning and racially “othering” the recipient. They are perceived as communicating hostility, insensitivity, disregard, and/or disrespect. Racial micro-aggressions often appear “non-racial but they contain an underlying message that has a detrimental impact on its unfortunate recipient” (Olds 101). Julie, for example, is an American (White, non-

Latina) student at UT who speaks Spanish, is learning Portuguese, has travelled to Brazil and other Latin American cultures, and performs in several Latin (including Brazilian) music ensembles. During the rehearsal of a Latin music ensemble in Austin, students were congratulating another student who was recently admitted to a graduate school.

Malu, a Black Brazilian woman performing in the group, also shared that she was just accepted into a PhD program. Julie congratulated Malu and asked “Are you the first in your family to go to college?”

Whatever Julie’s intent, Malu perceived the utterance as a racial micro-aggression that insinuated Black inferiority while policing access to formerly White-only spaces, as if to say “you don’t belong.” Soon thereafter, Malu left the ensemble. It is important to stress that the point here is not to interrogate Julie’s intent, nor to label particular actions and utterances as racist. It is, however, important to acknowledge that exposure to Latin

American and Brazilian music and culture in and of itself did not make Julie more aware

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or sensitive to racial interactions and White privilege, nor did the ensemble radically alter social hierarchies of race in the Austin area. In fact, the experiences of Rachel and

Cristina discussed in previous chapters—Rachel being told she has natural rhythm and

Cristina receiving celebrity status as a cultural authority because she is Afro-Brazilian— indicate that racial essentialism may be reinforced rather than challenged through participation in ensembles.

A final example merits further analysis because it demonstrates the intersectionality of biases and power dynamics that frame social interactions in world music ensembles, in addition to illustrating both their limitations and potential as vehicles for challenging racialized and gendered power dynamics and as forums for social justice.

Vanessa shares with me conversations she had with some of the members of Maracatu

Texas about her discomfort with the proposal to add dancers to the group. What is especially interesting about their discussion is the importance of authenticity and the boundaries of respectful engagement with another’s culture. Embedded within the debate are colonialist desires for the Other, manifestations of White privilege as related to the consumption of Blackness (viewing the dancing Black body), Blackness as cultural commodity, and resistance to anti-Black violence.

Vanessa explains:

Amanda wanted to have a dance group with Maracatu [Texas]. And I didn’t like that idea. It bothered me very, very much. And she said, “why does it bother you so much?” It bothers João also. And I said “because, have you seen a maracatu group? Maracatu groups don’t have dancers.”

[Amanda replied] “But I saw on Youtube that it has dancers.”

And I said “it had dancers because that’s a performance group… not a real maracatu group.”

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Vanessa explains that both Amanda (a White woman of Brazilian heritage raised in the

United States )and Ryan (a White man from the United States) respond, “Oh, we’re not a real maracatu group,” implying that it would be ok, then, for Maracatu Texas to add dancers. In her reply, Vanessa suggests that the existence of Maracatu Texas as an Austin ensemble playing maracatu and other Afro-Brazilian rhythms from the Brazilian northeast is walking a fine-line between cultural engagement and disrespectful appropriation: “I said ‘I understand, but we’re already so far [removed from grassroots practice] because we’re not a maracatu group. We’re so far from the original, let’s not make it worse.’”

As she elaborates, Vanessa expresses frustration that, despite joining the ensemble in order to learn about Brazilian music and performing these rhythms, she perceives members lack understanding of the deep cultural (and racial) significance of maracatu- nação:

I don’t think they understand. Amanda doesn’t understand because she not from Brazil. Her parents [are] from Belém, [but] she didn’t grow up with the culture of maracatu, so I think it’s hard to understand this idea of identity and ownership of something. Like, you look at it on youtube and [she says], “I see dancers.” But that’s not what maracatu is. We know that we are not a Candomblé-based maracatu. But let’s not make it worse. Let’s not [take] it further away from its origins …It’s very important to me that we don’t [turn maracatu] into just like, “confetti festinha” (a little confetti party): … No, this is not a party.

There is “a certain line” regarding performing maracatu outside of its original context that she “doesn’t want to cross,” and for Vanessa, adding dancers crosses it. She recognizes that she “[doesn’t] belong” to maracatu. This means that she did not grow up in a neighborhood with a maracatu-nação, she has not performed in a maracatu since she was little, she does not practice Candomblé, and therefore she is not part of the Black communities that perform the music traditionally. “But at the same time,” she tells me, “I

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know where [maracatu] comes from. I know because, although I was not part [of it], I was closer [than other members of Maracatu Texas].” She explains to me that she did not perform with a maracatu-nação when she lived in Recife because, when she was growing up, “maracatu was considered very low-class. It was considered a big ‘no no’” by her family. She lived in a poor neighborhood, but not as poor as the adjacent one that housed a maracatu-nação. She remembers that on Sundays, her family could hear the ensemble rehearsing. Because it was so hot, her dad would watch TV from the front doorway to cool off with the breeze from the terrace. She recalls:

When Maracatu Bairro X134 …would play, [my dad] would say to my mom, “Beta! maracatu começou!” (Beta! [the] maracatu just started!). It bothered him because he couldn’t hear the TV. I remember sometimes I would sit down outside with my dog just to listen to it [and wonder], “what is that? What are they doing there? What … is so mysterious [about maracatu]?” … I enjoyed listening to it. While my parents [complained] because it was loud and they couldn't watch TV, [saying]… “oh, maracatu começou!” [in aggravated tone of voice] … for me it was like [in curious but hushed tone of voice, because she is not supposed to be interested]: oh, maracatu começou. [Laughs.]

Vanessa thus has a history of proximity to maracatu, both physical (and audible) closeness. She also grew up witnessing discrimination against maracatuzeiros prior to the post-1990s transformation of maracatu into an iconic sonic marker of Pernambucan identity. For these reasons, she has a greater appreciation for what maracatu-nação means to Black communities in Recife.135 Vanessa is concerned that ensemble members’ engagement with maracatu is limited to videos seen on Youtube, and that the cultural significance of of the performance is not fully grasped by them. Instead,

Vanessa fears, maracatu is reduced to a commodity for their entertainment.

134 A pseudonym. 135 I describe the implications of maracatu-nação and percussion groups in the wake of Chico Science in greater detail in chapter 4.

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Vanessa continues and tells me about the reaction she received from her bandmates about her stance on adding dancers:

Me: You said all that to Amanda?

Vanessa: Yeah, I did say that to Amanda, but it’s hard for her to understand [She said] “Mas que besteira Vanessa, mas que besteira” (What nonsense, Vanessa, what nonsense).

Of particular importance is Ryan’s reaction because, to use Vanessa’s expression, he

“knows,” meaning he should have a better understanding of the issues at play because he has travelled to Recife and has some experience playing maracatu there. However,

Ryan’s engagement with the repertoire in Brazil has not necessarily translated into a greater sensitivity to the racial implications of performing it:

It’s hard to explain, and even Ryan knowing [about where the music comes from didn’t seem to help]…For example, when I was talking to Ryan, he was saying, “But maracatu has dancers!” And I [said] “No, they don’t have dancers.” And he said: “Yes they do. I played in Maracatu Caxangá.”136 And I said [that was] “Maracatu Caxangá, not a real maracatu, Ryan. It’s a [staged] performance of a maracatu.” [Ryan]: “Yes, but even when they have the parade, [the dancers] perform” and I said “Oh whoa, whoa, whoa, my dear. You’re not talking about dancers. You’re talking about the Queen and the King. And you’re talking about people carrying an abê137 and moving to it. Nobody tells them “1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8, turn turn turn.” Nobody. “Legs up! Kick!” Nobody does that. There’s no such [thing], I have never seen anything like that in a real maracatu group in Brazil. So do not call the Queen and the King dancers. They are not dancers; they are there for a very different reason. So don’t call them dancers because that’s disrespectful.”

Vanessa continues:

We had a whole conversation about this. And he was like, “but [Maracatu Texas] is not a traditional maracatu group.” [and therefore having dancers would not be inappropriate]

And I was like, “I understand, Ryan, but it’s my culture, and … if you take that away…”

136 A pseudonym. 137 Gourd shaker

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And he’s like, “But culture is [ir]relevant, this thing that [we call] culture doesn’t really exist, blah, blah, blah.” And I was like, “Are you trying to take away my identity? That’s my freaking identity. I come from Recife. I saw these things. I heard these things. I couldn’t experience [the procession and the drumming] in my own skin because I knew that I didn’t belong there, my parent’s didn’t allow me to. When it became popular [in the 1990s] I had a little taste of it. I have so much respect [for maracatu] because I went to Candomblé houses, I went to Casa de Xambá,138 I learned about Casa de Xambá, and I have so much respect for it. Don’t try to take away from me saying that culture is [irrelevant]. I was like “Fucking Bullshit, man! Are you trying to take my identity away!?” [laughs]. It was like a very heated conversation…. but then at the end of the day we’re like, ok, I respect you and I don’t judge you.

My aim in citing this lengthy interaction is to underscore once again my argument that learning to perform Afro-Brazilian rhythms—exposing yourself to the culture of the

Other—does not in and of itself result in anti-racist praxis. More than challenging social hierarchies and racial stereotypes, engagement with Black Brazilian musical forms often reinforces the social power and dominance of Whiteness—and White men as well—over circumscribed frames of Blackness. Exposure to Black Brazilian cultural forms in this case did not prompt Amanda and Ryan to question their White privilege, their desire for the Other, or their right to engage with and reinterpret Afrodescendant musical practices.

Nevertheless, Vanessa’s exchanges with her fellow percussionists suggest potential ways that such ensembles could be transformed into forums for addressing social justice issues. Despite the heated argument and Vanessa’s accusations that the group did not sufficiently valorize the meanings and history of such heritage, she values her friendship with other band members and their willingness to engage in difficult discussions. In other words, the powerful community bonds forged in these ensembles create an opportunity for members to work together toward anti-racist and social justice education, including uncomfortable self-reflection. In order to better harness this

138 Ilê Axé Oyá Meguê or Terreiro Santa Bárbara, commonly known as the terreiro Xambá or casa Xambá.

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potential, it is necessary to examine multicultural music education, Whiteness, and even critiques of anti-racist pedagogical approaches.

Whiteness and Music as Aesthetic Object Deborah Bradley places multiculturalism within a wider ideology of Whiteness that “obfuscates our implication in maintaining systems of privilege and oppression”

(2017:208). She further acknowledges that “the traditional [Western music education] focus on music as aesthetic object occludes the social issues embedded in music” (ibid.

209). Rather than working as an agent of social change, multicultural music education— the approach most commonly informing performance in Brazilian ensembles in Austin—

“reifies whiteness and otherness” by removing racial politics from the music (ibid.).

A desire to separate Brazilian music from racial or political issues repeatedly surfaced in my interactions with ensemble members and leaders. Jessica tells me, “I like to keep my music free of politics, frankly,” and “just appreciate the art for art’s sake.”

She elaborates, “So, when I’m playing music with the Austin Samba bateria, I’m just enjoying the rhythm. I am not trying to think of the broader political message we might be sending, and I don’t think I want to. You know what I mean?” Bradley’s point about focusing solely on the musical object aligns with Arnold’s comment about the Austin

Samba School: “We’re more focused on creating, making this music happen in a much more visceral [way]: a ‘here’s how it sounds and here’s how you get there’ kind of a thing.”

One might counter these statements by suggesting that the music in Brazil, like all musical practice, is embedded in webs of socio-political significance and must be

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understood in that way. In addition, separating the musical product from its socio- political origins reduces the humanity of the people who produced it and becomes a potential mechanism with which to maintain Whiteness and the myth of Brazilian racial democracy. Remember that Jessica, who during our interview (above) told me very clearly that she doesn’t like to mix music and politics, also explained in a separate email

(cited in chapter 1) that she was admonished for bringing up race and politics at rehearsals. As a result, she “learned her lesson” and chose to “just dance.” Thus, the avoidance of politics reflects a traditional approach to music making in the West, the tendency to consider it only as an aesthetic object. At the same time, it demonstrates the way ideologies of Whiteness work can support “forms of social amnesia” in that they obfuscate our complicity “in maintaining systems of privilege and oppression (Bradley

2017:208. See also chapter 5).

In response to my inquiries about the relationship of music to social issues in

Brazil, performers frequently commented on the structural limitations of time in rehearsal contexts and the paramount goal of learning the repertoire well enough to perform.

Rachel explains, “as an Austin Samba school community, [when] we get together, we’re just there to dance. There’s not a lot of speaking about current global issues or things that are happening in Brazil.” Sarah recalls “we [are] so busy learning steps and learning music and practice, practice, practice that we kind of [forget why we started dancing (i.e., fun, community) in the first place] … It kind of [becomes] show business, I guess… because we’re just pumping: gigs and choreography and sweat and tears.” As Arnold explains it, the primary goal is “to have a performance ensemble that sounds awesome.

There’s not always time to go into the historical aspects of it.” The importance of

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perfecting performance, at least in the Samba School, is perhaps one of the reasons why members are usually only interested in discussing samba music as it relates to their community in Austin, rather than its original meanings for Black Brazilians. Socio- cultural issues may be of some interest, yet the mechanics of the music/dance as aesthetic object again emerge as the primary focus.

Even so, some performers express desire for more cultural engagement, suggesting that centrality of the performance needs to be revisited. Sarah reflected

“Maybe that’s one of the reasons why I loved Brazil Camp because, you know, we weren’t performing, we were learning.” Similarly, David explains that one of the reasons he prefers to perform with Maracatu Texas is that he gets more discussion about the cultural aspects of the music. He attended a few Austin Samba rehearsals and notes that

“they just play the whole time, they don't talk much about culture or religion.” By contrast, David asserts that the leadership of Marcatu Texas “[makes] a point of trying to, talk to us about boundaries, things that we need to do to be respectful [of], and I never heard anybody in the samba school even talk about that.” Rachel expresses a desire for more conversations about the politics involved in Austin Samba’s performance, noting that she learned a lot from the few members who travelled to Brazil and “brought back information about what it is like to be a person of color there, and how that translates to

[the context] here.” “But,” Sarah reflects, “I think collectively as a group, and especially

[given] the Whiteness that we see in the samba school … it’s necessary to have these very public and open conversations. And I don’t think, ... [up until now], the model of the samba school [has been] a platform for that at all.”

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Cristina and Vanessa believe that an over-emphasis on performance prevents ensemble members from gaining a deeper understanding of the music they play.

Referring to Austin Samba, Cristina argues that “[performers] understand [samba] is … a

Brazilian dance, a way of dancing, but they don’t understand the reality of it … Because there is a lack of, not culture, but a lack of information. I think that if right now we did a workshop in the Samba School to explain how it was that samba came to be, then perhaps they would be more interested in [the broader socio-political issues].”139 Cristina actually links the lack of cultural and historical knowledge to the often-touted authenticity of

Austin Samba:

I think that if [Austin Samba] really [wants] to be a samba school, it’s going to have to have this more theoretical information: What is samba? Why is samba played? Samba as resistance; the issue of [racial/religious] prejudice in Brazil. Who plays samba? Well, poor people, right? All of this [discussion] would be interesting to have.140

For Cristina, regardless of how well the group performs or how strong their community is, without a deeper understanding of samba’s history and socio-political implications in

Brazil, Austin Samba will fall short as an institution.

While David feels that Maracatu Texas addresses the cultural aspects of the music more effectively than Austin Samba, Vanessa feels Maracatu members need to do more as well. She explains that she is very happy people in Austin are interested in and learning to perform maracatu, “I love that people are doing that.” However, she wishes

139 “Elas entendem que [samba] é uma parte de uma dança brasileira, é uma maneira de dançar e…mas elas não entendem a realidade da coisa. Elas não entendem, Porque falta cu—cultura não, mas falta a informação. Vamos lá, eu penso assim, se agora se a gente faz um workshop na samba school pra explicar como é que nasceu o samba, aí, talvez elas vão dar mais importância pra isso.”

140 “Acho que se o samba school quisesse realmente ficar uma escola de samba, teria que ter essa informação mais teórica do que que é o samba? Porque que se toca samba? [a] resistência do samba; a questão de preconceito no Brasil que tem –quem toca um bom samba é pobre, né. Então tudo isso seria interessante na samba school.

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the leadership “took more time to explain to people what it means.” I clarify, “When you say that, are you talking about explaining to the people in the group? Or in the audiences at shows? or both?” Vanessa responds, “In the group. I wish he would take the time [to educate them] … He was like ‘yeah, there are some videos they can watch,’ but the videos are in Portuguese. They can’t [watch them for that reason].” Vanessa describes the limitations of the current pedagogical approach in Austin ensembles by comparing it to learning a language. She recalls one rehearsal:

But he teaches, “ ‘oi,’ that’s how you respond.” So [he is able to create a] call and response, and that’s how you respond. And in my mind I was like, “Dude, when you [learn] how to speak English you cannot just repeat something that someone says to you: Repeat this. No, you need to read.” Give them the opportunity to … understand what the lyrics are saying. Give them the opportunity to understand the concept in which these lyrics were written. What they really mean. You know? That’s what is missing (emphasis in original).

I ask Vanessa if she has talked with the leader of Maracatu Texas about her concerns, and she explains “Yeah, I have told him, and we’ve tried to set up days in which we could have a gathering for people to watch a documentary and then we can talk about it, but [it] just never happened.”

Multiculturalsim and Education for Social Justice Attempts to move from the dominant multicultural model into effective socio- political activism face an underlying problem, what Nancy Fraser identifies as the

“recognition-redistribution dilemma” (Fraser 1995: 74). Fraser distinguishes between two types of political struggle: 1) the politics of redistribution: various remedies that involve socioeconomic and political redistribution to correct social injustices including exploitation and material inequality; and 2) the politics of recognition: various remedies

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seeking cultural recognition of difference to correct social injustices including cultural domination, nonrecognition (invisibility) and disrespect such as harassment and stereotyping (Fraser 68-71). Fraser argues that the politics of recognition are increasingly supplanting struggles for redistribution. The problem is that the two approaches contradict each other. Recognition “promote[s] group differentiation” by acknowledging,

“if not performatively creating,” group specificity, and then “affirming the value of that specificity” (Fraser 74). On the other hand, redistribution undermines group differentiation, often seeking to abolish “economic arrangements that underpin group specificity” (ibid.; see below).

Fraser uses gender as an example. On the one hand, gender is a political- economic differentiation that “generates gender-specific modes of exploitation, marginalization, and deprivation,” e.g. wage gaps and the division between “paid

‘productive’ labour and unpaid ‘reproductive’ and domestic labour” (Fraser 78). Thus, gender injustice requires redistribution of the political economy to effectively abolish gender as a political-social distinction. On the other hand, gender is also a “cultural- valuational differentiation.” Fraser explains that “overcoming androcentrism and sexism requires changing cultural valuations (as well as their legal and practical expressions) that privilege masculinity and deny equal respect to women” (Fraser 79). In short, redistribution seeks to abolish gender as a category, whereas recognition seeks to “accord positive recognition to a devalued group specificity” (ibid.). Gender injustice, like race, thus requires both redistribution and recognition.

Charles Hale illustrates the pitfalls of an approach to social justice predicated on collective cultural rights recognition. Hale argues that throughout Latin America, the

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concept of mestizaje as a nationalist project has largely been displaced by a politics of cultural recognition. He coins the term “neoliberal multiculturalism” to highlight the integral linkage between collective cultural rights and neoliberal economic and political reforms (12). He asserts, “in part taking the rise of cultural rights activism as an inevitable given, and in part actively substituting a new articulating principle, the emergent regime of governance shapes, delimits, and produces cultural difference rather than suppressing it” (12-13). The result has been not only extremely limited changes regarding both economic and political reforms (redistribution) and cultural valuation and justice, but also an increased capacity for the state to counter and contain resistance. Hale calls for “strategies for rearticulating cultural rights with demands for political-economic resources from the start” (13-14).

Similarly, Fraser suggests the redistribution-recognition dilemma can be corrected by developing strategies that incorporate only the aspects of recognition politics that can be linked to transformative redistribution. She articulates between two levels of remedy, affirmation and transformation. In the recognition approach, she argues that mainstream multiculturalism achieves affirmation only, or “surface reallocations of respect to existing identities” (87). Fraser suggests the politics of deconstruction as a more effective and transformative approach to recognition, one that achieves “deep restructuring of relations of recognition” in that it “blurs group differentiation” (ibid.). Regarding race, she envisions a scenario that combines “the socio-economic politics of socialist anti-racism

[or redistribution] with the cultural politics of deconstructive anti-racism or critical ‘race’ theory” (91).

The challenge for ethnomusicologists is that approaches to multicultural music

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education typically fall within the realm of recognition. Are world music ensembles and courses doomed to advocate for change solely in the realm of cultural recognition, or what Nancy Fraser calls mainstream multicultural affirmation? Are there ways in which ethnomusicologists, world music courses, and ensembles can more effectively work toward transformative social justice that bridges the redistribution-recognition dilemma?

Anti-racist pedagogies offer one potential path forward.

Anti-Racist Music education Deborah Bradley advocates for an anti-racist music education model that articulates the sort of deconstructive politics suggested by Fraser. Bradley argues that liberal multiculturalism “works with the notion of our basic humanness and downplays inequities of difference by accentuating shared commonalities” (Bradley 2006: 13). In contrast, an anti-racist approach “seeks to identify, challenge, and change the values, structures, and behaviors that perpetuate systemic racism and other forms of societal oppressions (Bradley 2006: 13-14).

However, there are at least two problems with Bradley’s model. First, it is not exactly clear how her approach differs from that of other ethnomusicologists. For example, David Locke, Michelle Kisliuk, and Kelly Gross all describe world music ensembles’ abilities to challenge racial essentialisms and expectations through performance (Solís 2004). Locke (2004: 182) states that an “African ensemble is a rare setting in which nonblack participants may seem racially out of place,” a challenge to their own racialized experience as well as a potential source of discomfort to audience expectations. Similarly, Kisliuk and Gross argue that a nearly all-White BaAka ensemble

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“is a fundamental challenge to racial and ethnic essentialisms” that also emphasizes dynamic, continual cultural flows and interpretation over cultural fixity, tradition, and representation (2004 12, 249, 257-260). David Harnish argues that musical performance can guard against orientalism in that it breaks down distinctions between the Self and

Other (2004: 136). Both Pravaz (2010; 2013) and Robitaille (2014) claim Brazilian ensembles in Toronto achieve similar results. Other than advocating for conversations about race, racism, and White privilege, therefore, it is unclear how Bradley’s model differs in practice.

Second, it is unclear whether antiracism is effective at addressing the shortcomings of multiculturalism. As Mathew Hughey explains, proponents of antiracist activism are heavily influenced by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva’s argument that contemporary racism is perpetuated via color-blind mechanisms that mask anti-blackness without appearing to be “racist.” Bonilla-Silva’s solution is for Whites to stop claiming to be non- racists. He believes they should educate themselves about institutional racism and White privilege, and only then engage in antiracism practices (2014). However, Hughey’s research suggests this approach is untenable. In his ethnographic study of an anti-racist activist organization, Hughey notes that despite being “hyper-aware” of racism and White privilege, White antiracist members of the organization continued to “[reproduce] racist ideology in at least three specific valences: (1) belief in racial essentialism, (2) expectations that Whites should be at the center and the subject of racial discourse, and

(3) contradictory viewpoints regarding racial segregation and the freedom of association”141 (Hughey 2007: 73-74). Hughey’s assessment corroborates the argument

141 Here, Hughey is referring to the way in which members of the anti-racist group he studied, when discussing the need to address racism through contact with racial others, “[frame] non-White "others" as

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(Rasmussen et al.:13) that “antiracist practice is often undermined by the desire of White people to remain comfortable,”142 or, to use George Yancy’s terminology, to remain

“sutured” (Yancy:13).

In fact, Hughey’s observations correspond strongly with the themes explored in previous chapters of my dissertation, namely the role of Brazilian music in the construction a hip, alternative Whiteness. For example, Hughey writes that many of the subjects in his study “believed in the social construction of Whiteness and sought to recreate their racial identity as being ontologically antiracist. They want their ideology to constitute their identity” meaning, they want to disassociate themselves from both openly racist Whites, as well as Whites that are complicit in their White privilege (79). Hughey claims that members commonly sought to construct this identity through association with non-Whites: “the members feel they are somehow shedding the garbs of normalcy which they think are inherent to whiteness through non-white (especially black) interaction”

(80).

Where, then, does this leave Brazilian music ensembles? Given the desire of participants to shed “normalcy” by donning the trappings of non-Whiteness, Brazilian music ensembles are particularly apt to be used as a method of non-White association that appears “trendy, cool, and cutting-edge” (Hughey 79). As I argue throughout this dissertation, Austinites engage with Brazilian music and dance at least in part to articulate a hip Whiteness that correlates with Austin’s urban branding and liberal reputation. It seems that antiracist tactics such as discussing the social construction of Whiteness, unmasking Whiteness as an unmarked norm, drawing attention to White privilege and more than the victims of discrimination, but as the partial cause of racism through “self-segregation.” 142 Authors Birgit Brander Rasmussen, Eric Klinenberg, Irene J. Nexica, and Matt Wray draw their conclusion from the work of Allan Bérubé (2001) and William Aal (2001).

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how it shapes White experience, can function to reify whiteness rather than decenter it.

Antiracism, then, runs to risk of reproducing the pitfalls of multiculturalism, producing

“racism that is activated in the form non-white ‘others’ as spectacles who only have voice when interpellating the white subject, or when serving as entertaining exoticism while teaching whites about things previously unknown” (Hughey: 97). In what follows, I suggest a number of potential approaches to ethnomusicology pedagogy that would help develop a more effective means of deconstruction, one that guards against engagement with world music as a recourse for white racial guilt or that constitutes only mainstream multicultural affirmation.

Toward a Community-Engaged and Embodied Anti-Racist Pedagogy

1) Multicultural and Social Justice Competencies

Despite the danger of interpellating the White subject through entertaining exoticism, cross-cultural musical encounter can be a powerful tool for breaking down the self and the Other, what Sonia Seeman frames as a “near-far juxtaposition” (Seeman:193). It is essential that we guard against “token attempts at diversification,” because, as I have argued, acritical proximity to non-Whiteness ultimately reifies Whiteness (Bradley 2017:

209). Such an approach to diversity “cannot possibly tackle the inequity it is meant to address” (Castagno 2014, Kindle 193–195, ctd. in Bradley 2017: 209). Similarly, Seeman cautions that “to effectively transform students’ perception of the world around them, we must constantly de-exoticize that which seems far and hold at a new distance that which seemed near” (201). I elaborate on the utility of Seeman’s “embodied pedagogy”

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approach in a subsequent section of this chapter. Here, I want to suggest that the

Multicultural and Social Justice Competencies developed in the field of Mental Health

Counseling provide a helpful model for redeveloping multiculturalism in ethnomusicology as a social justice pedagogy.

Published in 2015 by the Association for Multicultural Counseling and

Development, a division of the American Counseling Association, the Multicultural and

Social Justice Counseling Competencies (MSJCC) are a conceptual framework for developing the skills necessary for effective cross-cultural mental health intervention

(Ratts, et al. 2015). The authors argue that multicultural and social justice competency derives from the following interconnected domains: 1) counselor self-awareness, 2) the client’s world view, 3) the counseling relationship, and 4) counseling and advocacy (3).

With the exception of “Interventions,” each of these domains is further comprised of four layers: 1) attitudes and beliefs, 2) knowledge, 3) skills, and 4) action (ibid., 5-6).143 The

MSJCC draw attention to both “privileged” or “marginalized” counselors as well as

“privileged” or “marginalized” clients.

In the subsection describing the prerequisites of “Counselor Self-Awareness,”

MSJCC guidelines require that multicultural and social justice-competent counselors acknowledge “their assumptions, worldviews, values, beliefs, and biases as members of privileged and marginalized groups,” and recognize the fact that their privileged and/or marginalized status influences their worldview. Similarly, competent counselors are encouraged to acquire “evaluation skills” enabling them to assess the degree to which

143 Intervention is further divided into the following categories: Intrapersonal; Interpersonal; Institutional; Community; Public Policy; International and Global Affairs (ibid.: 11-14).

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their privileged and/or marginalized status “influences their personal and professional experiences” (Ratts et al. 2015: 5-6).

The guidelines presented in the MSJCC can easily be adopted to ethnomusicologists’ research and teaching activities. In fact, the MSJCC share many of the goals and objectives already pursued by applied ethnomusicologists (LaFevers 2012).

What makes this model unique is that it potentially channels a variety of issues and approaches utilized by ethnomusicologists, including applied ethnomusicology and social justice work, into a structured and comprehensive approach that encompasses the entirety of our relationships with musicians and students (Ratts, et al. 2015: 3).

To illustrate my point, consider the following list of special skills and responsibilities suggested for applied ethnomusicologists, as developed by the

International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM):

1. Openness: a willingness to place oneself in positions of vulnerability, discomfort and sometimes even subservience, embracing unfamiliar and sometimes counterintuitive positions to appropriate process and outcomes.

2. Self-reflections: a sensitivity to approaches to “the Other,” including considerable insight into values and attitudes that one brings to working with specific music cultures.

3. Communication skills: the [ability] to listen, communicate, engage, understand, to recognise unspoken codes, negotiate and empower [others].

4. Broadness: applying interdisciplinary approaches (or working with interdisciplinary teams) to ensure that [far-reaching] aspects of threats to a music culture and pathways to sustainability are addressed (Harrison et al. 2010:7).

The MSJCC mirror many of the ICTM recommendations. However, the MSJCC specifically frame critical self-reflection as a continuous process that requires ethnomusicologists to actively investigate how their societal privilege shapes their

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perspectives and impacts their social interactions. The ICTM guidelines require ethnomusicologists to be “open” and “willing” to embrace “vulnerability” and

“discomfort,” and suggest that researchers should be “sensitive” in their approach to “the

Other.” Openness, in this case, is framed as a passive state of being. Applying the

MSJCC framework, openness and self-reflection are reframed as active processes. That is, ethnomusicologists would:

• Take action to learn about their assumptions, worldviews, values, beliefs, biases, and culture as a member of a privileged and marginalized group.

• Seek out professional development opportunities to learn more about themselves as a member of a privileged or marginalized group.

• Take action to immerse themselves in their community and examining how power, privilege, and oppression influence their experiences (Ratt et al.: 6).

The difference is subtle but important in that it highlights the work ethnomusicologists must undertake in crafting pedagogical and research approaches from what is often an uncomfortable process of critical self-reflection. Note also, that under MSJCC guidelines, reflexivity emphasizes that individual experience is enmeshed within larger social systems of racial or gender privilege. The shift in focus to active study/analysis is helpful in disrupting the egocentric hegemony of Whiteness. I use “egocentric hegemony of

Whiteness” to refer to what Babatunde Lea identifies as the intertwined ideologies of individualism and entitlement at the core of Whiteness: “when these two ideologies are interwoven, egocentrism results and may extend to what I understand to be a peculiar

American definition of freedom: ‘the right to be and do what I want.’ We live in a dominant culture in which public discourse tells us we are entitled to experience ongoing pleasure— not discomfort” (Lea 2008: 99).

The ICTM guidelines for cross-cultural communication include the ability to

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listen, to recognize unspoken codes, and to “empower [others].” These skills relate to the ability of the [White] researcher to interpret the Others’ culture, but make no specific mention of the researcher’s own forms of communication. By contrast, in the MSJCC- derived approach the researcher/teacher would “take action to learn about how their

[own] communication style is influenced by their privileged [or marginalized] status”

(Ratt et al. 2015: 6). For example, an instructor working from this perspective would facilitate Ryan and Amanda’s explorations of how their privileged (White) status in the

United States has informed their positions as observers and consumers of Black Brazilian cultural forms. As my analysis demonstrates, it has contributed not only to a sense of entitlement to participate in and power to define maracatu (i.e., having dancers), but also the way these feelings were communicated to Vanessa that denied her (bi-racial) experience (i.e, the “what nonsense” comment, and Ryan’s mansplaining). Critical self- evaluation of this sort may help restructure the ethnographic fieldwork relationship from a position of researchers attempting to “empower others” —a dynamic involving ongoing hierarchies of power—to a more genuinely collaborative endeavor. While it is unlikely that a MSJCC approach could have prevented outright Ryan’s mansplaining or the microaggressions experienced by Malu and Rachel, it is possible that it would have helped transform these moments into learning opportunities with the potential to reshape how members engage with the music of the Other.

2) Critical Whiteness and Anti-Racist Pedagogy

Despite the potential pitfalls of anti-racism identified by Hughey (i.e., that many White participants in such endeavors may continue to reproduce racist ideologies and perpetuate

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the centrality of Whites within racial discourses), I believe that antiracism and critical

Whiteness offer considerable potential for mitigating against reinforcing race and gender stereotypes. In fact, I read Hughey’s conclusions as evidence of what George Yancy calls

“the ambiguous reality of white racism” (223). Yancey stresses that “dismantling whiteness is a continuous project,” and that we must “continue to undo white racism even as it repositions [antiracist whites] as privileged” (ibid.).

Thus, we should not abandon anti-racist approaches but continue to work toward what Nancy Frasier terms “deconstructive anti-racism” (91). It is only through such critical anti-racist assessments that we can begin to explore the implications of the following observation by bell hooks: “[E]xploring how desire for the Other is expressed, manipulated, and transformed by encounters with difference and the different is a critical terrain that can indicate whether these potentially revolutionary longings are ever fulfilled” (hooks 1992: 22). (Re)examining White desire can therefore help guard against exploiting world music as mere trappings of non-Whiteness to articulate and perform a hip Whiteness.

Continuing to interrogate the hegemony of Whiteness even within antiracist discourse is necessary in addressing the deep-seated conventional wisdom or embodied

“knowledge” of racial formations. Yancy refers to this quality as the insidiousness

(etymologically linked to ambush) of Whiteness: the ability of racist actions to surface despite one’s active attempts to dismantle White privilege. Yancy asserts that Whiteness

“is a master of concealment; it is insidiously embedded within responses, reactions, good intentions, postural gestures, denials, and structural and material orders” (2017: 219).

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Ann Berlak (2008) explains that despite her best efforts and her perception that students made considerable strides in disrupting the hegemony of White racism, she witnessed during supervised student teaching a “gap between students’ espoused beliefs and values” and their actions in the classroom (48). She cites as an example supervising one of her student-teachers who put the names of three misbehaving Black boys on the board, ignoring the identical behavior of White boys. She conceptualizes the same phenomenon through psychologist Timothy Wilson’s theory of the adaptive unconscious.

Berlak explains that according to Wilson, attitudes “toward concepts such as race or gender… operate at two levels—at a conscious level our stated values direct our behavior deliberately, and at an unconscious level we respond in terms of immediate but quite complex automatic associations that tumble out before we have even had time to think”

(51). She continues: “The adaptive unconscious is far more sophisticated, efficient, and adult-like than the unconscious portrayed by psychoanalytic theory. It can set goals, interpret and evaluate evidence, and influence judgments, conscious feelings, and behavior. People can think in quite sophisticated ways and yet be thinking “non- consciously.” In fact, the mind relegates a good deal of high-level thinking to the adaptive unconscious” (ibid.).

Note the similarity with Yancy’s conceptualization of Whiteness as ambush.

Yancy argues, “the moment a white person claims to have arrived [as an antiracist], he/ she often undergoes a surprise attack, a form of attack that points to how Whiteness ensnares even as one strives to fight against racism” (2017: 219). Berlak states,

“individuals can honestly claim they are aware of the diverse set of racist practices that hold in place the hegemony of Whiteness and yet be completely unaware of them at an

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implicit automatic level” (51). Both Berlak’s adaptive unconscious and Yancy’s insidious

Whiteness betray the inadvertent behaviors of anti-racist Whites. This theory helps to explain Hughey’s observations, how antiracist Whites can consciously engage in discussions about racism and White privilege and unwittingly reproduce the same racist behaviors they’re attempt to correct. White racism insidiously creeps back in, through racial micro-aggressions, unconscious bias, and repositioning itself at the center of racial discourse, reifying power over Black bodies.

For this reason we need to continue to pursue antiracist and critical Whiteness in our pedagogies while refusing to romanticize antiracism as a state to be achieved. As mentioned, the struggle against antiracism is continual. Conceptualizing antiracism as a place of “arrival” functions to keep Whiteness intact, or “sutured,” and thus prevents

Whites from “lingering with the profound and intricate layers of white supremacy”

(Yancy 2017: 13). Yancy suggests that “lingering” with Whiteness is “the necessary deeper critical work required to unearth the various ways in which one is actually complicit in terms of racist behavior.” He stresses that embedded within the idea of an

“actualized” (“woke” or arrived) anti-racist White person is a sense of “self- glorification,” of self-understanding that “obstructs” this deeper critical work (222). To begin to reshape the adaptive unconscious, Yancy argues we have must “[nurture] a disposition to be un-sutured … to crack, re-crack, and crack again the calcified operations of the white gaze” (13-14). I agree with Hughey who argues that “[antiracism] must focus less on the conceptual make-up of what whiteness essentially is. One of the largest problems with the white antiracist praxis I encountered was their reification of racial

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identity” (97). Smith (2016) and Muñoz (2006) also stress the need for zeroing in instead on what racism/Whiteness does.

3) Anti-Racist Embodied Pedagogy

Sonia Seeman offers a pedagogical tool that ethnomusicologists can potentially use to crack and re-crack White subjectivity and its relationship to Others. She defines

“Embodied Pedagogy” as a “second level of teaching that is necessary for the students’ experience of far-near juxtaposition in such a way that they engage with a higher level of understanding”; this provides a pedagogical approach for effectively “conveying what music is and what music does” (Seeman: 193). Similarly, ensembles can use music, a cultural product embedded in racial formations and one that can be experienced through embodiment, as a means to uncover what race/Whiteness does. This is especially true of ensembles in university settings, where the performers are students, rather than community members who join of their own interest. Ensemble members in the university setting are perhaps more open to exploring and critiquing the broader socio-cultural issues involved in performing the Other’s music, since many of them do so in academic classes.

Seeman draws on Geertz’s notion of far-near juxtaposition—anthropologists moving between understanding the other (far) and their own (near) worldview—as well as Mark Johnson’s concept of embodied understanding, an ongoing process of knowledge production via embodied encounters. She combines these concepts with Ricoeur’s theory of distanciation to describe the process by which foreign assemblages of meaning are

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appropriated to produce familiar meanings (193). Thus, Seeman’s framework of embodiment refers to “appropriation of external experience into one’s self / one’s internal understanding” (194).

Seeman asserts that educators can use musical case studies to encourage students to “move between their taken-for-granted notions of selves” (ibid.). I argue that when combined with critical antiracism, an embodied pedagogical approach will enable ethnomusicologists and students to effectively interrogate their consumption of (or participation in) Brazilian musical performance, for example the appropriation/ embodiment of foreign signs into familiar assemblages of racist meaning. In cases discussed earlier in this dissertation, examples of such foreign signs and meanings include the masculine power perceived in drumming, the notion of Black rhythm as irresistible contagion, and the interpretation of dance movement as evidence of natural rhythm or Black sexuality.

Seeman argues that embodied techniques help transform token multicultural encounters with difference into social justice activism by better preparing students to participate in “social issues outside of the classroom” (202). Hughey similarly warns against “the proliferation of "racial sensitivity" workshops and "diversity training" instead of political struggle (99). Instead, “Antiracist "activism" should be constituted by both study and action” (ibid.). World music ensembles could use the embodied pedagogy approach to cross-cultural musical encounters as springboards for community activism.

For example, instead of highlighting samba as an alegria-inducing rhythm, groups could emphasize samba as an Afro-diasporic political project and seek to dialogue and collaborate with Black communities in Austin and beyond.

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4) Community Engagement

Lastly, I want to suggest the importance of sustained community engagement as a pedagogical necessity. I agree with Elizabeth Hodge-Freeman, who developed what she calls the four Cs of critical global citizenship: it must be “community-centered, collaborative, critical, and continuous” (46). I recommend that ethnomusicologists who lead world music ensembles seek to address all of these issues in their community relationships. For world music ensembles, this means forging relationships not only with foreign or immigrant musical communities that first created the music being performed, but also with local communities to explore how our performance of the music reverberates at home.

Brazilian ensembles in Austin tend to overly rely on just a few authoritative voices for information about Brazil and the musical styles groups perform. A plurality of perspectives is need to for performers to explore the complex and frequently contradictory meanings of Brazilian music, both in Brazil and abroad. Multiple voices are also critical in order for students or community members to more completely interrogate their privilege, power, and sense of entitlement as it pertains to their relationship with the

Other. The uncritical acceptance of, and over-reliance on, a limited number of authoritative voices surrounding Afro-Brazilian music performance is present in the following exchanges with members of Marcatu Texas.144 I talk with Allison, David, and

144 Additionally, when reflecting on the role of clinicians who come to give workshops to Austin Samba and Maracatu Texas uncritically repeat similar viewpoints when they, it is important that we recall Hordge- Freeman’s point that many Black Brazilians “who are left with few options make a living by performing

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George about issues of cultural appropriation, and I challenge their collective understanding that their performance of maracatu rhythms is appropriate by asking,

“what if someone else from a different maracatu disapproved of the way you represent their tradition, have you ever thought about that?” David responds first, claiming that he trusts the group’s leader, João, and discounting the idea that another maracatuzeiro/a would disapprove: “I guess I’m questioning whether that would happen, because I feel like, again, the way that João has presented this music … to us, he doesn’t seem to be stepping outside of his authority. From what I can tell and the messages that Dudu [the

Afro-Brazilian band leader from Recife who gave lessons to Maracatu Texas] seems to be sending to João and to us, [he believes] this is cool, [that] what [we] are doing is

[acceptable].” George interrupts David, “But that doesn’t mean that somebody else with authority maybe [wouldn’t] see it that way.” [David: Yeah, that’s true]

George elaborates:

My answer to that question is that I would listen to that person, and really listen, for as long as they wanted to talk about it. But I can’t say without knowing what they have to say is, how I would feel at the end of that conversation. I’m prepared to say that I’m [willing to hear] that person out, but [I also recognize that] other people with authority are saying [different] things.

An example of a more critical view of Maracatu Texas’s performance is found in

Malu’s commentary. I ask Malu, a Black women from Recife, what bothers her about

Maracatu Texas. In an email, she identifies a number of issues that center around White privilege and entitlement that enables forms of cultural appropriation that erases

Blackness, rendering the musical expressions as simply Brazilian, or “Black culture without Black bodies.” Echoing Vanessa’s concerns cited above, Malu explains, “as an

stereotypical ideas about blackness” (45). At the very least, it is against the interests of musicians who earn a living by teaching to suggest that Americans should not perform certain styles.

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Afro-Brazilian woman who is connected with Candomblé and understands [its importance] for Black people in Brazil, the mere fact that they call themselves a

“maracatu” is already upsetting. They are not maracatu; they could be at the most a percussion group.”

However, Malu’s further critiques the group for performing afoxé music, which she views as a desecration of Black religious music. Afoxé music is a secular form of

Afro-religious music, also known as “candomblé da rua” (Candomblé for the [public] streets). While it is viewed as acceptable for non-practitioners of Candomblé to attend afoxé performances, the bands themselves are often connected to specific terreiros and comprised of Candomblé followers. Malu asserts, “They should not play afoxé. As simple as that. There is no afoxé without a terreiro. There is no afoxé without Orixás.”

For Malu, White Americans with no connection whatsoever to Afro-Brazilian religion have no business, no right, to perform afoxé, especially when there “is no quid pro quo,” meaning that the group is not engaged or partnered with Black Brazilian communities working toward social justice. Instead, she suggests that “they do it because they can.

Because of their [White] privilege. Because it's cool…Afoxé is not a ‘feel-good’ kind of music, [which is] how they approach it: ‘I play it and people immediately feel good,’ I have heard [members of Maracatu Texas] say this multiple times. It is absolutely wrong.

Unacceptable.” Malu provides a counter example to illustrate the absurdity of Maracatu

Texas performing afoxé:

if they were doing something holocaust-related, it would not even be a question [i.e., they would not be comfortable appropriating and performing Jewish religious music]. But, [we Black people] always have to define our boundaries and our humanity. Where in the world is it ok for people who don't belong to a religion to play religions songs at a club where people go to get high and get laid?

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It is unclear if, when confronted with Malu’s criticisms, George would alter his stance on the performance of maracatu and (especially) afoxé. However, here we see the potential that dialog with multiple viewpoints could have in altering performers’ worldviews, particularly when coupled with antiracist- and social justice-oriented pedagogies.

Certainly, such engagement would help George, David, and Melissa crack (or un-suture) the “egocentric hegemony of Whiteness” (Lea), calling attention to their sense of entitlement in performing Black cultural forms. Thus, multiple points of engagement with community partners, with a variety of perspectives, is an essential component of the embodied near-far juxtaposition as described by Seeman, and vital for effective world music pedagogy. My analysis here indicates the importance of presenting multiple viewpoints for performers of voluntary, community-based world music ensembles, but my larger argument is that varied perspectives and community connections are also essential for university-based music ensembles. This is especially true given our positions as professors in universities, where students tend to bestow in us an incredible amount of definitive authenticity.

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Conclusion

Austin is Exhausting

Between March 2 and March 21st, 2018, a series of bombings exploded in Austin, Texas, killing two people (three including the bomber) and injuring six others. In addition to terrorizing the city, the bombings exacerbated existing racial tensions in Austin. The first bombs appeared to target Black and Latinx residents in Austin’s heterotopic Eastside, and the initial approach of Austin’s police department—who viewed the first bombing as drug-related and even considered the possibility that the first victim, Anthony Stephan

House, was responsible for his own death—offended residents of color who recognized the prevalence of racial stereotypes about violence and criminality in Black communities

(Hasan 2018). On March 21, 2018, in the wake of all bombing incidents, Jesus Valles wrote a public Facebook post about racism in Austin. It begins:

“Austin is an exhausting place where racism smiles at you and does yoga …. (emphasis added).

His post is full of examples of microagressions that White Austinites unwittingly inflict on others (“you are so surprisingly eloquent”) and notes how racism lurks in plain sight, masked by a liberalism that proclaims its tolerance by “lov[ing] trap [music]” and

“playing Kendrick Lamar in the car and singing along to every word, every word.”145

145 https://www.facebook.com/jivalles/posts/10101131414513810. Also see: Hasan 2018.

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Samba on We Are Austin: On Friday, April 13, three weeks after Valles’ Facebook post, African-American dancer

Imani Aanu and members of Austin Samba School appear on We Are Austin (a week day lifestyle show on Austin’s CBS affiliate, KEYE) to promote their upcoming performance.

The manner in which the show’s hosts receive and (re)present Brazilian music and dance—and Aanu herself—provides an additional example of the colorblind hipster racism Valles identifies in Austin. Returning from a commercial break, co-host Taylor

Ellison announces, “It’s a true Carnaval celebration, right here in Austin Texas, and

Imani and the Austin Samba team are here to tell us about this electrifying night.”

Standing next to Ellison, we see Austin Samba School’s dance director Imani Aanu dressed in a blue passista costume: white beaded loops and designs dangle from both the top and bottom pieces of a blue sparkling bikini, large blue feathers rising from her shoulders, and an elaborately bejeweled headdress. Behind them are three men playing repenique, surdo, and caixa—the core of samba batucada drumming. The men wear matching blue Austin Samba t-shirts and white pants or shorts. On a table (stage left) of

Aanu sit 2 mannequin heads with feathered headdresses, one in pink and green (the colors of the famous Mangueira samba school in Rio) and the other in New Orleans’

Mardi Gras colors: green, yellow and purple (see figure 26).

Ellison says “you are dressed to impress” as Aanu’s costume immediately becomes the first topic of discussion. “How long did it take to put the costume together?”

Aanu repsonds, “as you can imagine, to have this much bling going on [requires] a little

[investment] of time.” Ellison adds, “Girl, you are working it! And the feather game is so strong. And your [eye] lashes are almost as long as the feathers!”

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Ellison then asks Aanu what concert goers can expect to encounter at Austin

Sambas upcoming performance on April 21. Aanu explains:

We are so excited about next weekend. We have our big show of the season, “A Night in Rio.” We get to perform for you and all of the Austin community at the Zach Scott Topfer Theatre. [Ellison: “Nice!”] With this show we’re going to paint a visual and tell a story through song and music and dance reflecting the cultures of Brazil about what a samba school goes through as they’re preparing for that big night of Carnaval. So it will start with rehearsal, and there’ll be some street scenes where people are just grooving in that good, festive mood, and then it will build up to the rehearsals and the stress all that goes along with [performance] as you prepare to make a spectacular flash for the big night of carnaval. It will end with a huge parade on the avenida, everyone dressed up in their Rio celebratory finest.”

Ellison asks, “What is the prep like for y’all to put on a show like that?” Aanu replies,

“This season’s show actually tells [about] our lives, our samba lives.”

Ellison then asks if Aanu would like to show off some of her dance moves. Aanu explains, “the way that this works, Brazilian samba, I always like to say it’s like a triple step: 1-2-3.” She starts to move her feet in a right-left-right, left-right-left, triple pattern.

“So we just step-2-3... and that’s basically it.” Ellison, looking intently at Aanu’s feet, attempts to mimic her movements. “Except,” Aanu adds, “because it’s Brazilian samba, we can’t keep it just in the feet, we’ve got to move it on up …” Ellison interjects, smiling at the camera and speaking over Aanu, “Oh, we gotta add some hips, don’t we?” Aanu continues, “you’ve gotta ad some hips— 2-3, 1-2-3, hips-2-3 — and then we just continue to move on up the body,” incorporating the upper-body movements into the samba dance. Ellison: “we’re gonna ad some arms?” Aanu responds: “Yes, add some arms,” at which point Aaunu incorporates the fluid arm motions that often accompany

Rio-style escola de samba dancing, with Ellison following along as best she can. “Relax it, and then we just put a little bit of attitude in it and go from there.” Ellison invites her

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co-host Trevor Scott, who “has long arms” to join them, and he does so enthusiastically .

Ellison also asks the drummers, “Maybe we could get a little music accompaniment?”

The repenique signals a call-in at a slow pace and the surdo and caixa join in a basic samba ride. Aanu, raising her voice to be heard over the drums, shimmies her shoulders and reminds the hosts that “it’s important to flourish and feel the music. Ellison quickly grabs a blue feathered headdress (off stage-right) and comes back in screen to put it on, before resuming her dance (figure 26).

Figure 26. Austin Samba promoting their performance, “A Night in Rio” on We Are Austin, April 13, 2018. (L to R in the foreground): Imani Aanu, Taylor Ellison, Trevor Scott. http://cbsaustin.com/features/we-are-austin/get-ready-for-a- night-in-rio-with-austin-samba

The details of the upcoming show briefly appear on screen and the drumming stops on cue. Ellison invites Aanu to “take the show to break for us.” Aanu replies, “Wonderful,

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let’s do that, let’s party.” The repenique player repeats the call-in at a faster tempo, and as the rest of the drummers come in, Aanu smiles at the camera and dances a flourished samba.

______

This dissertation investigates the racial meanings generated and performed by Brazilian music and dance ensembles in Austin, Texas, and how those racialized performances map on to existing spatio-racial formations in the city. Jesus Valles is not alone in characterizing the racial tensions in Austin by what Eduardo Bonilla-Silva calls

“colorblind racism.”146 Significantly, Valles draws attention to the ways in which White

Austinites incorporate the music and cultural expressions of non-Whites (yoga, trap music, Kendrick Lamar lyrics) into performances that project a hip, liberal, and racially tolerant Whiteness that blinds them to their implicit racial biases and racist interactions with people of color (“you are so surprisingly eloquent”).

Where do Brazilian performance groups fit into this dynamic? Do they offer, as

Kisliuk and Gross suggest of all-White BaAka ensembles, “a fundamental challenge to racial and ethnic essentialisms” (2004 12, 249, 257-260). Do they disrupt and challenge existing racial stereotypes and social hierarchies, even if only momentarily, as Robitaille and Pravaz argue of Brazilian ensembles in Canada (Pravaz 2010, 2013, Robitaille

2014)? Or do Brazilian groups in Austin align more closely with the sort of “racism that does yoga?” That is, despite their intentions, do the groups tend to present Brazilian culture in ways that reify racial stereotypes and perpetuate spatialized divisions in cultural consumption?

146 Buchele 2016; Dahmer 2015; Saunders 2015; Spearman 2016; Spearman 2017.

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What is being presented when Austin Samba promotes their concert on We Are

Austin? The racialized and gendered meanings of the embodied performance of

Brazilianness emerges and becomes clear as Aanu invites Ellison and Scott to move their bodies in distinct ways: “because it’s Brazilian, we cannot keep it in the feet.” To perform Brazilianness, read as non-White Other, requires one to move their entire body

“with attitude.” By dancing, and, significantly in donning the feathered headdress, Taylor

Ellison (who is White) continues to enact a performance of racial drag that she began earlier in the broadcast when she suddenly adopted expressions derived from African-

American vernacular speech when speaking with Imani Aanu (“Girl, you are working it!

And the feather game is so strong. The non-Whiteness of samba/Brazil is palpably rendered in the spectacle of Aanu’s dancing Black body. Dancing samba in an impromptu costume, Ellison and Scott join the members of Austin samba in dragging (Black)

Brazilian to perform Austin’s weird brand of hip cosmopolitan Whiteness.

This dissertation demonstrates the need to reevaluate the implications of cross- cultural musical encounter, especially as regards Afro-descendent musical practices in the

Americas. My project has three objectives. First, I hope to shift the analytical frame for examining Brazilian music ensembles outside of Brazil from one emphasizing globalized cultural flows to an alternate model that underscores historical processes of (trans)racial formation. The first chapter traces (trans)national racial discourse between the United

States and Brazil. I draw attention to how circulating forms of Afro-diasporic music were, and continue to be, important elements in the construction of Whiteness via globalized Black racial frames. I note how Brazilian groups in Austin continue to be in dialogue with the same spatio-racial formations.

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My second objective is to explore how (trans)national racial meanings and discourses are embodied in performance practices, a process I refer to as racial drag. The body is the primary site in which knowledge about the Other is both understood and performed. By drawing attention to the body as embedded within historical and ongoing racial formations, my aim is to improve our understanding of how participation in, and consumption of, Afro-Diasporic forms, often framed as transgressive, may

(un)intentionally reinforce forms of White supremacy, White privilege, and racial insensivity.

The third goal is to use the analysis of the kinds of racial and gendered meanings produced in Brazilian music performance to improve pedagogical approaches to world music. I argue that engagement with Brazilian music and culture via participation in

Austin’s ensembles does not necessarily challenge racial stereotypes or hierarchies, as some scholars suggest, but typically maintains and supports them. However, I believe that Brazilian music ensembles have the potential to incorporate anti-racist and social justice pedagogies that can help mitigate against reifying charactarizations and ideologies. I hope that my pedagogical suggestions prove helpful, if not in practice, then at the very least in encouraging further discussion that leads to the development of even more effective approaches.

I want to conclude by briefly outlining two issues that emerged over the course of research that I was unable to explore in detail in this dissertation, and merit further scholarly attention in the future.

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Embodying the Mulatas: Samba and Women’s Empowerment.

The figure of the mulata has long been associated with samba (Pravaz 2009). In Austin, she is often one of the most visible signs of samba and audience members’ preconceived associations of Brazilian music. Adriana argues that if you mention Brazil or Carnaval to someone who is not part of the samba community, the one thing they think of, their “go- to” image, is “those dancers in the big headdresses and the bikinis and the high heels.”

Embodying the mulata, then, draws our attention to specific intersections of race, gender, sexuality and the male gaze. Dancers repeatedly mentioned trying to desexualize samba performance for American audiences, arguing that, in Brazilian culture, the costumes and dance are “not sexual.” For example, Maria, a dancer with Austin samba and a dance instructor, admits that “we are not wearing much,” but insists that the result is “not vulgar, it’s beautiful.” Are these strategies for deflecting an objectifying male gaze, or perhaps rationalizations? And in what way are they racialized?

Recontexualizing samba and the mulata as “not about sex,” it appears, has at least two consequences. First, it serves to only further perceptions of Brazil as an exotic, oversexed Other because it suggests that what American audiences read as an erotic and sensuous performance (and corporal display) is so commonplace in Brazil that it is normalized and not “sexy.” Second, the assertion that mulatas are not sexy completely obfuscates the longstanding raced sexualization of mulatas and music across the

Americas, dating back centuries (Fraunhar 2002).

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Figure 27: Official flyer for Austin Carnaval Brasileiro 2018.

Thus, further research is needed into how are women navigating their public performances of samba and the relationship between their bodies, costumes, and audiences. Austin’s performance scene is an excellent candidate for such research, given that advertisements for the city’s largest Brazilian music event, Carnival Brasileiro, are

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highly sexualized in specifically gendered ways (see image X). We especially need Black feminist critiques of how mostly White (and to a lesser extent U.S. Black and Latina) women construct strategies of empowerment (social, sexual, and others) by tapping into stereotypes about Black sexuality, desire, deviance, and power via the embodied performances of racial drag. For example, one dancer told me that samba healed her from body image issues and an eating disorder. For her, samba allowed her to love her body, and she viewed her continued participation in the samba community in Austin as a form of resistance against misogyny, citing the liberating affect her dancing has had on local female audience members. How, then, might the dancer’s engagement with samba be transformed from a process that consumes Black expressive forms to articulate to a

[White] feminist project into a collaborative praxis with Black feminists?

Asking Permission: Orixás and Veneers of Authenticity

Another issue that emerged over the course of research that merits further exploration is the relationship between Brazilian ensembles and Afro-matrix religions, most notably Candomblé. The issue comes to the fore because notions of authentic performance are extremely important for some groups. Austin Samba drummer Arnold explains to me that the directors “[try] to keep us as ‘real’ as we can be, or ‘Keeping it

Rio,’ as I like to say.” In their quest for authenticity, ensemble participants encounter and must navigate a relationship with religions that they do not practice. For example, Austin

Samba adopted Iemanjá (an African-derived deity associated with motherhood and the ocean) as their protector. Steve, who identifies as a White American, is one of the directors of Austin Samba. He travels often to Brazil, and our conversation slips between

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English and Portuguese. He explains to me that Austin Samba’s “vínculo com Iemanjá”

(connection with Iemanjá) is “not a religious thing for them,” but since samba schools in

Rio have protector Orixás, it is a way that they can teach samba “da maneira mais autêncio possível (in the most authentic way possible). Steve argues that incorporating an

Orixá helps the group learn about “a belief system [that is] super important in Brazil,” pointing out that “you can’t understand the samba [or Brazilian] culture … without knowing at least something about Candomblé.” He stresses to me, “I’ve got Brazilians ao meu lado [on my side]” [implying that Brazilians whom I assume are Candomblé devotes support his incorporation of Iemanjá], even though he also emphasizes that “we’re not trying to baixar o santo [invoke the spirit of the saint or Orixá, meaning they’re not performing a Candomblé religious ceremony]. “Nothing like that, and no one is praying for the saint.”

The claim that having a protector Orixá helps members learn about and respect

Afro-Brazilian culture is dubious. Consider the following anecdote involving, Cristina, an one of the few Austin Samba band members who believes in Candomblé and has connections with terreiros in Brazil. She was very excited to learn that Iemanjá protected

Austin Samba, at least in part because Iemanjá is her Orixá as well. When visiting her hometown, she went to the terreiro and brought back “um barquinho de Iemanjá”

(Iemanjá embodied in a sacred boat-shaped figurine) as a gift for the ensemble. In a separate conversation, Arnold explained to me that “someone made us this little boat

Iemanjá boat that they now bring to rehearsals and put on a table.” Arnold’s comment suggests that even he did not fully understand the connection between the icon and terreiro religious practices. Subsequently, when walking into rehearsal, Arnold noted that

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people would “put their bag, or their drum case, or their drum sticks on the table

[alongside Iemanjá] … [Therefore, the director] had to get on the mic and say ‘Hey, you know we’re trying to be like a school in Rio, and they perceive [the table over there with the Orixá] as being somewhat sacred. You don’t just put your keys on the table and come into the rehearsal.” Clearly, the group had never received instruction of any kind about the significance of an Orixá patron saint or their relationship to escolas de samba in

Brazil.

In a related anecdote, Steve explains to me that the Samba School started opening all of their rehearsals by singing “Mãe D’água” by the Brazilian band Bangalafumenga.

The lyrics of the song praise Iemanjá and ask for permission to samba along the edge of the sea.147 Despite his claim that no one is praying to the Orixás, “Mãe D’água” is literally a prayer to Iemanjá. Here, we see the extent to which engagement with

Candomblé in the ensemble represents a thin veneer, a superficial gesture, a racial drag, because in fact the samba school as a collective is not praying to Iemanjá and is largely uninformed about the religion. Steve essentially admits this when he suggests that singing the song together in rehearsals is the perfect vehicle with which “to teach Americans a little bit about the culture of samba” and perhaps most importantly “a way to create community.” Cristina confirms that most band members know very little about

Candomblé or its historical ties to batucadas: “[No one in Austin Samba has] a true understanding of what it means for an Orixá to protect a samba school.”148 Indeed, an exchange I had with dancer/drummer Becky indicates an almost antagonistic relationship

147 The lyrics include: Mãe d'água, rainha / Me dá licença deu sambar pela beirinha/ Mãe d'água sereia (Mother of water, queen / Grant me permission to samba along the shore/ Mother of water, mermaid). 148 “Mas o verdadeiro entendimento do que que é um orixá proteger uma escola, as pessoas da escola não tem.”

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with Candomblé. Becky, who is Christian, had a negative experience with spirits years ago while attending a Vodoun ceremony in New Orleans. She explains that she will no longer recognize or praise any spiritual being other than Jesus with her music. I ask her, then, how she reconciles performing Mãe D’água. She replies: “I just kind of know that

[when we sing the song] we’re asking for so little when we could have so much [more].

Why ask Yemanya [pronounced “Yeh-man-yah,” an incorrect pronunciation of the name in Brazilian Portuguese] to dance beside the water when you could actually walk on the water [with Jesus], hmmm? [Laughs].” While I acknowledge that Becky is making a claim in support of her own religious beliefs, I nevertheless read her comment as disrespectful mockery. And while Steve claims support from Brazilians in his secularist approach to referencing Candomblé, other Brazilians (including Malu, see chapter 6) might view the appropriation of elements of Candomblé for purposes of entertainment as sacrilegious and offensive.

Other aspects of Candomblé are embodied via racial drag in various ways in

Austin Samba. I mentioned in chapter 1 that dancers learn choreography based on “the movements of the Orixás,” but certain rhythms, lyrics, and songs praising Orixás or otherwise making reference to Candomblé practices are often performed both in the samba school and in Maracatu Texas (see chapter 6). Perhaps the most overt forms of religious racial drag performance involves the baianas in the samba school (see image

XX). Baianas are part of samba school parades in Rio (McCann 2004) and continue to be cultural commodities that reference Bahia’s Afro-Paradise (Smith 2016). Of course,

White performers donning exaggerated and caricatured costumes of baianas—whose dress is derived from religious regalia—traces back at least to Carmen Miranda (Davis

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2009). In the Austin Samba school, “the more mature” women dress as baianas, adding an ageist element to this racialized and gendered figure embodied through racial drag.

Figure 28: Baianas performing with Austin Samba at Carnaval Brasileiro 2014. This photo appeared in Alicia Vega’s (2014) the article “Austin Carnival Brasileiro’s sexy samba heats up the night” (Vega 2014). The original caption of the image is significant: “The more mature members of Austin Samba school performed a traditional style dance in heritage garb” (emphasis added). Note that “heritage garb” is actually a costume that includes head wraps and beaded necklaces, or fios-de-conta, which for member of Candomblé are sacred objects.

The dynamics described briefly here involving multiple layers of misunderstanding and/or parody surrounding superficial representations of Afro- descendant religion speak to the heart of my research project. This scenario underscores the fundamental transformations of Brazilian culture as it is recreated and performed abroad, the radical shifts in ideology and meaning with which it is associated, and the

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countless ways in which it too often fails to serve as an effective tool of cross-cultural understanding. I hope to continue exploring all of these issues in my future research.

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