“There on my saw foot / I let my heart stay. Ouch, I miss you / I'm going back to my backlands. In my field I worked every day / But on my ranch I had everything I wanted. There were dances almost every Thursday / Concertina, and have a drink all night. ”
Just talk about forró and everybody thinks about dancing. In a danceable rhythm of this piece of music “At my foot of Serra” of the composer, singer and accordion player Dominguinhos, it is possible to perceive some elements that highlight identity traits of the culture of the northeastern people. However, these characteristics are sufficient to define a notion of Brazilian identity?
Cultural identity
Although literature and common sense discuss the notion of Brazilian identity (ORTIZ, 2006, HALL, 2006), the details of the plot of the Brazilian demonstrations are too diverse to trace a unique model of national identity. Aspects related to ethnic cultures, racial, linguistic, religious, regional, change and vary from region to region. At the same time, dances have taken root and are often used to illustrate a plurality of identities, built by different social groups at different historical moments.
Brazil's cultural identity is usually related to Samba. However, there are other cultural manifestations that are part of the fabric of practices that form the local and regional identity. An example of these important manifestations is the case of cultural expression related to forró. Trotta (2008) states that forró “stands out for a narrative of the Northeast region based on the symbolic construction of the“ sertão ”and the“ sertanejo ””. This text deepens the notion of identity because it creates a broad view, detailed localization of the fabric of national identity. It is unclear, However, how this identity is reflected in body movements.
Movement, music and dance
According to Ossona (1988, p. 25), “Every movement, from the mechanical to the symbolic, always contains a large expressive load ”. Desmond (2013) complements this idea by arguing that the movement can be read as a marker for the production of gender identities, breed, ethnicity, class and nationality: “It can also be read as a sign of sexual identity, age, illness or health, as well as several other types of distinctions / descriptions that are applied to individuals or groups, as "sexy".
It is in this sense that demonstrations such as Forró establish connections between music and dance, but also in other relationships. Relationships in which temporal metaphors can be confused with musical metrics and also disassociated from another perspective. Supported by several proposals that use computational methods to examine the relationships between music and dance, this field of study is situated in the topic of Cognition Incorporated in Music and Dance (access https://corpuslab.info/linhas-de-pesquisa/).
In the context of Forró, fellow Igor Tolentino with guidance from professor Luiz Naveda started a research based on the observation of two dancers with a motion capture device (Mocap*), in order to understand how the dancers' perception of music can cause different bodily responses, through sound stimuli. The methodology consisted of capturing and analyzing the movements of professional dancers and the dance styles addressed were those stipulated by the dancers within the forró genre..
*Mocap is a term used to describe a process of recording a movement and its transposition in a digital model.
With the help of the mocap it is possible to investigate the relationship between music and dance using scientific methods (https://corpuslab.info/habemos-mocap-tambem/). This preliminary study demonstrated that the body responses of dancers in dance can be influenced by variations to sound stimuli, reaffirming the strong link between music and dance.
References
DESMOND, J. C.; WALNUT, T. DE M. DE M.; LOVING, R. T. FROM D. M. Embodying the difference: Issues between dance and cultural studies. Dance: Journal of the Graduate Program in Dance, v. 2, n. 2, p. 93–120, 2013.
HALL, Stuart. The cultural identity of postmodernity. Sao Paulo: DP&A, 2006.
ORTIZ, Renato. Brazilian culture and national identity. Sao Paulo: Brasiliense, 5ª Ed.,
9ª reprint 2006.
HEARS, Paulina, “Education through dance” – Sao Paulo: high. 1988.
TROTTA, Felipe Costa; MONTEIRO, Marcio. The new mainstream of regional music: axis, corny, reggae and electronic forró in the Northeast. In: E-Compós. 2008.