African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
[Unedited] Examines the 1948 Mexican film-musical Angelitos negros (Little Black angels) as an example of how racial otherness and its exploitation could be staged, both on the stage itself, and on the stage-within-a-stage of the Latin American melodrama, in which cabarets and other performance venues were common backdrops. In using Afro-Cuban or Afro-Caribbean music, dance, and cultural icons, the film exhibits the allure of Blackness within the frame of popular music and dramatic performances, and the ways in which the Blackness was more easily simulated than assimilated. Subsequent use of blackface for Black and mulatto characters in many Mexican or Cuban-Mexican films is coupled with blackface and Afro-Cuban musical performances. Parody and caricature result in a superficial rendering of Blackness in this and other film musicals. They should be viewed as ambivalent vehicles for the vindication of the Black role in Mexican or Latin-American history.
Cyrille,Dominique (Author), Gidal,Marc Meistrich (Author), and Vaughan,Umi A. (Author)
Format:
Book, Section
Publication Date:
2009
Published:
Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
Explores the relationships between music, religious affiliations, and difference. The primary case study is the multi-ethnic, multi-class Afro-gaucho religious community in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The local term Afro-gaucho calls attention to African descendents in the region and their efforts to valorize their contributions to gaucho culture. Since a majority of the estimated 40,000 worship houses practice three religions (Batuque, Umbanda, and Quimbanda), participants use music to help segregate and mix the religions and their denominations.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
[Unedited] The méringue as a type of contredanse was the major social dance of Haiti. Related to other dance genres of the Caribbean, the méringue crossed the various class lines in Haiti. A fast tempo méringue would be danced by lower classes whereas a slower tempo would be heard in the salons of the middle and upper class. Subject matter for the lyrics could be political or social in nature. The contredanse was a prevalent dance found in Europe and then reshaped after its migration to Haiti. Some African influences can also be found, especially in the use of 5/8 meter, at least as transcribed by some of the ethnomusicologists in the field.
Bilby,Kenneth M. (Author) and Neely,Daniel T. (Author)
Format:
Book, Section
Publication Date:
2009
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
The Anglophone Caribbean islands are host to a rich and diverse tradition of dances and dance music adopted from European ballroom traditions. These traditions should be seen less as examples of “assimilation” than as products of a shared history of creativity, struggle, and adaptation among the colonized. Thus, for example, the related “tambrin” tradition of the island of Tobago has served as a vehicle for spirit possession in ceremonies with clear African-derived elements.
