Il� Aiy� in Brazil and the Reinvention of Africa

by Niyi Afolabi

Overview

Ilê Aiyê's unifying identity politics through Afro-Carnival performance, is embedded in its dialectical relationship with the rest of Brazil as it takes ownership of its oppressed status by striving for racial equality and economic empowerment. Against this complex background, performative theory offers significant new meanings. In ritualistically integrating Bakhtinian categories of free interaction, eccentric behavior, carnivalistic misalliances, and the sacrilegious, Ilê Aiyê anchors its social discourse on showcasing the black race as a critical agency of beauty, pride, wisdom, subversion, and negotiation. Ilê Aiyê carnival is not only racially conscious, it heightens the conflicts by dislocating the very establishment that invests in its cultural politics. In fusing the sacred, the profane, the performative, the musical, with the political, Ilê Aiyê succeeds in indicting racism, ironically sacrificing the very power it pursues. Despite these limitations, Ilê Aiyê creatively engages alternative dialogues on Brazilian politics through sponsored performances across transnational borders.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781137578174
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan US
Publication date:	03/10/2016
Series:	African Histories and Modernities
Edition description:	1st ed. 2016
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Omoniyi Afolabi is Associate Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas-Austin, USA.

Table of Contents

1. Carnival in Africa and Its Diaspora

2. Emergence of an Afro-Carnival Agency

3. Mãe Hilda: Matriarchy, Candomblé, and Ilê Aiyê

4. Aesthetics of African(ized) Carnival Costumes

5. Masquerades of Femininity, Beauty, and Politics

6. Vovô: The Man, His Vision, His Legacy

7. Politics of Afro-Carnival Music

8. (Un)Masking the Organization