Where Is the Carnivalesque in Rio’s Carnaval? Samba, Mulatas and Modernity by Portal Academia do Samba

Visual Anthropology, 21: 95–111, 2008 Copyright # Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 0894-9468 print=1545-5920 online DOI: 10.1080/08949460701688775

Where Is the Carnivalesque in Rio’s Carnaval? Samba, Mulatas and Modernity Natasha Pravaz This article chronicles the historical normalization of carnaval parades and samba performances in Rio de Janeiro, by looking at the progressive standardization of audiovisual imagery fueled by a nationalistic project based on cultural appropriation. Afro–Brazilian performance traditions have come to stand for Brazilian national identity since at least the 1930s, and practices of visual consumption such as shows de mulata (spectacles where Afro–Brazilian women dance the samba) have elevated ‘‘mixed-race’’ women to be icons of Brazilianness. While these practices have de-emphasized grotesque excess in order to fit scopophilic drives, they have failed to secure a firm grip over performers’ experiences.

BACK TO SCHOOL It is summertime in Rio and I am here pursuing fieldwork on the staging of Afro– Brazilian cultural performance and its role in the formation of modern national identity. Every year before Lent, Rio is witness to several consecutive days of revelry, including massive carnaval parade spectacles involving some 30,000 performers each evening. These parades are put on by local crews known as escolas de samba (samba schools). Each school, in turn, is subdivided into wings, each with its own special costumes. In exchange for getting a costume free, the director of my school, Unidos da Cereja (Cherry Union), asked the members of my wing to produce a special performance and run for the estandarte de ouro (gold banner), a special prize given to certain categories in the parade, in this case for best wing choreography.1 The school’s carnavalesco (parade coordinator) created special choreography for us, incorporating into the parade a giant facial portrait of a local musician being celebrated in the school’s enredo (central theme or plot).2 Accordingly, my wing has exactly 165 members, and each of us carries a 30-by40-inch plastic plaque with a small part of the giant picture stamped on one side, and the full picture of one of the senior members of the school on the other. During the parade, the members are positioned geometrically to form a giant human rectangle composed of 15 rows of 11 people each. Taking our cue from the chorus NATASHA PRAVAZ is assistant professor of anthropology at Wilfrid Laurier University, where she teaches courses on performance practices and on popular culture in Latin America. Her research focuses on gender, national identity, and processes of racialization in Brazil. E-mail: npravaz@ wlu.ca or npravaz@gmail.com

N. Pravaz

in the theme song, each member of the wing lifts the plaque with her piece of the puzzle facing up, in a movement of precise synchronicity, and carefully puts the plaques side by side, forming what is seen from above as a flawless image. The group then evolui, that is, walk forward at the same pace, one step at a time, making sure there are no gaps at any given moment. In between these picture-perfect weight-lifting exercises, participants are free to dance around, but always moving forward, just like the other 5,000 members of the school [Figure 1].

Figure 1 Rehearsal of wing choreography at Unidos da Cereja (Photo by author).

While in the past schools took six or seven hours to parade in the old setting, the Barão do Rio Branco Ave., the new TV-oriented sambo dromo (samba stadium) imposes a strict 80 minutes for each school to cross the entire length of the Marquês de Sapucaı́ Ave.3 On carnaval Monday we obey written and unwritten rules and follow a highly codified sequence of movements. The sensation of being in a rush and having to worry all the time about not deixar or fazer branco (leaving a wide empty space on the road) dominates the experience of the parade and is intensified by the already militarized structure imposed by our wing’s choreography. What is wrong with this picture? Far from being a contestatory ritual of reversal, Rio de Janeiro’s carnaval has become increasingly regimented and predictable. My carnaval friends and I left the parade feeling very disappointed. It came and went in a flash, and we did not enjoy it. Stressed over the difficulty of our dance, conscious about its importance for the public gaze, our experience of the carnaval parade had a bittersweet taste. It was not until the following week that I finally felt the exhilaration of revelry, when we paraded in the desfile das campeãs (parade of the winning schools).

Rio’s Carnaval

Our school was scheduled to make its appearance on Saturday at 5 A.M. As we started dancing down the Marquês de Sapucaı́, the sun began to rise, bathing us in a soft pink and purple light, creating a magical, dreamlike atmosphere. Only then did everyday reality feel suspended. Our parade was not strictly controlled, and we could dance our samba leisurely at last. Curiously, it was past Ash Wednesday—it wasn’t carnaval time anymore. Outside the constrained space of the ritual, now restricted by new rules and regulations, a taste of the carnivalesque reemerged. The normalization of samba performances needs to be understood within the context of a progressive standardization of audiovisual imagery, the effect of new techniques of mechanical reproduction brought about by modernization processes. This article inspects the impact of communicative and scopic technologies on samba performances in the context of carnaval. The focus is on how commodification and staging have meant for samba practitioners both the amplification of their sphere of influence and the disciplining of their art. At the same time, I explore the cracks in this regimentation by paying attention to the narratives of performers themselves. Since the 1930s, the modernizing efforts of nationalist=populist governments were underscored by a dominant discourse that equated mestiçagem (racial and cultural hybridity) with Brazilian identity. I focus first on both the historical impact of populist policies in the production of samba and carnaval as national symbols, and the subsequent gentrification of carnaval spaces. Then, I move on to look at the symbolic treatment of geographical space and the body in the context of carnaval as boundaries rarely transgressed, transgressive, or carnivalesque. Lastly, I analyze spectacles performed by mulatas (women of mixed African and European descent who dance the samba) in the context of carnaval, by looking at how these shows stage mestiçagem as national identity and turn brown-skinned female bodies into objects of a disciplining gaze. Ultimately, however, the progressive disciplining, staging, and surveillance of Afro– Brazilian samba performances have failed to secure a firm grip over performers’ experiences. Performers present an alternative picture to this totalizing scenario by emphasizing the personal meaning and heightened emotions associated with carnaval and polyrhythmic sounds. Not only does the carnivalesque reemerge at the gaps of surveillance, ocularcentrism itself makes possible specific forms of pleasure. Furthermore, Afro–Brazilian ritual traditions have not completely lost their ability to invoke the embodiment of ecstasy. Therefore, I end on an open note that points to the interstices within which staging and normalization can be ‘‘played with.’’

BRAZILIAN POPULISM AND THE STAGING OF NATIONAL IDENTITY Normalization, more than being a mere effect of technological changes, is inscribed within larger processes of social transformation through which observers are subjected to new disciplinary mechanisms. Challenging Foucault’s [1979] and Debord’s [1977] opposition between surveillance and spectacle, Jonathan Crary has demonstrated how the effects of these two regimes of power

N. Pravaz

can coincide [Crary 1990; Jay 1993: 383]. He analyzes how new optical devices, regulations of activity, and the deployment of individual bodies developed at the onset of the nineteenth century in Europe, codified and normalized observers within rigidly defined systems of visual consumption [Crary 1990: 17–18]. In relation to Brazilian samba, these processes acquired their fully blown characteristics during the 1960s and 1970s. The construction of the first bleachers in 1962 led first to the commercialization of carnaval parades and later to the institution of televised transmissions, new practices of seeing that disciplined audiences and performers alike. We can trace the prehistory of these transformations to the 1930s. Contests between carnaval groups taking place since the early 1900s acquired new significance under the governmental regulation of bodies and activities, and were subjected to a specifically ‘‘Brazilian’’ project. In his work on samba’s transformation from local practice to national icon, Vianna [1995: 26] indicates that, from the 1930s on, Brazilians began to recognize Rio de Janeiro’s culture as source and emblem of their ‘‘sambista’’ identity. The author points out that the historical development of this cultural phenomenon was closely tied to the formulation of Gilberto Freyre’s [1933] theories on mestiçagem as symbol of Brazilian identity, and to the appropriation of Freyre’s ideas under Getúlio Vargas’s rule [1930–1945]. Mestiçagem became a powerful social discourse that exalted Brazil’s heritage as racially and culturally mixed, and used Afro–Brazilian traditions as its icons. Black expression-turned-mestiço culture, samba became the best indication of the hybrid character of the nation, and mulatas were the quintessential symbol of Brazil [Chasteen 1996; Fry 1982; Martı́nez-Etchaz abal 1996; and Sheriff 1999, among others].4 The process of institutionalization of carnaval parades, therefore, involved the subjection of observers to new forms of exhibiting culture that radically transformed the permissible, the desirable, and the national. Among these important changes, for example, were the requirement that Afro–Brazilian participants parade in front of the (white) elites at public parties (such as the one in tribute to Major Pedro Ernesto in 1934 [RIOTUR 1991: 186]) the increased circulation of samba music nationwide; and the newspaper sponsorship of carnaval events, thus enframing culture under an exhibitionary logic [Mitchell 1991]. Getúlio Vargas was thrown out of office in 1945 by a military coup. However, his idea that the nation transcends race and class differences continued to grow and develop throughout the 1950s. At the time, development-oriented governments took it upon themselves to overcome the great obstacle to the achievement of nationhood—namely, under-development [Ortiz 1985; Rowe and Schelling 1991]. While the new regimes did not address significant social problems, they were not as repressive and controlling toward popular culture as the governments that came before and after. Aside from recent history, the years between 1945 and 1964 were the only period in Brazilian politics that encouraged a system of mass political participation [Schwartzman 1982: 115]. For the schools of that period, this translated into liberation from the iron fist of Vargas’s Department of Press and Propaganda, which controlled the topics of samba lyrics and enredos of escolas de samba [Moura 1986: 12]. Given the commodification of culture (stimulated by governments of the period) and the development of the entertainment

Rio’s Carnaval

industry, this political liberalization also meant the increasing professionalization of schools as business enterprises with internal mandates and political struggles. In 1952 the two existing entities representing schools at the time merged, formed the Associação das Escolas de Samba (Samba Schools Association), and instituted a new book of rules and regulations. Among other things, new rules determined that every wing had to wear costumes and that samba lyrics had to coincide with the overall enredo of the year. These practices contributed to the homogenizing of heterogeneous cultural forms, which needed to fit into the requirements of staging and its associated modern technological advances. Slowly, a folklorized version of samba became central to a mass ‘‘national’’ culture, and which Brazilians oriented to as a main object of cultural consumption.

FROM NATIONAL CULTURE TO CULTURAL INDUSTRY Many authors have identified further consequences to the modernization of carnaval parades since the late 1970s. Judy Taylor [1982], for example, discusses the impact of middle-class values on the pre-Lenten celebration, expressed in the outsider tastes of state officials, parade judges, and carnavalescos, and in the proselytizing, populist interests of bicheiros (illegal-gambling lords). Bicheiros, in particular, have a vested interest in attracting large numbers of participants to the school of their patronage. Taylor’s argument hinges around a model of class struggle played on the aesthetic field, in which middle- and upper-class taste promotes a ‘‘spectacle of mere visual effect’’ [1982: 306], while the popular classes struggle to preserve their samba no pé (literally, ‘‘samba in the foot’’).5 While Taylor gives central importance to the role of parade judges in explaining the recent visual emphasis in carnaval, she also pays attention to the role of mass media in this phenomenon. In fact, the impact of communicative technologies such as television on carnivalesque celebrations cannot be overemphasized [Figure 2]. In her work on Cariocas’ carnaval (carnaval from Rio), Robin Sheriff [1999] stresses that the cooptation and repackaging of samba by Rio de Janeiro’s white middle and upper classes has limiting effects on blacks’ participation. The author pays close attention to the impact of television networks and their sponsors on sambo dromo politics. The sambo dromo is described by her research participants as ‘‘the final straw that broke the back of authentic samba and the Rio carnaval’’ [1999: 16]. My own fieldwork experience confirms the dramatic impact of new practices of exhibiting culture on the way that carnaval is currently celebrated in Rio de Janeiro. Several events, conversations, and casual strolls along the main streets of the city during the festivities made me question deep-seated ideas about what I romantically thought of as the major ritual of reversal in Brazilian society. When carnaval came about, I had spent a significant amount of time hanging around the school of Unidos da Cereja and been involved for several months getting to know its ins and outs, participating in the exhausting yet exciting organization of my wing. Mine was one of the few wings whose costumes were paid for by the school’s management. That year, the school provided about 600 costumes for alas

100

N. Pravaz

Figure 2 Members of an escola de samba performing on the set of a very popular TV show, Planeta Xuxa (Photo by author).

da comunidade (community wings), giving low-income families of the Cereja community a chance to participate in the parade. Most people could not afford to pay several hundred reais (the local currency) to purchase a new, mass-produced outfit, complete with faux feathers, plastic head props, and sequins, although many struggled to save their money throughout the year to do so. Since the mid-1970s, the aesthetics of carnaval costumes changed radically due to their standardization. Previously, each component of the school would sew and embroider their own outfits, leaving room for personal creativity, imagination, and Afro–Brazilian aesthetic expression. Nowadays all of the fabrics, materials, and frills are bought in bulk by the school’s management (composed of upwardly mobile members of the local community), which then contracts out to working-class seamstresses for the production of costumes designed by the carnavalesco and his or her assistants (members of the middle class). The costumes within each wing are exactly the same and play a role in the larger picture by representing a specific character in the school’s enredo. Moreover, given the current emphasis on visual impact for television, the sort produced by thousands of people carrying headsets with feathers of the same color, costumes tend to be uncomfortable and very ‘‘abstract.’’ That is, you cannot really tell what you are dressed as if you do not know the name of your costume. The new trend toward mass production and shiny waves of colorful patterns further alienates members of the local community by taking away the aura of mystery dominant in previous years. Janinha, one of the directors of Unidos da Cereja, talks about how one of the most exciting things about carnaval used

Rio’s Carnaval

101

to be getting her costume ready, one carefully embroidered with sequins and designed with patterns chosen by her. She and her friends would organize raffles and sell tickets across the community to collect money for the expensive fabrics and materials, which had to be of the best quality. It was not until the very last minute that everybody could actually see their costumes, but Janinha and her friends would always try to sneak a peek at each other’s works of art. Today, potential componentes de ala (escola de samba parade-goers) are able to see their potential costumes in advance by looking either at the etchings posted in the quadra (court) or at the pictures of someone dressed in a prototype.6 The experience of anticipating the costumes is now more like browsing through a clothes catalog, a consequence of the uniformity involved in their production. Since most inhabitants of Morro da Cereja (Cereja Hill) cannot participate in the carnaval parade due to the high cost of costumes, it is not surprising that the majority of parade-goers are recruited among the middle and upper classes. Several wing directors themselves are members of the middle class, living and working in the rich neighborhoods where they have ample opportunities for gathering participants. Yet the middle class began to attend school rehearsals only a few decades ago. According to Janinha, up to the mid-1950s almost all members of the parade were Cerejenses, not only in terms of their school of preference but also regarding their place of residence. Until 1955, 1956, everybody who paraded with our school was black, there were hardly any whites around here. It was in the 1960s that people from the rich neighborhoods started visiting the quadra, showing up for rehearsals, that kind of thing.

It was then that schools amassed enough financial resources to create a middleclass-friendly environment, and that samba became fully established as a legitimate object of consumption for the middle class [Goldwasser 1975]. The development of a visual and staged carnaval is not only part of the intentional aim of the middle and upper classes to modernize [Taylor 1982: 303] or steal [Sheriff 1999: 15–22] the celebration, but also a direct consequence of modernity tout court [see, for example, Debord 1977; Foucault 1979; Jay 1993; Little 1993; Mitchell 1988]. The close relationship between spectacle and modernity can be seen in the historical transition from oral to visual codes in both aesthetic and epistemological domains, a process accelerated by modern media such as film and television [Manning 1989: 141]. Modern spectacles, as opposed to rituals, invite a voluntary and nonbinding participation from spectators, who remain individuated and uncommitted to such events and whose engagement is mostly reduced to the activity of looking. Citing Benjamin’s reflections on the effects of mechanical reproduction on art, we could say about Rio de Janeiro’s carnaval in the 1930s that ‘‘the exhibition value for the first time shows its superiority to the ritual value’’ [1968: 226]. In fact, a detached and all-consuming gaze itself is what transforms ritual into spectacle [Savigliano 1995]. Foucault’s work suggests that ways of seeing help to constitute an episteme [Jay 1993]. In fact, the macrological control of populations as well as the micrological normalizing of individuals draw on the mixture of the gaze and discourse —spatial and visual controls are essential to disciplining practices [Jay 1993: 412].

102

N. Pravaz

Regardless of how important vision is in a society, scopic regimes are always part of an epistemic field, constructed as much linguistically as visually [Buck-Morss 1989; de Lauretis 1987; Foucault 1980, l984; Hall 1996; and Jay 1993, among others]. Scopic regimes are the agendas and techniques of political visualization: the regimens that prescribe modes of seeing and object visibility and that proscribe or render untenable other modes and objects of perception. A scopic regime is an ensemble of practices and discourses that establish the truth claims, typicality, and credibility of visual acts, objects and politically correct modes of seeing. [Feldman 1997: 30]

In Brazil, the discourse of mestiçagem hegemonic since the 1930s structured ‘‘correct modes of seeing’’ and spectacle techniques establishing links between national identity and Afro–Brazilian culture. Governmental policies and the show-business industry appropriated the ‘‘free spirit’’ of carnaval into normative performances celebrating mestiçagem.

CARNIVALESQUE MOVES IN THE LAND OF SPECTACLE As Richard Schechner [1993] has pointed out, under the interests of the modern state apparatus and brand-product placement, most contemporary carnivals have left behind their transgressive impulse and become mirrors of the social order. He also reminds us, however, that unofficial culture can worm its way back into the public scene. I had the pleasure of witnessing a hint of such phenomena on carnaval Sunday, when the first group of schools paraded. Some friends and I had gone to watch the parade and were happy to pay only R$l for the tickets, since the only seats left were in the cheapest sector. After the first school made its presentation, there was a 15-minute interval to clean the samb odromo and flood the audience with advertising through the loudspeaker system. To our surprise, clothed in the loud orange, awkward-looking overalls typical of the COMLURB (the city’s cleaning service), a man and woman in charge of sweeping the section immediately across from our seats risked an impromptu samba pas-de-deux to the sound of music blasting across the Marquês de Sapucaı́. The audience rose in delight, cheering and clapping at the dancers’ display of ingenuity and irreverence on the street level below. This response is telling in terms of how such small occasions of spontaneity can disrupt the well-established routine of acts confined to the known plot of escolas de samba. It is true that today vision is the dominant mode of perception and experience in Rio de Janeiro’s pre-Lenten celebration.7 In fact, the televised events today keep people in front of the screen for hours on end, and the high prices of costumes prevent most from participating in the parades. Yet the narratives of my research participants show us that the ocularcentric regime [Soussloff 1996] dominant in Brazil has failed to secure a grip on personal experiences of samba and carnaval. These narratives bring to the fore the heightened emotions associated with carnaval and the performance of samba for Cariocas (natives of Rio de Janeiro), who are not in the least uncommitted to such events and whose

Rio’s Carnaval

103

form of engagement goes significantly beyond practices of looking. Celeste, a member of my wing at Unidos da Cereja, once said,‘‘An escola de samba is like a soccer team, everybody has a favorite one. Mine is Cereja. But Cereja is the husband, and Acerola [another school] is the lover, and with the lover, it’s always more fun (mais gostoso) [laughter].’’ Celeste’s family members were also parading with her that year, including her sister Magda and Magda’s daughter, Vicky. Magda made some interesting comments about Vicky’s relationship to her favorite school, Acerola. She told me: We watch the parade every year, and every year, when Acerola enters the avenida (samb odromo), Vicky begins to cry, she sobs inconsolably. I, on the other hand, am Cereja; I am so fanatical that I almost started up a fight once. We were among Acerolenses (supporters of Acerola), and I started to shout ‘‘Cereja, Cereja.’’ Vicky told me to stop the cheering in the midst of Acerola people, but I told her, ‘‘Why? I am Cereja, and I have to defend my school wherever I am.’’

The passion associated with cheering for a school is a common topic of conversation among sambistas. Indeed, one of the recurring themes in my participants’ narratives is the embodied emoção (emotion or thrill) involved in their experience of samba. Marenice, the director of dancers in a small school, for example, tells me of her visceral relationship to the music since she was a little girl: Marenice: You know, the African sound, it really moved me, it moved my body (mexia muito com o meu corpo) . . . . It is very easy for me to follow the rhythm of percussion instruments. Up until today, and I am 46 years old, I still dance wonderfully well . . . . When I go to an escola de samba, I am transformed. Author: What do you feel? Marenice: I feel a great emoção. It’s huge, when the bateria (percussion) begins to play, I am deeply moved, as if something was turned on inside of me, and I can’t stand still, it’s a desperate thing [laughter]. Look, I had tachycardia that is linked to the emotion. I don’t have high cholesterol, because I’ve always taken care of my body, even though I am four kilos above my normal weight now, but I’ve always kept a reasonable weight. So there was no reason to have such arrhythmia. So I went to a specialist, and he said, ‘‘Listen, Marenice, we’ll perform a test, and if your problem is on your right ventricle, you won’t be able to dance anymore, to move around.’’ Everybody here was upset, because I cheer up everybody around here. This place is always busy, during carnaval it is full of people, and really, samba really cheers me up (me deixa muito animada), and I get transformed. I feel like I’m 15 again. So everybody was upset. For me, my biggest sadness was getting to the samba [e.g., a rehearsal], hearing the bateria playing, and not being able to make one step. I wasn’t sad because I could die. I was sad because I might not be able to dance to the sound of a bateria.

It is possible to say, following the experiences of my research participants, that the staging of Afro–Brazilian culture has not prevented samba lovers from continuing to enjoy the thrill of music and dance. Moreover, the staging of carnaval parades in itself has played a role in furthering the sphere of influence of samba

104

N. Pravaz

by conquering more and more fans. To further illustrate the tension and collusion, at times, between ocularcentrism and ecstatic embodiment, I turn now to the uses of the body and of geographical space in the context of carnaval. I look at how, while carnivalesque bodies have been excluded from the center stage, performers who ‘‘fit the bill’’ (i.e., conform to current beauty standards) manage to extract pleasure and meaning from the others’ gaze. This pleasure, nonetheless, is as much a consequence of ocularcentrism as it is the product of ritualistic forces harnessed by percussive polyrhythms.

GROTESQUE BODIES NEED NOT APPLY Nowhere is the transformation from carnivalesque laughter to normative performance clearer than in the concrete and symbolic treatment of geographical space and the physical body. Following Bakhtin’s [1984] insights on the transgressive potential of carnaval, Stallybrass and White [1986] have discussed the symbolic inversion of social hierarchies between the ‘‘high’’ and the ‘‘low’’ as forms of trespassing on culturally defined boundaries, which are mostly evident within certain domains of experience. These domains, particularly loaded with symbolism, are those of psychic life, geographical space, the human body, and the social order. I have chosen to focus here on the ways in which the control and regulation of space and of the body reveal how the boundaries supposedly trespassed on by rituals of inversion are in fact reinforced and reinvested within the very confines of carnaval parades. The parades still represent a kind of geographic inversion in Rio de Janeiro, for they involve the taking over of public spaces—particularly the Zona Sul (South region), where the middle and upper classes live—by the lower-class inhabitants of the Zona Norte (North region). The Zona Sul is always trying to control the Zona Norte and its conflicts, involving violent wars among drug lords, with an even more abusive military police force. During carnaval, however, some of the prohibitions that prevail throughout the year against the dispossessed, and particularly against Afro–Brazilians, are lifted, when once again Brazil ‘‘shows’’ to itself that national identity is samba and samba is national identity. The discourse of mestiçagem is played out in the field of cultural relations, celebrating the culture of those who are repressed and derided during the rest of the year. Within this celebratory impulse, however, the use of public space in carnaval parades has been strictly regulated and controlled, as illustrated in the opening ethnographic vignette. In relation to the human body, Stallybrass and White have argued that ‘‘bodyimages ‘speak‘ social relations and values with particular force’’ [1986: 10]. Bakhtin associated the carnivalesque with grotesque realism, a form that uses the material body—flesh conceptualized as corpulent excess—to represent cosmic, social, topographical and linguistic elements of the world . . . . Grotesque realism images the human body as multiple, bulging, over- or under-sized, protuberant and incomplete. The openings and orifices of this carnival body are emphasized, not its closure and finish. It is an image of impure corporeal bulk with its orifices (mouth, flared nostrils, anus)

Rio’s Carnaval

105

yawning wide and its lower regions (belly, legs, feet, buttocks and genitals) given priority over its upper regions (head, ‘‘spirit,’’ reason). [Stallybrass and White 1986: 8–9]

Mockery and exaggerated expressions of bodily comportment were prevalent in the context of early twentieth-century carnaval celebrations in Brazil. A hundred years later, however, the body presented in the spectacle of carnaval is heavily sexualized and its genitals strongly emphasized, but it is never debased or grotesque, as Bakhtin would have had it. Not the outrageous but the aestheticized and visually pleasing body now rules. Moreover, carnaval’s experiences of the body have undergone a transition from an emphasis on tactile sensuality to a mode of consumption based on visual detachment. Following Debord’s insights on spectacle, we can say that ‘‘everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation’’ [1977]. This detachment, however, is not without eroticism. As opposed to the de-eroticized scopic regime of Cartesian perspectivalism, based on the dispassionate eye of the neutral observer, the predominant mode of seeing in Brazilian carnaval presents similarities with that of baroque vision, which celebrates the dazzling, disorientating and ecstatic surplus of images [Jay 1993: 187]. This proliferation of images, however, is still caught within the structure of a ‘‘monologic,’’ panoptic gaze, disciplining viewers and viewed. In spite of the sudden bursts of the carnivalesque in the midst of carnaval parades, these have been transformed into a modern popular entertainment, which is ‘‘just for show’’ [Little 1993]. Like the modern fair, carnaval can be a site of opposition to official ideologies, but it is also the means by which emergent mercantile interests [can] stimulate new desires. . .. Far from being the privileged site of popular symbolic opposition to hierarchies, [it is] in fact a kind of educative spectacle, a relay for the diffusion of the cosmopolitan values of the ‘‘centre’’ (particularly the capital and the new urban centers of production) throughout the provinces and the lower orders. [Stallybrass and White 1986: 38]

Carnaval in Brazil has irrevocably become part and parcel of ‘‘educational’’ practices of exhibiting culture, tied to the economic interests of corporations and to nationalistic policies destined to discipline popular culture and make of it a spectacle for the nation. With the institution of televised parades, in 1971 the schools each had their parading time strictly limited to 80 minutes, dramatically restructuring the nature of the celebrations in the sambo dromo, as pointed out above. In fact, the 1970s would become known Brazil-wide as the years of ‘‘visual’’ carnaval. When RIOTUR (the executive organ of Rio’s Secretary of Tourism) gave away its rights of transmission to the Escola de Samba Association in 1981, that association began direct negotiations with television networks [RIOTUR 1991: 192]. This turn of events sealed the future of carnaval by tying it to the spectacular needs of broadcasting corporations. Within this ‘‘panoptic’’ context, ‘‘carnivalized bodies’’ [Boyce Davies 1994] have become disciplined and put to the service of nation-making spectacles. The mulata, in particular, a main attraction aboard the one-person platforms on carnaval parade floats, cannot afford to be grotesque in any way.8 Being the center of attention as a dancer requires that you demonstrate total control over your demeanor. There is a high price to be paid for slips and faux pas:

106

N. Pravaz

I began to dance the samba on my own; eventually I got to know a lot of different steps, I started to make other moves, to dance with a man . . . because if he throws you around, you slide underneath him, he cuts across above you, you have to know, if not, can you imagine if it happens to you inside the school, to tumble and fall while on five-inch-heels? So I started dancing in a different way. [Sonia, personal interview]

Cultural practices that used to be considered shocking due to their indecent nature have been disciplined by the need to follow the rules. Appropriated by consumerism, the once-oppositional culture of samba is part of wider practices of commercialization of sensuality that neutralize radical impulses in contemporary celebrations of eroticism [Figure 3].9

Figure 3 Fabricia, rainha da bateria (queen of the percussion wing) of an escola de samba performing during carnaval at the Scala, a prominent Rio nightclub where mulata spectacles take place regularly (Photo by author).

Rio’s Carnaval

107

VISUALITY, PLEASURE AND RITUAL ECSTASY The bleak picture invoked by totalizing scenarios merely shows us one aspect, albeit dominant, of Rio’s carnaval. In fact, the way women who take part in samba spectacles conceptualize their role as mulatas is far from one of victimhood and manipulation. Interestingly, the women collude with the dominant discourse on Brazilian national identity as mestiço and embrace the regime of visuality enacted in carnaval parades as a source of social recognition and personal pleasure. Valeria Valenssa, for example, is one of the most famous figures in the pre-Lenten celebrations. Her claim to fame was to parade as queen of the bateria of a large school wearing only body paint. I had the opportunity to interview her during my fieldwork, and asked her how she felt while parading at the sambo dromo. She said: Ah, I miss it already (com saudade). I mean, it is an exhausting time, I work a lot, do many shows, like on the Friday prior to carnaval this year, I worked Friday, Saturday and Sunday in Aracajú [the capital of Sergipe state, 1,855 km distant from Rio]; it’s called off-season carnaval. Then I come to Rio, I rest from Monday to Wednesday, and on Thursday I travel, this year I did a show in Amap a [2,687 km from Rio], opening the carnaval season. From there I went straight to São Paulo [2,664 km], and came back to Rio [429 km] on the Sunday, and on Sunday and Monday I paraded here in Rio. I mean, no doubt, it is incredibly moving to be able to parade here in Rio and to know that people are waiting for you, you know, your friends, ‘‘Look, I’ll be there, I’ll go watch your show,’’ ‘‘Where are you going to parade?’’ and so on. I think that no doubt there is great emotion in being able to be here in your city during carnaval, like, it’s a symbol of our country, one of the symbols of our country. So then, when I am exhausted, because I don’t sleep during this weekend, I mean, when I get to the avenida, when I see people looking at me, the sound of the bateria, the music, the fireworks, this really touches me deep inside, no matter how tired you are, it’s impossible to stand still, to think about your tiredness, you forget yourself.

Another famous carnaval figure since the 1970s is Mary Marinho. She is mostly known as a member of the trio Irmãs Marinho (the Marinho Sisters), who paraded with a big escola de samba as an innovative feature, introducing choreographed steps to the parade. Mary told me she resented being remembered as a mulata, as opposed to a professional dancer. To this day, she works internationally as a choreographer, being called to develop dances for the Ministry of Culture in Angola and for an art Biennale in Lisbon, for example. In spite of her discomfort with how others perceived her craft, when asked what she had enjoyed the most throughout her career as a professional ballet dancer, she responded as follows: Mary Marinho: What moved me the most? (De emoção?) For me, it was the first time I set foot on the avenida. . . . Nothing compares. And, listen, I’ve worked in Yugoslavia, I mean, all over Europe. There is nothing more moving (nada mais emocionante) than stepping onto the samb odromo. Author: Why? Mary: Ah, it’s a magical thing. You want it never to end. For me, in terms of performances, it was the most moving thing. So much so, that we did it once and we went back 16 years in a row. . . . There is no better audience in the whole wide world. Deep down, it’s the audience. There’s no better audience.

108

N. Pravaz

The common denominator in women’s experiences of dancing the samba in carnaval parades and at the rehearsals of schools is the feeling of thrill, or emoção. Interestingly, in most cases (e.g., Mary Marinho and Valeria Valenssa) this feeling emerges from the very experience of being watched and appreciated by a massive and responsive audience. Dancers’ understanding of their art is mediated by a modern emphasis on beauty and visual impact, and by a modern ethics of work that values individuality, personal skill, and creativity in the moment. This emphasis results in performances full of oomph and style, in which chutzpah and stamina are prized assets. These assets, however, also speak of another set of cultural traits and social values that escape the disciplinary logics of late capitalism and modern individualism [Pravaz, forthcoming]. In this regard, Brazilian modernity and ocularcentrism need to be considered vis-à-vis the pervasive yet frequently unacknowledged influence of Afro–Brazilian forms of sociality. In fact, the emoção experienced by many carnaval performers can be directly linked to ecstasy as the exit from individuality into an intoxicating fusion [Kast 1994: 127]. Exploring ecstasy as the possession of a human being by a god, Verena Kast [1994] stresses that ‘‘ecstasy carries us beyond limits, killing our normal personality’’ [1994: 122], and reminds us that ‘‘Dionysus was invoked by putting on a mask’’ [1994: 123]. The origins of samba and carnaval parades in Rio are linked to terreiros de candomblé, the religious spaces where Afro–Brazilian polytheistic worship is enacted through spirit possession. When devotees ‘‘receive a saint’’ in their bodies, the main form of expression of these spirits is that of dancing to the sound of percussive polyrhythms. The spirit who has descended subsequently dons the clothes and accoutrements characteristic of its personality, such as the double-axe of Xangô or the mirror of Oxum. This enthralling fusion with the gods is facilitated and enhanced by the intensity of the music, and drummers are highly respected and revered figures within the context Afro–Brazilian religion. During carnaval, the experience of abandon and emoção described by my research participants can be attributed, in part, to the powerful ring of the baterias of escolas de samba, composed of up to 300 members at times and producing an allecompassing, thundering sound. Moreover, revellers and performers put on costumes (called fantasias in Brazil) that, despite being mass-produced and abstract, may, if not invoke the gods, at least afford an escape from or expansion of our everyday personas [Da Matta 1979]. In the context of carnaval, therefore, it is still possible to inhabit a kind of passion that, although praised as a symbol of Brazilianness, is considered unruly in mundane, everyday settings. Within the context of carnaval, this ecstasy—albeit controlled, regulated, and harnessed for political and economic purposes—continues to afford celebrants a glimpse of the carnivalesque. This may be why people keep coming back to the parades, against all odds.

CONCLUSION We cannot underestimate the power of modern visual technologies and state interests in shaping the meaning and reception of popular traditions. As I have attempted to show here, practices of cultural consumption have dramatically

Rio’s Carnaval

109

transformed Afro–Brazilian performance customs in recent history. Global tourism flows have only enhanced this trend in the last few decades. Populist governments since the 1930s have used Afro–Brazilian culture as an icon of mestiçagem. In turn, corporate profits have contributed to the dramatic staging of samba-quaBrazilianness. Mulatas’ bodies, in particular, have been literally caught in the spotlight, fulfilling the scopophilic desires of local (and international) audiences for ‘‘authentic’’ tropical abandon and mestiço identity. Yet Afro–Brazilian samba spectacles are contested sites, straddling between the surveillance of the gaze and the embodied pleasure of performing ethnic traditions. In contemporary Brazil, the carnivalesque impulse is found, at times, in the marginal interstices that have managed to escape the all-encompassing colonizing gaze. At other times, it is this very gaze that enhances participants’ joy in cheering, dancing, and performing Afro–Brazilian culture.

NOTES 1. To preserve the anonymity of my research participants, all of the names mentioned in this article, including the escola, are pseudonyms. 2. Carnavalescos are university-educated media experts hired by escolas de samba to design costumes and floats, overview choreographies, and ultimately present a coherent, beautiful enredo (theme) of high visual impact. 3. The samb odromo is also known as Passarela do Samba (Samba’s Footbridge), the Marquês de Sapucaı́ Ave., or avenida. This massive structure was built in 1984 and holds almost 100,000 people. 4. The understanding of samba as a product of black culture [Appleby 1983; McGowanan and Pessanha 1998; Lopes et al. 1987] has been the object of debate in the literature and challenged by authors who inscribe the music and dance within a more hybrid or syncretic origin [Vianna 1995; Chasteen 1996]. 5. The expression makes reference to the mastery required for the proper dancing of samba, and the sense of accomplishment it entails. This skill gets lost with the massive visual emphasis of contemporary parades. 6. In the case of Unidos da Cereja, quadra is the colloquial name given to the school’s headquarters and rehearsal space which, in fact, doubles as an indoor soccer hall at other times. The quadra is as large as a hangar and holds several thousand people during peak hours. The expression componente de ala literally means ‘‘wing member.’’ Any person who participates in carnaval parades does so as a member of a specific wing. 7. When referring to ‘‘vision’’ as a dominant mode, I am pointing to the ocularcentrism characteristic of modern society and to the way in which such a mode is allied to technology [Soussloff 1996]. 8. Mulatas in Brazil are women of mixed black and white descent. The prevalence of the term is a product of the ideology of whitening, which has encouraged ‘‘mixing’’ as a form of racial eugenics. Mulata is also the name given to a woman of color who performs the samba on stage. 9. For an analysis of the collapse of the moral apparatus of bourgeois capitalism, its relation to the oppositional character of modernist culture, and its subsequent appropriation by the advertisement industry, see Bryan Turner [1991]. Note, as well, Foucault’s remarks on biopower and the contemporary exploitation of eroticism, in a seminal iterview with Quel Corps? [1980].

110

N. Pravaz

REFERENCES Appleby, David 1983 The Music of Brazil. Austin: University of Texas Press. Bakhtin, Mikhail 1984 Rabelais and His World. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Benjamin, Walter 1968 Illuminations. New York: Schocken Books. Boyce Davies, Carol 1994 Black Bodies, Carnivalized Bodies. Border=Lines, 34=35: 53–57. Buck-Morss, Susan 1989 The Dialectics of Seeing: Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Chasteen, John Charles 1996 The Prehistory of Samba: Carnival Dancing in Rio de Janeiro, 1840–1917. Journal of Latin American Studies, 28: 29–47. Crary, Jonathan 1990 Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Da Matta, Roberto 1979 Camavais, malandros e her ois. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar Editores. Debord, Guy 1977 The Society of the Spectacle. Detroit: Black & Red. de Lauretis, Teresa 1987 Technologies of Gender: Essays on Theory, Film, and Fiction. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Feldman, Allan 1997 Violence and Vision: The Prosthetics and Aesthetics of Terror. Public Culture, 10(1): 24–60. Foucault, Michel 1979 Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage Books. 1980 Power=Knowledge: Selected Interviews & Other Writings, 1972–1977. New York: Pantheon Books. 1984 The Foucault Reader. Paul Rabinow, ed. New York: Pantheon Books. Freyre, Gilberto 1933 Casa grande & senzala. Rio de Janeiro: Schmidt Editor. Fry, Peter 1982 Para inglês ver. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar editores. Goldwasser, Maria Julia 1975 O palacio do samba. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar Editores. Hall, Stuart 1996 Introduction: Who Needs Identity? In Questions of Cultural Identity. Stuart Hall and Paul du Gay, eds. Pp. 1–17. London: Sage Publications. Jay, Martin 1993 Downcast Eyes: The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-Century French Thought. Berkeley: University of California Press. Kast, Verena 1994 Joy, Inspiration, and Hope. College Station. TX: Fromm. Little, Kenneth 1993 Masochism, Spectacle, and the ‘‘Broken Mirror’’ Clown Entreé: A Note on the Anthropology of Performance in Postmodern Culture. Cultural Anthropology, 8(1): 117–129. Lopes, Helena, José Jorge Siqueira, and Maria Beatriz Nascimento 1987 Negro e cultura no Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: Unibrade. Manning, Frank 1989 Spectacle. In International Encyclopedia of Communications. Vol. 4. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Rio’s Carnaval

111

Martı́nez-Etchaz abal, Lourdes 1996 O culturalismo dos anos 30 no Brasil e na América Latina: Deslocamento ret orico ou mudança conceitual? In Raça, Ci^encia e Sociedade. Marcos Chor Maio, ed. Pp. 107–124. Rio de Janeiro: Fiocruz. McGowanan, Chris, and Ricardo Pessanha 1998 The Brazilian Sound. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Mitchell, Timothy 1991 Colonizing Egypt. Berkeley: University of California Press. Moura, Roberto 1986 Carnaval: Da Redentora à Praça do Apocalipse. Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar. Ortiz, Renato 1985 Cultura brasileira e identidade nacional. São Paulo: Editora Brasiliense. Pravaz, Natasha Forthcoming Hybridity Brazilian Style: Samba, Carnaval, and the Myth of ‘‘Racial Democracy’’ in Rio de Janeiro. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power. Riotur 1991 Mem oria do carnaval. Rio de Janeiro: Oficina do Livro. Rowe, William, and Vivian Schelling 1991 Memory and Modernity: Popular Culture in Latin America. London: Verso. Savigliano, Marta 1995 Tango and the Political Economy of Passion. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Schechner, Richard 1993 The Future of Ritual: Writings on Culture and Performance. London: Routledge. Schwartzman, Simon 1982 As bases do autoritarismo brasileiro. Rio de Janeiro: Campus. Sheriff, Robin E. 1999 The Theft of Carnaval: National Spectacle and Racial Politics in Rio de Janeiro. Cultural Anthropology, 14(1): 3–28. Soussloff, Catherine M. 1996 The Turn to Visual Culture: On Visual Culture and Techniques of the Observer. Visual Anthropology Review, 12(1): 77–83. Stallybrass, Peter, and Allon White 1986 The Politics and Poetics of Transgression. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Taylor, Judy 1982 The Politics of Aesthetic Debate: The Case of Brazilian Carnival. Ethnology, 21(4): 303–311. Turner, Bryan S. 1991 Recent Developments in the Theory of the Body. In The Body: Social Process and Cultural Theory. Mike Featherstone, Mike Hepworth, and Bryan S. Turner, eds. Pp. 1–35. London: Sage Publications. Vianna, Hermano 1995 O mistério do Samba. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar Editor.