[ANPPOM-L] BRASA Pannel, New Orleans 2008: Poetry and Performance in Rio's Proibidão do Funk

[carlos palombini]

Word Warriors: Poetry and Performance in Rio's Proibidão do Funk

(For BRASA March 2008, New Orleans)

Making use of a broad range of approaches, such as anthropology, 
critical theory, and ethnomusicology, this panel will explore the 
cultural and rhetorical context and the performance dimensions of Rio's 
proibidão do funk, or prohibited funk music, and the significance of 
this controversial musical form, closely linked to Rio's criminal 
factions, such as the Comando Vermelho, the Terceiro Comando, and the 
Amigos dos Amigos, for thousands of poor young people living in the 
favelas, or squatter towns, of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Gangsters from Rio's criminal factions sponsor large-scale, outdoor 
street dances known as bailes de comunidade, and promote the production 
of clandestine funk songs, not played on the radio or sold in stores, 
which are recorded live at the dances and disseminated on bootleg tapes 
and CDs. Through these dances and songs, drug traffickers in Rio 
represent themselves, often with utopian and messianic overtones, as 
social bandits and the legitimate defenders of their community. We will 
explore the significance of this controversial musical culture, 
analyzing the critical, countercultural, and sometimes even utopian 
dimensions that give it resonance for so many poor young people 
throughout Rio. In an effort to contextualize the practice of proibidão 
do funk within the culture of Brazilian funk more generally, we 
encourage submissions focusing on Rio's urban dances of the 1960’s, 
featuring recorded music; the Black dances of the 1970s; and other 
aspects of the culture of funk dances, or bailes funk, from the 1980s to 
the present. (All participants of the panel must be members of BRASA by 
the time of the conference)

For submissions of abstracts and a one to two page CV, please contact:

Paul Sneed
Assistant Professor of Portuguese
San Diego State University
Email: psneed em mail.sdsu..edu
Phone: (619) 594-5758
Fax: (619) 594-5293

Carlos Palombini
Professor Adjunto de Musicologia
Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais
Email: cpalombini em gmail.com
Phones: 31 3498-0118; 31 9216-0245
Fax: 31 3499-4720 (c/o Carlos Palombini)

Deadline for submission of abstracts: May 1st, 2007.

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cvp