Convener: Zeca Ligiéro

Work and play, revelry and sobriety, seriousness and frivolity — these are seen as oppositional and contrary. In this teach-in, we will examine this set of oppositions by considering the basic cultural dialectic at “work” in the relationship of popular festivals, carnival, and the structure of community within the larger concept of society. Dealing with traditions from across the Americas, we will examine impulses of resistance and affirmation that are encoded in fiestas with an eye toward re-defining carnival and the carnivalesque.

Biography

Zeca Ligiéro is Associate Professor at the Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro. He coordinates since 1998 the Center for the Study of Afro-Amerindian Performances–NEPAA. He has published Corpo a corpo: estudos das performance brasileiras, 2011, Performance Afro-Ameríndia, 2007; Carmen Miranda: uma performance afro-brasileira, 2006; and Malandro divino: a vida e a lenda de Zé Pelintra, 2004, among other books.