Spirit song : Afro-Brazilian religious music and boundaries / Marc Gidal.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gidal, Marc, 1972- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Batuque music--Brazil--Porto Alegre (Rio Grande do Sul)--History and criticism.

Batuque music.

Quimbanda music--Brazil--Porto Alegre (Rio Grande do Sul)--History and criticism.

Quimbanda music.

Umbanda music--Brazil--Porto Alegre (Rio Grande do Sul)--History and criticism.

Umbanda music.

Umbanda (Cult).

Quimbanda (Cult).

Batuque (Cult).

Porto Alegre (Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil)--Religious life and customs.

Porto Alegre (Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil).

Batuque--Brazil--Porto Alegre (Rio Grande do Sul).

Batuque.

Quimbanda--Brazil--Porto Alegre (Rio Grande do Sul).

Quimbanda.

Umbanda--Brazil--Porto Alegre (Rio Grande do Sul).

Umbanda.

Brazil--Porto Alegre (Rio Grande do Sul).

Physical Description:

x, 220 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Oxford University Press, [2016]

Summary:

In Spirit Song: Afro-Brazilian Religions Music and Boundaries, Marc Gidal investigates how and why a multi-faith community in southern Brazil utilizes music to combine and segregate three Afro-Brazilian religions: Umbanda, Quimbanda, and Batuque. Combining ethnomusicology and symbolic boundary studies, Gidal advances a theory of musical boundary-work: the ways music reinforces, bridges, or blurs boundaries, whether for personal, social, spiritual, or political purposes. Gidal focuses on spirit-mediumship rituals and their musical accompaniment, exploring how the Afro-gaucho religious community employs music and rituals to variously promote innovation and egalitarianism in Umbanda and Quimbanda, while it reinforces musical preservation and hierarchies in Batuque. Religious and musical leaders carefully restrict the cosmologies, ceremonial sequences, and sung prayers of one religion from affecting the others so as to safeguard Batuque's African heritage. Members of disenfranchised populations view the religions as vehicles for empowerment, whether based on race-ethnicity, gender, or religious belief; and innovations in ritual music reflect this activism. These rituals come to life through illustrative video and audio examples on the book's companion website. The first book in English to focus on music in Afro-Brazilian religions, Spirit Song is a landmark study that will be of interest to ethnomusicologists, anthropologists, and religious studies scholars. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Ethnic Spiritual Heritage and the Afro-Gaucho Religious Community 21

2 Music, Mediumship, and Religious Work 40

3 Musicians and Foundations 58

4 Drums, Rhythms, and Nations 75

5 Ritual Music and Innovation in Umbanda 98

6 Musical Participation, Spiritual Evolution, and the Quimbanda Revival 116

7 Old Black Spirits, Africa, and Reinventing Umbanda for Social Change 132

8 Gypsy Soul and an Unconventional Music 149.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780199368211

019936821X

9780199368228

0199368228

OCLC:

897346131