Dário Borim Lecture

This lecture will discuss the history and multicultural attributes of Brazil’s four most influential music styles: samba, bossa nova, MPB and Tropicália. At first, Borim will examine what anthropologist Hermano Vianna has called “samba’s mystery,” that is, how samba emerges, in the early 1930s, from the poor and despised periphery to the center of the nation’s musical identity. Roughly two and half decades later, bossa nova is born initially to stun and annoy Brazilian audiences, but soon to conquer and enchant the world within and beyond Brazil through a smooth and sophisticated revolution in musical aesthetics. Less than ten years passed, another two movements define and establish the underpinning of Brazil’s musical legacy in the 20th century: the socio-political make-up and outreach of MPB (música popular brasileira) and the radical multi-artistic phenomenon of Tropicália.

Professor of Luso-Brazilian studies at UMass Dartmouth, Dário Borim is also a blogger, a concert producer, a creative writer, an Internet/radio show host-programmer, a photographer, and a translator. He has produced and presented the show Brazilliance on WUMD 89.3 FM since December 2001. Among his books is the advanced Portuguese textbook Crônicas Brasileiras: A Reader (U. Press of Florida, 2014), the English version of Helena Jobim's Antonio Carlos Jobim: An Illuminated Man (Hal Leonard 2011), and Perplexidades: raça, sexo, e outras questões sociopolíticas (Eduff 2004). His writings, mostly focused on the interplay of literature and music, have been included in distinguished volumes, such as Music and Dictatorship in Europe (Turnhout 2010) and Latin America and Bodies and Biases: Issues of Sexualities in Hispanic Cultures (U. of Minnesota Press 1996). Other books and periodicals from Belgium, Brazil, France, Peru, Taiwan, United Kingdom, and the United States have featured his writings.

Professor Borim will be lecturing on November 13th at 4:00pm in 001 Rockefeller Center.