February 4, 2010: Lecture: "How can we remember the Bees and the Beats? Memory, Death and Disappearance in Brazilian Ritual Performances" by Leda Martins

Thursday, February 4, 2010 at 6pm

How Can We Remember the Bees and the Beats? Memory, Death and Disappearance in Brazilian Ritual Performances

A lecture in English by Leda Martins

Drawing on her concepts of "Spiral Time" and "Oraliture," Professor Martins will examine the ritual ceremonies of the Afro-Brazilian Congados and of the indigenous Maxakali. Analyzing the interconnections between death, image, and the ancestral, she explores these performances as practices of embodied memory through which these communities struggle against forgetting and disappearance.

Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics
20 Cooper Square, 5th Floor
New York, NY 10003 (get map)

This event is co-sponsored by the Africana Studies Program.

Leda Martins is a poet, playwright, and professor of Literature at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Her research focuses on the relationship between performance and memory, particularly in Afro-Brazilian traditions.