Dance and national identity in the carioca press of the beginning of the Twentieth century: cultural dialogues and ethnic and gender relations

Abstract

Based on the analysis of imagery and textual records present in the Rio press, the article analyzes the practices of social dances in the city of Rio de Janeiro, during the first three decades of the twentieth century. Understanding of the body as a space for political realization and an important means of experience and communication with the world, three themes are treated: the attempt of Brazilian intellectuals to define national identity from the analogy between the character of a people and its rhythmic manifestations; the cross-cultural dialogues between rhythms and dances of the Americas, Europe and Africa in the halls and stages of the country’s capital; and, finally, the formulation of different social profiles, more or less transgressors, through the practice of dance. In this context, dance reveals itself as a means of elaboration of ethnic, social and gender identity, being at the same time the target of idealized, racist and moralizing discourses.