Tropicalismo

Tropicalismo, a Brazilian arts and music movement also known as tropicália, which lasted roughly from 1967 to 1969. Its participants were inspired in part by poet Oswald de Andrade's 1928 "Manifesto antropofágico" (Cannibalistic Manifesto), in which he expressed the idea of artistic cannibalism, defined as the "cultural devouring of imported techniques to reelaborate them with autonomy." By imaginatively and ironically mixing foreign and Brazilian culture, rock and samba, the folkloric and the urban, the erudite and the kitsch, the tropicalistas hoped to foster new ideas and perceptions about both Brazilian reality and foreign cultural influences (such as rock and roll) that were becoming part of that environment.

Tropicalismo manifested itself in the theater in productions such as José Celso Martínez Correa's 1967 staging of de Andrade's O rei da vela, and in the plastic arts through the work of artists like Hélio Oiticica (whose 1967 ambient artwork "Tropicália" gave the movement its name). The leading proponents of tropicalismo in the area of music were Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, Tom Zé, Gal Costa, Nara Leão, Torquato Neto, Os Mutantes, Capinam, and conductors Júlio Medaglia and Rogério Duprat. Together, they released "Tropicália" (1968), an album that was a collective musical manifesto. Seminal tropicalismo songs include Gil's "Domingo no parque" (Sunday in the Park), and Gil Neto's "Geléia geral" (General Jelly), and Veloso's "Alegria alegria" (Joy, Joy). Musically, such compositions fused Brazilian folk styles, rock, and modern electronic music, and were credited with greatly expanding experimentation in Brazilian popular music.

See alsoMusic: Popular Music and Dance .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ana Maria Bahiana, Nada será como antes (1980).

Charles Perrone, Masters of Contemporary Brazilian Song: MPB 1965–1985 (1989).

Chris Mc Gowan and Ricardo Pessanha, The Brazilian Sound: Samba, Bossa Nova, and the Popular Music of Brazil (1991).

Additional Bibliography

Castelo, Claudia. "O modo portugues de estar no mundo": O luso-tropicalismo e a ideologia colonial portuguesa (1933–1961). Porto: Ediçoes Afrontamento, 1998.

Cyntrão, Sylvia Helena. A forma da festa: Tropicalismo, a explosão e seus estilhaços. Brasilia: Editora UnB; São Paulo, SP: Impr. Oficial SP, 2000.

Sanches, Pedro Alexandre. Tropicalismo: Decadencia bonita do samba. São Paulo: Boitempo Editoral, 2000.

                                          Chris McGowan