The music and the risk: an ethnography of musical performance among poor children and young persons in São Paulo

Author(s)

Rose Satiko Gitirana Hikiji

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD)
• Defense date: 2004-02-09

Examining board members

Sylvia Caiuby Novaes; John Cowart Dawsey; Maria Filomena Gregori; Regina Aparecida Polo Müller; Tiago de Oliveira Pinto

• Advisor: Sylvia Caiuby Novaes

Abstract

The research is an anthropological approach of an institutional project of musical education for poor children and youth in São Paulo (Projeto Guri), some of them under custody of Febem. The ethnography looks toward the different aspects of music making, like musical teaching, learning and performing, and tries to describe the relations of this social practice and the notions of corporality, temporality and alterity among the studied subjects. A discussion about music and anthropology introduces the thesis. The relation between music making and social intervention is the theme of the second chapter. A reflection about the specificity of music learning is done in the third chapter. Performance as identity-manipulation and transformation space is discussed in the fourth chapter. The last chapter discusses the passage from \"killing time\" - the most common justification for participation in projects like Guri - and living it intensely. This is done with the analysis of the temporality of the subjects, the musical timing, and the relation between them. Two videos - Prelúdio (Prelude) and Microfone, senhora (Microphone, madam) - are part of the thesis. They are audiovisual ethnographies, which, for their polyphonic and interpretative potential, dialogue with the text, allowing the reader/spectator other reading, enjoyment and criticism possibilities for the material investigated (AU)