Brazil Week turned out to be a spectacular event, thanks to the hard work of my dear friend and collegue, Erica Delgado, and the support and enthusiasm of many faculty. Special thanks to the Center for Latin American and Iberian Studies, the Center for the Americas, the College of Arts and Science, the Division of Student life, Vanderbilt Association of Hispanic Students and all the Brazilians and "Brazilians" that made this all possible.
We successfully founded the Brazilian Student Organization (BRASO - an acronym that also means "arm") meant to serve as a support network for Brazilians studying at Vanderbilt and to carry on what we hope will be an annual Brazil Week.I have been meaning to update this blog since last april, when the vision for Brazil Week was conceived. Fortunately, we can skip through all the adventures, obstacles, and many nights of reconvening and I present to you here a brief overview of our week. All i can say is that Erica and I are bonded...for life. hehe ;o).
Monday, we had Prof. Bryan McCann from Georgetown University - his talk, titled: "Birth of the Brazilian Cool: Bossa Nova in the 1950s and 60," compared the birth of Bossa Nova to what was going on in the political scheme of Brazil at the time - very interesting. After the lecture, we had a small reception and then Erica and I went to dinner with Prof. McCann and two other professors. It was so funny to hear these three guys talk outside of the class room. Erica and I grilled them on student-teacher situations (what would you do if a student did this...) and they complained about how they never get to go out anymore now that they have kids, hehe.
Tuesday, we sat out on the wall outside of Rand and handed out candy and flyers about our events. Then we had another lecture by Prof. James Walvin from York University. He gave a really interesting talk on "The Importance of the Abolition of Slave Trade" Then we had a reception afterwards.
Wednesday, Jefferson, one of the FIPSE-CAPSE students from Sao Paulo, gave a presentation during lunch time about "Brazilian Hip-Hop". I stayed at the front of the classroom with him to manage the power point presentation and translate if he needed. It was funny because every time he asked me to translate something, i didn't know how to say it in english.
Then we had a panel discussion involving Prof. Jane Landers, Prof. Fitz, and a graduate student, James Krause, talking about "Why Brazil is always the country of tomorrow and never the country of today?" - that was also great. Jane Landers spoke about her research project and gave a historical perspective, in terms of slavery, etc. Prof. Fitz gave a perspective on Literature, and James talked about the topic in terms of culture/Brazilian popular music.
About 40 people showed up for samba lessons that night! Gilmara and I prepared a short powerpoint presentation about the origins of samba and the diffrent kinds that exist across Brazil. Then we gave lessons for about an hour. It was so fun. (and good exercise).
Thursday, we sat out on the wall again during lunch time and passed out flyers and candy. The Brazilian grad students also came out to help.
Friday, the FIPSE-CAPSE students that went to Howard flew down to Nashville and stayed with us for the Weekend.
We had capoeira lessons in the late afternoon which were well attended.
Finally, the big celebration was on Saturday...it was incredible. We spent the entire day decorating and preparing McTyeire. Imagine this: the fireside lounge, with table cloths on the mini tables, candles, and yellow and green decorations. We set up the food in there: feijoada, feijao tropeiro, bobo de camarao, cocada, and arroz branco. The food was delicious - cooked by one of the Brazilian caterers in Nashville.
Then, in the dining hall, we moved out all the tables and chairs and that's where the samba band set up their equipment. There was the band, the nashville samba school that played bateria for an hour, and the capoeira presentation. we had beautiful lighted signs, a power point presentation showing images of Brazil, and we collected money to donate to the Natal Sem Fome campaigne.
The event started at 6PM, and people were already arriving and
waiting in a line at 5:30. we had an attendence of over 250 people!!! (that is no exageration). We had Brazilians from the nashville community, Vanderbilt, as well as from other universities nearby. Professors came with their families, grad students came, the Chancellor came, etc. It was AMAZING.I couldn't have imagined a better turn out. Now that everyone knows what a success Brazil Week was, they are mobilized and ready for next year.
Thanks again to all those who were invovled and participated. Erica - I couldn't have done this without you!
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