EducArte

Forró jam and hang with Rob Curto, Richard Miller, and Bryan McCann
2020-08-21 20:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Online
Join us for a forró and choro dance party featuring Rob Curto, Richard Miller, and Bryan McCann!
Accordionist Rob Curto and 7-string guitarist Richard Miller will play some forró and choro tunes to get you dancing in your home, and they will be joined by Brazilian music scholar Bryan McCann for an exciting discussion about the historical and cultural context of these music forms in Brazil. The conversation will be moderated by Pablo Regis.
Check out the Facebook event and join us live on Facebook or YouTube on August 21 at 8PM US/Eastern.
About the guests:
Rob Curto (coming soon)
Richard Miller explores the richly expressive sounds of the nylon string guitar (both 7 string and 6 string) with a repertoire that includes Brazilian styles (choro, samba, bossa nova, forró, etc.), American jazz, Latin American styles (salsa, bolero, tangos, etc.), and Classical guitar. He is also active as an educator, composer, and writer/presenter for academic publications and conferences. He earned a Ph.D. in music theory from Catholic University of America in 2006 and he has taught theory and guitar at Georgetown University. He holds a Master of Music degree in guitar performance from Manhattan School of Music. Richard Miller was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to an American father and a Brazilian mother and moved frequently in Brazil, United States and Puerto Rico (see “Treble is my middle name” under musings). He has become well known in the Washington, DC area for his performances of both classical guitar music and popular Brazilian and Latin-American music and has traveled extensively for concerts and recitals in United States and Latin America. A review of a recital by Richard at the State Department affirmed “Throughout his recital, he not only displayed impeccable technique but communicated his love of this beautiful music.” A review in the Washington City Paper by Joel Siegal of the duo of Richard Miller with Patrick de Santos (voice) stated “Patrick and Richard strike a remarkable balance between disciplined technique and otional abandon.”
Bryan McCann is Department Chair and Professor of Brazilian History in the History Department at Georgetown University. He is the author of the books Hello, Hello Brazil: Popular Music in the Making of Modern Brazil (Duke, 2004) and João Gilberto and Stan Getz’s Getz/Gilberto (Bloomsbury, 2018), as well as numerous articles on Brazilian popular music.

Women in Brazilian Song: Rose Moraes, Cissa Paz, and Elin Melgarejo
2020-08-01 19:00 - 20:00 | Online
Join us for an online conversation about vocal techniques in Brazilian music with renowned singers Elin Melgarejo, Rose Moraes, and Cissa Paz. They will talk about techniques for singing samba, forró, and bossa nova, as well as their experiences in the Brazilian music scene in Washington, DC and how they are dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic as performing artists.
The discussion will be moderated by Pablo Regis. Join us live on Facebook and YouTube.

Ethnographic research workshop: Interviewing
2020-07-31 14:00 - 15:30 | Zoom
This online workshop is the third in a series of ethnographic research workshops organized in partnership with Fulbridge, the Fulbrighter Network, and EducArte. The workshops are for Fulbright alumni, current Fulbrighters, and prospective Fulbrighters, or for anyone interested in ethnographic research. We welcome people from all fields and disciplines to share their experiences and expertise.
This workshop (on Zoom) will be an open forum discussion about ethnographic interviewing. Some of the questions we will discuss are:

What are the differences between formal interviews and informal conversations?
What are best practices when working with translators and transcribers?
What are discipline-specific suggestions for reading and re-reading transcriptions, note-taking, and qualitative research coding?
How do we deal with issues of consent/confidentiality when using quotes from interviews or informal conversations?

To register, visit tiny.cc/FulbridgeEthnography3. More information about the workshops and video recordings of previous workshops can be found here.

Geovane Santos and Richard Miller on Brazilian jazz
2020-07-11 19:00 - 20:00 | Online
Join us for an online conversation about Brazilian jazz with talented guitarists and educators Geovane Santos and Richard Miller. They will play some solo pieces and talk about their journeys performing and teaching Brazilian jazz guitar.
About Geovane Santos:
Geovane Santos, a native Brazilian from the city of Belo Horizonte, is a guitarist, composer, arranger, vocalist, educator, and awardee of the 2017 Louis Armstrong Foundation Jazz Composer Award through ASCAP in association with the University of New Orleans (UNO). Currently a local presence in the New Orleans music scene, in his debut album “Jobim,” Santos pays tribute to one of Brazil’s greatest composers of all time: Antonio Carlos Jobim. In spite of being regarded as well rounded solo guitarist and improviser, Santos doesn’t have his solo guitar playing in the forefront at all. More as a collaborative effort, every song has a featured musician, either carrying the melody, singing, or improvising. The entire album consists of Santos’s impressions of Jobim’s music. There are numbers that reenact the classic Bossa-Nova sound such as in Corcovado, Once I Love, Chega de Saudade, Wave. and Só Danço Samba; jazzed up rendition of Triste; Caribbean sounds from Haiti and Jamaica on Água de Beber and Girl From Ipanema; Fusion rock on How Insensitive and O Morro Não tem Vez; and Dindi as a romantic ballad. The album is very diverse, not only for the genres chosen for each selection, but in terms of instrumentation, which mixes acoustic and electric instruments, and songs sung in English and Portuguese (a defining characteristic of Jobim’s music).
You can find Geovane Santos’ information at www.gpstheguitarist.com.
About Richard Miller:
Richard Miller explores the richly expressive sounds of the nylon string guitar (both 7 string and 6 string) with a repertoire that includes Brazilian styles (choro, samba, bossa nova, forró, etc.), American jazz, Latin American styles (salsa, bolero, tangos, etc.), and Classical guitar. He is also active as an educator, composer, and writer/presenter for academic publications and conferences. He earned a Ph.D. in music theory from Catholic University of America in 2006 and he has taught theory and guitar at Georgetown University. He holds a Master of Music degree in guitar performance from Manhattan School of Music. Richard Miller was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to an American father and a Brazilian mother and moved frequently in Brazil, United States and Puerto Rico (see “Treble is my middle name” under musings). He has become well known in the Washington, DC area for his performances of both classical guitar music and popular Brazilian and Latin-American music and has traveled extensively for concerts and recitals in United States and Latin America. A review of a recital by Richard at the State Department affirmed “Throughout his recital, he not only displayed impeccable technique but communicated his love of this beautiful music.” A review in the Washington City Paper by Joel Siegal of the duo of Richard Miller with Patrick de Santos (voice) stated “Patrick and Richard strike a remarkable balance between disciplined technique and otional abandon.”

Ethnographic research workshop: Ethnographic observation and participant observation in Fulbright research
2020-05-19 17:00 - 18:30 | Online
How do we acknowledge our biases and reflect on how our cultural perspectives are formed? How do we physically position ourselves in a space that is unfamiliar to us? How do we behave when etiquette is unknown or language is an obstacle? What does participation look like, and when is participation appropriate or inappropriate?
Panelists:

Gordon Bronitsky – Senior Fulbright Professor, Germany 1984-5, teaching area American Indians; Senior Fulbright Specialist, Kenya 2010; Senior Fulbright Specialist Zimbabwe 2016-2017; President, Bronitsky and Associates indigenow.com, a firm that works with Indigenous peoples around the world in the performing arts (traditional and contemporary) and festival development on every continent except Antarctica
Padmini Bhuyan Boruah – Professor & Head, Department of English language Teaching, Gauhati University, India; FNAPE Teaching & Research Fellowship, 2019-20. Host institution: University of San Diego, CA; Home institution: Gauhati University, India; Research interests: English Language Teacher Education; Action Research
Loneka Wilkinson-Battiste – Assistant Professor of Music Education, University of Tennessee, Knoxville; Brazil 2019; Fulbright Postdoctoral Teaching and Research Fellowship, 2019. Host institution: Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil. Areas studied: coco de roda
Kate Spanos – Brazil 2018, dance anthropology, University of Maryland, College Park (moderator)

For more information and registration, visit tiny.cc/FulbridgeEthnography2

Ethnographic research workshop: Panel discussion about ethnography and cultural encounters in Fulbright research
2020-03-31 17:00 - 18:30 | Online
At the core of Fulbright’s mission is cultural ambassadorship and international partnership. What are some common concerns for Fulbrighters when working in a new country? How do cultural encounters shape our Fulbright research or work? How do we develop meaningful collaborations with other Fulbrighters and local researchers in productive and sensitive ways?
Panelists:

Rachita Sood – Fulbright-Nehru Scholar in India, 2015-16 – postdoctoral research fellow at Northwestern University, medicine
Janet Robbins – Fulbright Specialist in Brazil, 2018 – professor emerita at West Virginia University, world music pedagogy
Kate Spanos – Fulbright U.S. Scholar in Brazil, 2018 – adjunct faculty and marketing staff at University of Maryland, dance anthropology and performance studies
Amy Kuritzky – Fulbright Student Research in Ecuador, 2019-20 (current) – recent graduate of Rice University, nutritional anthropology, environmental science, and anthropology
Ilana Herold – Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in South Korea, 2019-20 (current) – recent graduate of University of Maryland, environmental science and technology

More information and registration at tiny.cc/FulbridgeEthnography

POSTPONED: Frevo dance presentation
2020-03-19 12:00 - 13:00 | Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Capital Gallery Building, 600 Maryland Avenue SW Suite 2001, Washington, DC, 20024, United States
Note: In response to the COVID-19 outbreak, this event has been postponed. Stay tuned for rescheduling details.
Kate Spanos, PhD will present her research on frevo dance in a talk entitled, “A Dance of Resistance from Recife, Brazil: Carnivalesque Improvisation in Frevo,” at the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.
Abstract:
Frevo is an energetic music and dance that symbolizes Brazil’s northeastern state of Pernambuco: loud brass instruments provide the fast-paced music and dancers in bright costumes hold small colorful umbrellas as they perform quick footwork and acrobatics. The word frevo is a colloquial form of the Portuguese verb ferver (“to boil”) that alludes its frenetic nature and the hot, sweaty Carnival during which it is danced, especially in Pernambuco’s capital, Recife. In this presentation, I present ethnographic research based on six months of fieldwork in Recife to examine frevo as a “dance of resistance” that implements strategies derived from its origins in the Brazilian martial art of capoeira. In considering how frevo’s playful and carnivalesque nature combines with its improvisational techniques, I propose the term “carnivalesque improvisation” to describe how dancers communicate cultural knowledge and work through and around the unpredictability and frequent violence of Carnival and Recife’s society at large. I examine the teaching methodologies and performance strategies of selected frevo groups, performers, and choreographers to show how practitioners challenge sociocultural boundaries and socioeconomically determined attitudes.
Bio:
Kate Spanos, PhD is a dancer and dance scholar specializing in studies of dance, music, and festival in Brazil, the Eastern Caribbean, and Ireland. In her research, she examines kinesthetic strategies involved in “dances of resistance” from cultures around the world. She has conducted research on frevo in Recife, Brazil as a postdoctoral Fulbright U.S. Scholar and on masquerades on the Caribbean island of Montserrat as a doctoral candidate at the University of Maryland, College Park. She received her Master’s in Traditional Irish Dance Performance from the University of Limerick in Ireland.

POSTPONED: Capoeira workshop (private event)
2020-03-17 08:30 - 11:30 | Washington International School, 3100 Macomb Street NW, Washington, DC, 20008, United States
Note: In response to the COVID-19 outbreak, this event has been postponed. Stay tuned for rescheduling details.
Pablo Regis de Oliveira and Kate Spanos teach capoeira history, music, and movement to 6th graders at the Washington International School. Private event.

Irish step dance workshop
2020-03-06 03:45 - 17:15 | The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, College Park, MD, 20742, United States
Kate Spanos teaches at the American College Dance Association (ACDA) Mid-Atlantic North conference at the University of Maryland, College Park. The class covers the basic techniques of Irish step dance, with a focus on body posture and footwork. Students learn movements from Irish dance vocabulary and explore the incorporation of these movements into personal style through improvisation exercises.
Conference registration required.

Brazilian dances of resistance: capoeira and frevo movement
2020-03-05 15:45 - 17:15 | The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, College Park, MD, 20742, United States
Kate Spanos teaches at the American College Dance Association (ACDA) Mid-Atlantic North conference at the University of Maryland, College Park. The class covers movement vocabulary from the Brazilian dance traditions of capoeira and frevo. Capoeira is a “martial art disguised as a dance” and frevo is a carnival dance with origins in capoeira. Students learn how capoeira and frevo are “dances of resistance,” using improvisational exercises.
Conference registration required.

Dances of resistance and frevo: Lecture and discussion
2020-02-12 14:30 - 15:45, 2020-02-10 14:30 - 15:45 | George Washington University, DC, United States
Kate Spanos, PhD visits Dr. Maria Cecília Zea’s cross-cultural psychology class at George Washington University for a discussion about dance ethnography, dances of resistance, and Brazilian frevo—and how these themes connect to cross-cultural psychology.
