order

introduction about reinas and cumbiamberas like a narration, like a tale

parallel in one side reinas in the other cumbia
infancy, roles, activities in the carnival, simbolic presence, meanings

methodology

Martha's talk

Fetishization of movement in reinas and cumbia

Displaying of "untangible patrimony"

Perpetuation of the patrimony through teaching, framing the dance, making the source into a resource

vocabulary, steps,secuences...studio time

what dance is worth: desire, value, pleasure

martasa@mac.com

Dialectics of Seeing and Women

Reading about Benjamin's use of women as icon for modernity, makes me think about the objectification of women from male gaze. The dancing body of cumbiamberas and carnival queens are used as makers of class, status and for entretainment of spectators, I wonder about the agency of those bodies and their possibilit of self-expression.
Does one becomes dependent of male gaze? girls are trained since infancy to be stared at, to be the center of the spectacle, to shake it, and turn... the process of becoming a commodity starts early on life.

Can the cumbiamberas and queens' bodies be any expression of social desires and conflicts? Yes! are they "moving signifiers"of Barranquilla culture?

I the figure on benjamin's woman (p.99) aplicable in Barranquilla? (emphasis on the new +antique of newness) what demands are there for Barranquilla's girls? objectified female/masculline objectifier

Make connections with Jensen!

gaze

I need to work with the gaze.

ways of seeing, john berger

the masses

To think about multiple bodies as one, how the masses of barranquilla carnival affect, or give a particular characteristic to the fiesta

Quien lo vive es quien lo goza

Quien lo vive es quien lo goza, that's C de B's motto, meaning that you have to enjoy it bacause the Carnival is not a thing to see but endure, participate and feel.
at the same time, it's funny because even though C de B is to be lived, it is also to see. Is a place to achieve visibility, to see and be seen. The parades have tribunas so people can pay expensive tickets and sit (or stand) and whach the floats, the people... certanly, not everyo e can be in the streets and not everyone can be on the tribunas... for those that don't qualigy to the tribunas or the parades, there's always the sunny side of the sidewalk, hot as hell.

anna 2

Two queen in the parades: the concept of veauty as is evoked or displayes in the two Q and the cumbiambera, as inside the body.
Why is there a popular and an official? how it means to live in a "lower case" for the popular queen
How beauty is viewed and performed

questions to ask;
Beauty as work? (tommy's article on beauty) is beautya type og labor, can you extac surplus form it?
somethin is being estracted, maybe the margins fighting back
who is this beauty for?

orden

1. thesis and background
start with the carnaval and explain the reinas and the cumbiamberas, then say the thesis
2. methodology
3. scope and limitations
4. annotated bibliography

First draft

Colombia is a country of beauty pageants. There are beauty pageants for everything, festivals, meetings, cities and so on. Beauty queen of the sea, of the ganaderia, of the neighborhood, of the flowers festival… there’s no end to the list.
Of course, the Barranquilla Carnival is no difference, in this festivity there is not one but two beauty queens. One is called the Queen of the Carnival and the other is called the Popular Queen of the Carnival. The difference? the first one is elected by the junta of the carnival, the group that runs the official festivities, the other one is elected by a public contest form girls from the city. Usually the queen is part of the small circle of families in power, the popular queen comes form middle and lower class neighborhoods. The Reina del Carnaval and the Reina Popular are both at the stage, they are presiding everything, from concerts, declarations, parades and all kinds of festivities; both know very well their place, depending on the nature of the event , the people attending and the hierarchy of the queens(the official one is always more important). In the “Batalla de Flores” (most important parade in the carnival, one is on a big float, the other one is on foot. Guess which one is walking on the street in the parade.
These figures are the materialization of the society’s ideals towards women, beauty, desire and also about social structure, class differentiation, and racial issues in Colombian society.

The figure of the cumbiambera also serves as an icon of femininity and restages the myth of mixture of the birth of Colombian population (a love story between an African men and an indigenous/white woman) this myth is also underplaying racial conflicts that are very often mixed with social and class conflicts. Those issues get played in the skin, in the bones, in the muscles… in the tiny differences between movements, the use of space, the oscillation of the hips…

I want to look at the role of this three figures of the carnival, its election, behaviors, actions, movemenst,,,, and find how these ideologies about beauty, race, class and gender get staged, danced, dressed, constructed, reinforced and perpetuated every carnival and what hey can tell us about the Colombian society.

Don't forget the memory!

memoria del cuerpo
movimientos con historia

if you don't remember what's ugly you can't know what's beautiful