money laundry and Carnival

dlg, empresa investigadapor lavados de dineros, tuvo carroza en el C de B 2008 con natalia paris abordo

Interview w/ cartagena's mayor

Casi se me olvida: ¿Por qué le dicen 'Maria Mulata'?
J.P.: Maria Mulata es un pájaro típico de Cartagena. Nunca se ve solo uno o una sola pareja en un árbol, porque viven en grandes colonias, defendiéndose unos a otros. El macho es negro, y la hembra, canela, que es la mezcla que nos permite bailar y cantar como lo hacemos. Pero además, es la única especie en la que el macho tiene nombre de mujer.

entrevista a la alcaldesa de cartagena
semana jan. 7, 2008
http://www.semana.com/wf_InfoArticulo.aspx?idArt=108628

Butler and negritas pujol

Reading butler and her reading of the drag performance, I’m thinking about the other configurations or other readings of femininities in the carnival, how can I leave them outside?

Negritas Pujol
Maria Moñitos
Gay parade
Black face
Drag

Back to Barranquilla

It’s been ten years since I went for the first time to Barranquilla and I still am fascinated with the centrality of the female figure … what strikes me now it also its invisibility. Cumbiamberas, reinas, dancers, all are places in a symbolic center , a mythical referent for society but most of the time they are in a powerless position, just a thing to look at. (connections with Benjamin)
Barranquilla’s it’s still a mens carnival and even when women hold power positions in the administrative issues, organization of the carnival, creation of the choreographies and the performance itself, they are surrounded by a web of men to hold their place, in a way to make it “legitimate” and create a safe space for them to act.

In my first there, I too needed a safe space to do ethnography in Barranquilla. I had my professor with me most of the time, or some elder or his son to be my diligent partner, to hold me even if I did not deen to be held.

I’m back almost ten years later and again, like the first time, by body in barranquilla’s public space gains unexpected visibility, and unwelcomed one.

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!