The University of Oxford's "Brazil Week" aims to raise awareness about the richness and diversity of Brazilian culture by organising a number of free events open not only to students and academics, but also to the general public. It celebrates the fact that there are so many academics and students at the University of Oxford who are working in and on Brazil (from areas as wide-ranging as Literature, Politics, Anthropology, Environmental Science, Linguistics, Theology and Ethnomusicology), and to bring them together. It also functions to introduce the culture and society of Brazil to those who are interested. It facilitates interaction between the University and the public – including the approximately 4,000 Brazilians living in Oxford. Over the past five years, the event has attracted people from other universities, cities and even countries, notably Denmark and Germany.
In Brazil Week 2018 we will be celebrating 50 years since the iconic Brazilian cultural movement known as Tropicália, which involved experimenting with music, film and art (Tate Modern has already held a series of events to commemorate the anniversary!). There will be a panel of experts on tropicalista film and music and screenings of a documentary film and a Cinema Novo classic.
We welcome novelist Paulo Scott and journalists Sue Branford and Daniel Buarque, as well as singer-songwriter Adriana Calcanhotto, currently lecturing at the University of Coimbra in Portugal. Playwright and director Almiro Andrade will present dramatic readings from his works. There will be a postgraduate round table to bring together researchers in different faculties and institutes across the University. The week will conclude with a jazz concert performed by students from the Oxford University Jazz Orchestra.
All events are free (except the jazz concert) and open to all (except the Adriana Calcanhotto aula-show: please register here: sandra.beaumont@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk).
Monday 19 February
5-7pm, Miles Room, St Peter’s College
Film Screening: Tropicália (2014). dir. Marcelo Machado. 1h 27m. (English subtitles)
A feature length documentary with archive footage featuring interviews with some of the key members of the counter-cultural artistic movement such as Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil.
Introduced by Rachel Randall (Lecturer in Hispanic Media and Digital Communications, University of Bristol)
Tuesday 20 February
2-4pm, Miles Room, St Peter’s College
Reporting on Brazil from Britain and Brazilian Issues in Foreign Media
Veteran journalist Sue Branford, who has worked for the BBC and The Guardian and currently runs the website of the Latin American Bureau (https://lab.org.uk/) will talk about her experience reporting on Brazil from the dictatorship years to the present. Daniel Buarque (UOL) will give the opposite view: that of a Brazilian reporter writing about contemporary Britain.
5-7pm, Theberge Room, St Peter's College
Round Table Panel: 50 years since Tropicália
Stefan Solomon and Albert Elduque from the University of Reading will present their research on the films and art of the Tropicália movement.
Wednesday 21 February
2-3pm, Miles Room, St Peter’s College
Talk by Paulo Scott [in English]
Prize-winning author Paulo Scott, from Porto Alegre, has produced three plays, four novels, a book of short stories and five books of poetry, such as Ainda Orangotangos [Still Orangutangs] adapted into a 2008 film, Habitante Irreal (2011) [Nowhere People (2014)], and O ano em que vivi de literatura [The year I lived from literature]. Currently he is working on the first draft of a novel called Marrom e Amarelo [Brown and Yellow] two brothers growing up in the 1970s and dealing with racism.
5-7pm, Miles Room, St Peter’s College
Film Screening: Terra em Transe [Land in Anguish] (1967). dir. Glauber Rocha. 1h 51m. (English subtitles)
“Eldorado, a fictitious country in Latin America, is sparkling with the internal struggle for political power. In the eye of this social convulsion, the jaded journalist Paulo Martins opposes two equally corrupt political candidates: a pseudopopulist and a conservative. In this context, Paulo is torn between the madness of the elite and the blind submission of the masses. But, in this complex tropical reality, nothing really is what it seems to be” (IMDb).
Introduced by Gui Perdigão (Senior Language Tutor, University of Oxford).
Thursday 22 February
2-4pm, Theberge Room, St Peter’s College
Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Seminar: Researching Brazil
Postgraduates from different departments and disciplines around Oxford University will present their research projects. Participants to be confirmed, but will include postgraduates from the Modern Languages Faculty, the Institute for Social Anthropology and the Latin American Centre.
4-6pm, Room 2, Taylorian Institute, St Giles’
Lecture-spectacular (aula show) by Adriana Calcanhotto
Singer-songwriter Adriana Calcanhotto is a Brazilian legend, known for her ballads and love songs, blending a pure voice with the sound of her guitar. Since 1990 she has brought out 17 albums of original songs, covers and adaptations of Lusophone poetry. In 2017 she published an anthology of contemporary Brazilian poetry entitled É agora como nunca. Antologia incompleta da poesia contemporânea brasileira, and gave a series of lectures on poetry songwriting at the University of Coimbra (Portugal) where she is currently Literary Ambassador. Adriana gave an unforgettable performance at the first Brazil Week in 2009.
http://www.adrianacalcanhotto.com/
Register for this event with sandra.beaumont@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk
Monday 26 February
4-6pm, Room 2, Taylorian Institute
Talk by Almiro Andrade and Ramiro Silveira on Brazilian Theatre in the UK
Almiro Andrade, from Bahia, is an actor and director with credits in film, TV and stage both in Brazil and in the UK. He holds three BA Hons in Modern Languages and Theatre Studies from Brazilian institutions, an MA in Making Plays: Writing and Devising for the Stage at Kingston University (2011), a Diploma in Screenwriting at the London Film Academy (2012), and he currently is working on his PhD at King’s College, looking at the translation and adaptation of Brazilian contemporary drama through devised performance.
He has taken an active part in several productions in the UK, working as an actor, a writer/director and an Artistic Associate and Trustee at StoneCrabs Theatre Company, developing workshops for their Young Directors Programme, working as a playwright for their Manchester Fringe R&D project Tieta in 2015, and currently working on Namibia, Não!, an award winning Brazilian Black comedy that explores the plight of two black Brazilians following a sudden government decree that all African descendants are to be repatriated to the land of their ancestors
Ramiro Silveira is an international Theatre Director, Lecturer, Actor Trainer and Researcher. He holds a PhD in Theatre Pedagogy – Theatre Artist Training from University of São Paulo (Brazil), a MFA in Theatre Directing from University of Middlesex (UK) and a BA Theatre Directing from Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil). He is known for his innovative theatre rehearsal process (subject of his PhD thesis) called Theatre Playground, a study of presence and relation based on rhythm, movement and multicultural references in order to inspire creative connections. Since 2001 he has been using his technique to direct theatre and run acting and directing workshops all over the world. Working professionally as a theatre director since 1995, Ramiro has directed more than 30 plays in Brazil and abroad. Since 2015 he has been developing many projects in UK related to Brazilian plays in translation. Ramiro Silveira is currently the Head of the BA World Performance course at East15 - University of Essex (UK).
8-late, Sandy’s Bar, King Edward Street
The New Oxford Jazz Collective: Bossa Nova Night
Brazil Week goes out with a bang as we take over Sandy’s for a night of Brazilian Bossa classics and more from the New Oxford Jazz Collective.