Ra Ximhai (Jan 2014)
BRAZILIAN DANCERS AND SAMBA IN CHICAGO: IN THE LIMITS OF THE OTHER EXPECTATIONS
Abstract
This article is based on the story of Taís, a Brazilian dancer and samba entrepreneur in Chicago. It analyses how both samba and Brazilian samba dancers change in order to accommodate views and expectations of consumers and agents that make up the market of Brazilian culture in the city. Immigrant since the mid-1980s, Taís has gone around performing Brazilian dance to the “midwest” since the early 1990s. As she negotiates samba and Brazilian identities with different clienteles, she learns about the limits and possibilities of the exotic. In the body-to-body daily struggle for recognition and a place for Brazilian dance in the market - and eager to reconcile what most pleases the “other” with her own understanding and experience of Brazil - new ideas of Brazil and Brazilianness are constructed and disseminated in the United States as well as new relationships and alliances are established with other ethnic groups.
