Between Nostalgia and Apocalypse

Between Nostalgia and Apocalypse is a close-to-the-ground account of musicians and dancers from Arcoverde, Pernambuco—a small city in the northeastern Brazilian backlands. The book's focus on samba de coco families, marked as bearers of tradition, and the band Cordel do Fogo Encantado, marketed as pop iconoclasts, offers a revealing portrait of performers engaged in new forms of cultural preservation during a post-dictatorship period of democratization and neoliberal reform. Daniel B. Sharp explores how festivals, museums, television, and tourism steep musicians' performances in national-cultural nostalgia, which both provides musicians and dancers with opportunities for cultural entrepreneurship and hinders their efforts to be recognized as part of the Brazilian here-and-now. The book charts how Afro-Brazilian samba de coco became an unlikely emblem in an interior where European and indigenous mixture predominates. It also chronicles how Cordel do Fogo Encantado—drawing upon the sounds of samba de coco, ecstatic Afro-Brazilian religious music, and heavy metal—sought to make folklore dangerous by embodying an apocalyptic register often associated with northeastern Brazil. A multimedia app will also be available that complements the themes of the book's ethnography with audio tracks, video footage, and photographs.

About the Author :
DANIEL B. SHARP is an assistant professor of ethnomusicology at Tulane University.

Review :
"[Between Nostalgia and Apocalypse] represents an appealing contribution to the growing literature on the uses of tradition and a revealing portrait of how and why different cultural entities attempt to co-opt or transform musical forms whose significance goes far beyond their artistic attributes. The study offers and illuminating view of the uses of music and of individual and collective memory in the construction of a new--if stubbornly 'traditional'--Northeast [Brazil]."--Candace Slater "Journal of Folklore Research" (9/15/2015 12:00:00 AM) "A valuable resource for those interested ethnomusicology, ethnography, anthropology, or sociology."--K.W. Mukuna "Choice" (6/1/2015 12:00:00 AM) "Between Nostalgia and Apocalypse takes an unvarnished look at the range of human emotions that arise under a unique set of circumstances in which intensely local social dynamics collide with national identity, intangible heritage, and historical revision. Importantly, it moves the discussion of these topics beyond the exhausted hybridity and globalization paradigms."--Frederick Moehn, author of Contemporary Carioca: Technologies of Mixing in a Brazilian Music Scene (1/1/2014 12:00:00 AM) "This is an intelligent and well-researched book. The narratives that emerge are not only well-chosen, but they are articulated so as to preserve the multiple complexities in play--mud huts that are envied by the homeless but intended for touristic consumption, mannequins that dance awkwardly with their sources of inspiration, and so much more. Daniel Sharp is to be commended on his approach to music that hears it as embedded in complex circulatory matrices."--Alexander Sebastian Dent, author of River of Tears: Country Music, Memory, and Modernity in Brazil (1/1/2014 12:00:00 AM) Between Nostalgia and Apocalypse takes an unvarnished look at the range of human emotions that arise under a unique set of circumstances in which intensely local social dynamics collide with national identity, intangible heritage, and historical revision. Importantly, it moves the discussion of these topics beyond the exhausted hybridity and globalization paradigms. Frederick Moehn, author of Contemporary Carioca: Technologies of Mixing in a Brazilian Music Scene" This is an intelligent and well-researched book. The narratives that emerge are not only well-chosen, but they are articulated so as to preserve the multiple complexities in play mud huts that are envied by the homeless but intended for touristic consumption, mannequins that dance awkwardly with their sources of inspiration, and so much more. Daniel Sharp is to be commended on his approach to music that hears it as embedded in complex circulatory matrices. Alexander Sebastian Dent, author of River of Tears: Country Music, Memory, and Modernity in Brazil"