Uma Mulata, Sim!: Araci Cortes, ‘the mulatta’ of the Teatro de RevistaPosted in Articles, Biography, Brazil, Caribbean/Latin America, Literary/Artistic Criticism, Media Archive, Women on 2010-03-27 03:09Z by Steven |
Uma Mulata, Sim!: Araci Cortes, ‘the mulatta’ of the Teatro de Revista
Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory
Volume 16, Issue 1 (March 2006)
pages 7-26
DOI: 10.1080/07407700500514996
Judith Michelle Williams, Professor of African and African-American Studies
University of Kansas
Araci Cortes, a mulata assumida, rose to be one of the most successful performers in Rio de Janeiro‘s teatro de revista (revue theatre) during the 1920s and 1930s. In this essay I place her career in the context of the Afro-Brazilian artists of her generation and evaluate how her embodiment of the Brazilian mulata on and off the stage interacted with the emerging discourse of Brazil as a mulatto nation. Lauded for her distinct Brazilianness and criticized for her petulant and uncompromising personality, Cortes excelled as a singer, dancer and comic actress, most often portraying the mulatta roles that before her fame were enacted by white actresses. Cortes is a complicated figure who was able to exploit the narratives and stereotypes that surrounded her mixed-race body and gain, fame, fortune and success. Although rather than leave behind her Afro-Brazilian connections she maintained relationships with even the most militant of Brazilian blacks she spoke about race only in the vague terms of her era. Yet through her emblematic performances she reconfigured ideas of gender and race in Brazil. She provides an example of how Afro-Brazilians have used performance to create an alternative discourse of race in Brazil.
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