Gesture in Samba: a cross-modal analysis of dance and music from the Afro-Brazilian culture

Abstract

In this study, we focus on the relationships between music and dance in the Afro- Brazilian culture. We concentrate on the Afro-Brazilian samba, which belongs to the musical/choreographical panorama of the African diaspora and shares with the other pan-African cultures the tendency to integrate dance, music and social participation in every instantiation of the culture. We approach samba from the viewpoint of embodied cognition, which basically assumes that the mind cannot be dissociated from the body. The idea that the body is not a simple vessel of the mind but contributes, molds and enacts the formation of meaning has a number of impacts on the study of dance and music. It extends the concept “mind” to tacit forms of knowledge such as dancing or moving, it sheds light on how the human body has influenced the human development, culture and reasoning. Moreover it enables the Western epistemology to approach forms of knowledge that have the body as the central mediator...