Roteiro do Documentário (ingles)

Title: African Influences in Brazil

Screenplay

(scene 1_ Opening_ Images of Brazil)

(Images of several Brazilian cities and cultural events)

- What legacies of Africans can be observed in Brazilian culture?

- Let’s start with Language.

(scene 2_Images of Words)

(several words of African origin)

- Language is what defines the identity of a people, is what differentiates one people from another. And a lot of words used in our day-to-day are originate from African peoples, like “Angu”, “pipoca”, “moleque”, “fubá”, […] acarajé!

(scene 3 _ imagens of “baianas” and “acarajés”)

- Speaking on that subject, “acarajé” is also an important African influence in our cuisine. Bahia’s cuisine is the one that shows it more, they have African tastes in the most famous dishes of their cuisine, like “vatapá”, “moqueca” and others.

(Images of other food from Africa, several dishes until you get to “feijoada” - ready-to-eat, set on a table- .)

- They say the most popular dish in Brazil, feijoada, appeared in the senzalas, serving as food for slaves… and today is national preference, especially when accompanied by a good samba!

(scene 4_ Pictures of samba players, samba schools..(A famous samba song playing in the background)


(wrote: Rhythm! Drumming!)

- The Brazilian popular music (best known as MPB) is heavily influenced by African rhythms.
- As observed in every part of the American continent where African slaves have been, the music made by those African descents was initially ignored and kept at the fringe, until it gained notoriety in the early twentieth century and became the most popular today.
(Pictures of African-Brazilian instruments ; Afoxé/Agogô/Atabaque/Berimbau/Tambor/Xequerê)
(Images of groups diverse musical genders of today)

- African tribal songs were brought by slaves to the American countries, where they mingled with other European rhythms, creating new musical genders. Today we can identify the African influence in many genders: Soul, Axe music, Carimbó, Funk, Ijexá, Lambada, Lundu, Maxixe, Maracatu, Pagode, Samba, Hip Hop, Reggae, among others.

Images of folk dances (Congo, Lundu, Mozambique, etc.)

- Brazilian culture and, of course, the music - that is made and consumed in the country- , are structured from two basic matrices African civilizations: Conguesa and Yoruba. The first is what maintains the base of Brazilian music, wich is in samba the most exposed. The second cast, especially the African-brazilian religious music and styles which will result from.



(scene 6_Images of african-descents dancing in the senzalas and yards of candomblé)

- Some African-descents religions keep almost all of them African roots, like happens in Candomblé and Xangô, popular in the Northeast. Others formed by religion, like Batuque, Xambá and Ubanda. In a greater or lesser degree, african-Brazilian religions show influences of European Catholicism , as well as Amerindian shamanism.
- The syncretism manifests itself also in the tradition of the baptism of children and marriage in the Catholic Church, even when the faithful follow a religion openly African-Brazilian.
(Scene 6_Image Capoeira groups, sound of Berimbau in the background)

- Capoeira is a martial art created by black slaves in Brazil during the colonial period. It is said that slaves told the Lords that it was just a dance and then the training was allowed. Thus, the poultry is always practiced with percussion instruments, music, singing, dancing and, in some version, stunts.

(Scene 7_Repeat selected images)

- The African origin played an important role in the formation and delineation of Brazilian cultural identity as the great cultural diversity brought by the blacks also assimilated other cultures with whom they had contact, formed and transformed in various aspects of our Brazil!