18 October

Today was the day of the Culture Class midterm. For a test I was told was multiple choice, there sure were an awful lot of essay questions. Even if the format was a bit of a surprise, it didn't feel all too difficult. It helped that there were questions involving Jorge Ben and Gilberto Gil, which I would have been fairly well equipped to answer before the class (although I did learn a few new things about them as well.) The test also provided me with an opportunity to compare Getulio Vargas and Otto Van Bismarck, which I had been itching to do for a number of weeks now.

The administration decided to celebrate the midterm with free tickets to (and mandatory attendance of) the Balé Folclorico in good old historic Pelhourinho. The Teatro Miguel Santana is a very small space, which seemed good for such a forceful performance. I actually have very few negative comments to make about dance on this occasion! Although the dances (all together, an hour's performance) were obviously very well rehearsed and choreographed, Afro-Bahian inspired dance still seems to me to be much more natural than ballet or the modern Western Art Dances. It was interesting (and perhaps a bit satisfying) that all the dances performed were in some way familiar already – during the candomblé dances, I could identify a number of the orixás represented, and I had already seen the dance which involves beating two sticks against the ground and the other dancers' sticks. Also of interest was the fact that the least enjoyable was the capoeira=inspired dance. Perhaps because I have been seeing a good deal of skilled capoeira several days a week, the influence of dance was most obvious during that segment – that is, taking something authentic and making it camp and ridiculous. As I don't believe I've mentioned much about Pelhourinho before, some notes:

About twenty minutes north of Vitória, it is the historic district, where one can still see old colonial buildings (with some new facades and re-touchings,) including the 16th-century governor's mansion which was the reason for Salvador's founding. Across from that mansion (now a museum) is a ridiculous glass government building without a first floor that was active during the dictatorship. That square is also home to the top of the Elevador Lacerda, which can be taken the cliff to Comercio and the lower city, by an odd donut-shaped fort in the middle of the water that was built to ward off encroaching Dutch. A good view of an interesting (if run down) part of the city. Pelhourino is also home to the Pierre Verger museum (a French photographer who took a great number of photographs of West Africa and Bahia beginning in the 40s,) the first official capoeira school, a culinary school, the Jorge Amado Foundation, Olodum's performance space and plenty of other cultural centers (and, of course, shops.) Pelhourino is also home to the strangest form of beggar or peddler I've yet encountered: they wander around offering to tie cloth bracelets around one's wrist (these say Lembrança do Bonfim, Bonfim being a Saint associated particularly with Bahia, the bracelets supposedly bringing good luck upon finally breaking.) They can be very adamant about tying these bracelets, and very insistent on their complimentary nature. When the tie is complete, they are equally insistent on a payment or donation in exchange for the bracelet. Hard to blame them, yet it still occupies a very odd space in between begging and trinket hawking. Apparently, Pelhourino was, before the 90s, a favela, and many of the historical buildings were run down or in ruins. After it was designated a UNESCO site, the government put some money in it and it became a center of tourism in Salvador. Still doesn't look like Disneyland.