A Bença: The Blessings of the Bando de Teatro Olodum

Abstract

This article centers on the major, self-identified Afro-Brazilian theater group in Salvador da Bahia, the Bando de Teatro Olodum. The Bando, it contends, establishes a performative trajectory from which to question and challenge the dominant esthetic signifiers in Brazilian society. It aims to realign the racial and cultural markers that define Africanness and blackness, regenerate affirmative constructs for both signifiers through its dramatic repertoire, and create alternative performative and esthetic forms that draw from the Candomblé religious matrix. The Bando's most recent play, A Bença, is the focus of analysis in its simultaneity as a hyper-visual homage to the elders and a metaphysical treatise on the vagaries of time. A Bença transforms the reality of aging into a surrealistic interpolation of Bantu spiritual conceptualizations of the circularity of time and the interrelation of the human and the ancestral. Ultimately, the Bando and the play transform notions as to what is theater in Brazil.

Keywords:

• Bando de Teatro Olodum
• Afro-Brazilian theater
• A Bença
• bantu
• candomblé
• time

Notes

1. The text is taken from the promotional pamphlet of the Bando created for A Bença and to showcase their other works.

2. All translations of primary sources, the play, and the interviews are mine.

3. The text from Bittencourt is taken from the opening passages to the written form of A Bença.

4. It is important to understand that whiteness in this context is not simply based on phenotype or gene pool, it is also related to economic status. Because he belongs to the middle class, which is synonymous with wealth and despite any visible African phenotypic traits, Meirelles is deemed white in that society.

5. My thoughts here are influenced by repeated conversations with noted Professor of African Drama, Awam Amkpa.