ABSTRACT
Although traditional polyphonic singing has been practiced assiduously by many groups of women in Portugal, the cultural policies implemented during the New State (1933–1974) did not give it visibility on the stages of folklore representation. Segue-me à Capela emerged in 1999, a group of seven Portuguese women dedicated to traditional polyphonic singing, embodying a way of listening to and learning about music that had been silenced or subordinated. Based on the concept of feminist artivism, which perceives art as a tool for visibility and social transformation, this article explores the inclusion and resilience strategies assumed by Segue-me à Capela.
Introduction
Segue-me à Capela is a musical group formed in 1999 by seven Portuguese women to perform the traditional polyphonic singing of women in Portugal. When the group was founded, the context of traditional Portuguese music did not offer a favorable environment for this type of association. In rural traditional society polyphonic singing has been practiced assiduously by many groups of women in Portugal, as evidenced by the documentation collected by folklorists and ethnographers in the 19th and 20th centuries. However, as Pestana points out in her study of the process that led to the request for registration of Canto a Vozes de Mulheres,Footnote1or Singing in Voices of Women, that the National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage, polyphonic singing by women is generally absent in the revitalization of musical traditions throughout the 20th century. Pestana and Da Piedade describe the “disappearance” of women’s voices from folklore representation during the totalitarian regime of the Estado Novo (1933–1974), highlighting that, “Among the many types of singing with one or more voices that were documented by the folklorists and ethnographers, only cante alentejano [a traditional singing from the south of Portugal recognized by UNESCO], sung by men, was included in that process” (171). Even after the restoration of democracy in 1974, female polyphonic singing remained an exception. In addition, until the early part of the 21st century, women’s groups of traditional polyphonic singing in Portugal performed while subordinate to a male figure that represented them. They were largely underestimated or unknown by most of the population of the country.
Based on ethnographic fieldwork of the group Segue-me à Capela that I carried out during 2022 and 2023 (which included interviews, informal conversations, observation, and documentation of rehearsals, concerts, and workshops) and drawing on the theoretical concepts of feminist artivism and performativity, this article shows how Segue-me à Capela, 1) opened up space and remained in the universe of traditional music in Portugal, 2) projected their being, their knowledge, and their space of representation, through the traditional polyphonic singing workshops that they teach across the country, and 3) claim the traditional female polyphonies as a form of resistance, resignifying and transforming the place of women in music and society.
Feminist artivism perceives art as a tool of “visibility and social transformation, in the sense of giving new meaning to the concept of women, hegemonically constructed by the masculine world,” amid a reality that undervalues, despises, or subordinates women and their musical productions (Costa and Coelho 26). As a group, Segue-me à Capela are not aligned with any feminist movement, yet, without aiming to, they have exercised feminist artivism by developing strategies so that their artistic production of the traditional polyphonic singing of women is heard and welcomed in a context of undervaluation, invisibility, and subordination of this type of singing in the traditional music of Portugal. This study sought to understand how the group achieves its aims: it is rooted, therefore, in studies of performativity, which address how musical practice can operate in the transformation of society.
Performativity describes a process of unconscious repetition of speech acts and body gestures through which the internalized identities are validated by performing them in public (Koskoff): that is to say, how gender can be understood not “as a noun, nor as a set of attributes, but as a ‘doing,’ a performance that constitutes the identity it purports to be” (Hawkesworth, qtd. in Koskoff 173). Segue-me à Capela, through their songs, gestures, and acts of performance and performativity, have subverted the place female singing has in the traditional music of Portugal and, additionally, the place women have in society.
“We Sing to Evoke Old memories:” Who Are Segue-me à Capela?
Segue-me à Capela are dedicated to the study, performance, dissemination, and transmission of the traditional polyphonic singing of Portuguese women. While membership has changed over time, the group currently features seven women: Catarina Moura, Mila Bom, Carolina Simões, Joana Dourado, Margarida Pinheiro, Maria João Pinheiro, and Sílvia Franklim. Segue-me à Capela was created from the enthusiasm these young, urban, educated, and professional ladies shared for the traditional female singing from rural Portugal. They met at a student’s association at the University of Coimbra, named GEFAC (Grupo de Etnografia e Folklore da Academia de Coimbra, as known in Portuguese), where they discovered a new approach to traditional Portuguese music and learned traditional polyphonic songs.
We are seven women … and we sing traditional Portuguese music … loving these songs, matured with life, full of telluric force in their uniqueness. And we sing a capella because we like to hear the places of the voices, the silences, and the surprising harmony that these songs keep. We sing to evoke ancient memories that transport our history’s transcultural miasmas and inspire and enrich us. (Segue-me à Capela)Footnote2
The Capelas, as they call themselves, not only sing a capella but also sometimes accompany themselves with percussion instruments of traditional Portuguese culture, which makes them unique in their genre since the traditional polyphonic singing groups of Portugal do not use instrumental accompaniment, or do so in an exceptional way. The adufe, an instrument played by women in the interior north and center of Portugal (see Oliveira), plays a distinctive role in its music and performances. They pay particular attention to including scenic elements in their shows to generate a presence that reinforces the climates created by singing. For example, the song “Bendito e louvado das trovoadas” (from the album San’Joanices, Paganices e Outras Coisas de Mulher, 2015), which is a typical devotional song from Portuguese agrarian contexts to ward off bad weather (L. Araújo), is introduced in concert by Segue-me à Capela with sounds evoking water and thunder, followed by a prayer to Saint Barbara to drive away the storm.
Their repertoire is made up of traditional Portuguese songs, primarily by women, from the “recolhas,” a designation given by the Capelas to the material collected by ethnographers, folklorists, or other researchers in rural areas of Portugal, through recordings or other methods of registration, and made by Michel Giacometti, José Alberto Sardinha, and GEFAC, among others. They reproduce the material recorded in the recolhas, but they appropriate them through a work of transformation-creation. An example of this transformation can be seen when contrasting the theme “Aboio,” which Segue-me à Capela sings in three voices and with percussion (see video, “Segue-me à Capela”) with the monophonic song by two Portuguese peasant women, recorded by Michel Giacometti in 1972 (see “Cantos do Trabalho,” 09:58).
Segue-me à Capela also carry out traditional polyphonic singing workshops for women across the country, transmitting their knowledge to participants of all ages and backgrounds. They have released two albums: Segue-me à Capela (2004) and San’Joanices, Paganices e Outras Coisas de Mulher (2015); the latest is a CD-book divided into seven chapters, named artes fugidias, or elusive arts. They have collaborated on projects with many other artists in shows and recordings.
“A Abrir, Sempre a Abrir:” From the Invisibility and Underestimation of Traditional Polyphonic Singing of Women to the Recognition and Appreciation of a Tradition
The phrase, “a abrir, sempre a abrir” (which means “continuously moving forward”), expressed by Segue-me à Capela member Catarina Moura, points to the strength and resilience necessary for the group to stay active. As recent studies reveal (Pestana; Pestana and Da Piedade), the difficulties faced by Segue-me à Capela are common to other female groups.
After the restoration of democracy, two movements to revitalize musical traditions coexisted in Portugal, separated by different aesthetics and political frameworks (Branco). One, which gave continuity to the aforementioned folk movement formed in the 1930s under the tutelage of the Estado Novo, featured the “ranchos folclóricos” and the “cante alentejano” groups. The “ranchos folclóricos” are “groups of musical and choreographic nature whose objective is to represent the ancient traditions of their lands or parishes, through public exhibitions, in which their elements are presented in popular costumes from the olden days” (Pestana). According to Castelo-Branco et al., the ranchos folclóricos represent standardized versions of traditions from rural areas of Portugal. The other movement of traditional music, emerging in the years after 25 April 1974, is formed by groups against the dictatorship policies: these groups aim to revitalize rural music; they do not use costumes of the past; they do not include choreographies, and they are open to changes and new styles. This is where Segue-me à Capela can trace its roots, within the revitalization movement of traditional Portuguese music, as part of what Castelo-Branco et al. call “grupos de recolha e divulgação de música popular portuguesa (literally, ensembles for collecting and disseminating Portuguese folk music), consisting of young urbanites who collected and performed, in cities and towns, traditional music from rural areas or new music inspired thereof” (Castelo-Branco et al. 1). Little scholarly attention has been afforded these groups, and the gendered nature of traditional music in Portugal.
By bringing polyphonies of rural origin to the stage, one of the most significant challenges of Segue-me à Capela consisted in finding ways to overcome the resistance to the acoustic and performative aesthetics of the “ranchos folclóricos.” There is stigmatization toward these groups and other similar groups. What the Portuguese composer Fernando Lopes-Graça said about these musical ensambles illustrates the strong cultural opposition to the image of folklore conveyed by them: “The so-called ‘ranchos folclóricos’ seem to me to be, for the most part, artificial creations, products of the already denounced acute folklorists, which, for a few years now, has generated so much and such unfortunate confusion about what folklore is. The ‘ranchos folclóricos’ are organized folklore, and it is already clear that organized folklore is misrepresented” (qtd. in Lima 38). Still, many ranchos folclóricos continue to perform today: A. Araújo identified 2,118 of these groups in 2015 (20).
Margarida Pinheiro, one of the founders of Segue-me à Capela, mentions that one of the difficulties of the group is that the Portuguese public associates it with the music of the ranchos folclóricos. To challenge this identification, Segue-me à Capela proposes a different appropriation of musical traditions, based on their acts, both in constructing their performance and their own performativity. The difference between these two terms (performance and performativity) relates to consciousness and intention (Koskoff 151). The performance refers to the display of their musical show, which they perform consciously and with clear intention. This is one of the differentiating elements of the Capelas. The costumes on stage are very important to them because they want to give a performance-based approach to the songs. They want them to be contemporary, while also connected to the traditional: “We wanted pieces that transform, that we could put on our heads when we sang the religious songs, or that we could put together in another way as if they were handkerchiefs at work” (Moura).
Performativity, on the other hand, is formed by the unconscious repetition or reiteration of signs, acts, and texts through which internalized identities are validated by representing them in public (see Koskoff with reference to Butler, 151). It is about “often small, generally unmarked, and expressive gestures of the human body and voice that … are largely unconscious acts learned over a lifetime of reiteration and practice. They are performed, but unmarked as a performance, and are largely invisible to ‘performer’ or ‘audience,’ simply regarded (if noticed at all) as ‘normal’” (Koskoff 151). Music, as a social and cultural expression, is a propitious field for the external representation of these signs, acts, and texts because it is executed through the body (especially, and in the case of the Capelas, through the voice, vehicle of embodied sound), in public, through concerts, recordings and workshops, and also because music supports the transmission of all kinds of content. The performativity of Segue-me a Capela can be framed as a “feminist aesthetic,” a term I use “to designate a certain mode of artistic production that, regardless of whether or not it is linked to feminist movements, possesses an inventive/affirmative force as an ethical/aesthetic/political strategy of subversion, resistance, and creation of possibilities of life” (Stubs et al. 5; see Bovenschen). The Capelas propose ways of constituting subjectivity, through patterns of corporality and beauty different from those of the traditional cantadeiras, or traditional female singers, not only in the external presentation of their musical performance (where the clothes and the staging have prominence), but also in their music and the way they perform it, through their vocality and their own interpretation. For the Capelas, a feminist aesthetic is formed by their way of being in the world and relating to it, their mind-set, their urban origin, their professional and musical training, and their economic and social status, among other characteristics that define them as a group and as individuals.
Indeed, the Capelas state that their urban origin, their musical training, their schooling (several studied at conservatories), and the way of accessing their music (from recordings made by ethnographers) means that, as Margarida Pinheiro put it, their approach to music is more intellectual than emotional:
We see ourselves as women who do not have a direct link to traditional music. We intellectually learn traditional music; let’s say we don’t have an emotional link to it. … My parents didn’t sing that music, and most of the families of the Capelas did not either. Therefore, we do not try to copy the way of thinking of rural women because we think and sing differently.
Despite this initial “intellectual” approach, the Capelas embody the material of the “recolhas” when they reinterpret it from a contemporary perspective, based on their sonic ideal, with the creative freedom of not having a conductor traditionally associated with women’s singing groups. They control their rehearsals and creative practices themselves, each one giving their own contribution. They do not need to answer to an authority—though sometimes they have to convince each other of creative choices since they are seven “very opinionated” women (Moura).
Silvia Franklim says that the songs that Segue-me a Capela chooses for their repertoire usually come from a functional or utilitarian context, accompanying the dynamics of the rural daily life—fieldwork, childcare, the celebration of rituals or death, among others—and that these songs gain a different functionality with the Capelas, when transformed into artistic objects through performance on stage, thus obtaining new visibility and recognition. Due to their clear awareness of their urban origin and place in the world, the Capelas do not intend to replicate what was sung in the rural background, but instead adapt the tradition to their life in the present. They build their repertoire freely, without attachment to past forms.
It is worth highlighting the long road between the vocal sound of a traditional song, as found in a “recolha,” and the final sound achieved in the song after the detailed study and the transformation-creation made by the contemporary voices of Segue-me à Capela. The appreciation of the female timbre in music has evolved over time and can vary significantly depending on each era’s geography, cultural tastes, and aesthetic norms. The women recorded in the recolhas belong to a rural background, in which a strident and robust voice was necessary to be heard in the open spaces where they evolved: “Perhaps the mountainous topography in [Alto Minho] has impelled ancient people to use loud voices to communicate through far distances, and the existence of rural group works and religious rituals, as pilgrimages, have contributed to the appearance of polyvocal singing manifestations” (A. Araújo 50). While the traditional singing can sound intense and challenging to the current Western ear, the Capelas adapted the voices of peasant women of olden times to their own voices, making them contemporary and accessible to the lay public.
Catarina Moura explains that sometimes it has been difficult for her to persuade her own colleagues of the beauty of a song from a “recolha” that initially only seemed beautiful to her. This is because her ear is familiarized with this type of sound material. It allows her to imagine the new sound that the song will have after being transformed by the group, which will be reflected in a recording or a live performance.
Segue-me à Capela consciously and intentionally perform their female polyphonies on the stage after an elaborate job of creatively transforming the material from which they build their repertoire. Simultaneously, they unconsciously present their personal strength in various scenarios in a performative way and execute their personal and feminine power acquired through their musical, academic, and professional backgrounds. They continuously imprint a way of creating, registering, and re-registering, on a daily and non-daily basis, creating, in Margaret Rago’s words, “feminist aesthetics of existence” (Rago 5) and thus making a place in the world of traditional Portuguese music for female voices.
Sharing Life: The Women’s Polyphonic Voices are Alive!
Sharing is a key principle for Segue-me à Capela. It’s related to the fundamentals of the group, linked to its mission: the transmission of polyphonic singing of women through workshops in which they share their being, their knowledge, and their performing space with communities. The workshops are important to the group despite being an activity that does not attract mainstream attention. The Capelas invest in the transmission of polyphonic singing of women because they know that it’s a live tradition:
It is not a museum item. Polyphonic singing is not something done before that stopped being done. Women continue singing. We think it is important that people don’t forget about singing and about this music and these lyrics and that they appropriate them because this kind of music doesn’t have an owner; they are owned by all of us. (Franklim)
The dynamics of the workshops are as follows: the Segue-me à Capela women teach four to six songs to their “disciples.” At the same time, they ask the participants to teach them a familiar song and incorporate it into the workshop. This musical exchange generates a lot of receptivity and motivation among the group of students, which feels recognized and is invited to reciprocate, opening the door to a process of exchanging knowledge. The Capelas are transmitters of musical knowledge and, simultaneously, receivers of knowledge from the communities they work with, composed by participants of all ages and backgrounds.
The workshops conclude with a show by Segue-me à Capela, in which, in addition to interpreting songs from their own repertoire, they incorporate new songs learned from the workshop participants and give them space on the stage to show the final result of their learning. This participation in the closing show is an immense motivation for the students, who prepare especially for the event, choosing their best clothes and inviting family and friends to attend, attracting an audience that might not otherwise be so captivated.
Through the workshops of polyphonic singing of women, Segue-me à Capela shares with the communities in multiple ways. Firstly, they share the traditional songs of women from all over the country so that participants perceive the differences and are delighted with them. Secondly, they share the lyrics of the cantigas, or songs, so that people understand what those songs are and what they were used for. As Maria João Pinheiro said, “We offer these people the music and the reflection on it, the songs of the past and the reflection on women themselves to situate them in a narrative of Portuguese life.” The Capelas also share the knowledge of the communities by learning their songs. Finally, the Capelas share their show with participants: “We want to share the show, the feeling of belonging to a group and being on a stage, with those who perhaps never felt heard or applauded and were never part of a show” (Maria Pinheiro). This member of Segue-me à Capela explains that musical tradition is stored in the limbic system, and that particularity makes it possible to be transmitted in an experiential, non-cognitive way:
Therefore, we look for the musical tradition because it settles in our limbic system and it never fades, so can be transmitted in a non-cognitive way. It is so sensitive that people who hear us in the workshops remember it through their limbic system; let’s say they are affective memories. Afterward, people share this with us: emotions, the importance of remembering. (Maria Pinheiro)
When Segue-me à Capela transmit the traditional polyphonic songs of Portuguese women in the workshops, they assume they are transmitting the stored memory of the rural women who preceded them. In the words of Michel Giacometti, the ethnographer who compiled much of the repertoire that the Capelas sing, that memory is transversal to life, since singing was present in all the moments lived by women, “from the cradle to the grave” (13).
Through the workshops, the participants learn the traditional songs of peasant women from other times, remembering them. They reconnect and join the silenced narrative of these women. Through experiential learning of the cantigas, and participation in the Capelas show, the attendees feel the songs in their core, along with all the traditions they embody. Margarida Pinheiro points out that Segue-me à Capela’s proposal with the workshops is to get the public to actively experience traditional songs instead of limiting themselves to passive learning by attending shows or listening to recordings. The aim is for people to internalize these traditional songs, owning them by singing them and expressing themselves through their bodies.
The Capelas make a significant contribution to the musical education of the communities with which they interact across Portugal through training on traditional multipart singing. Participants learn about the Portuguese musical tradition, receiving knowledge and passing it on through their bodies as performers and not just as straightforward listeners. In this way, they acquire musical skills that allow them to listen, take advantage of and transmit polyphonic singing differently in the future and, above all, to value the musical heritage.
Giving Voice to Women: Traditional Female Polyphony as a Form of Resistance
In 1999, when Segue-me à Capela performed for the first time on stage in Portugal, rural polyphonic singing was voiced by so-called traditional groups, such as the Cantadeiras do Vale do Neiva, the Grupo Etnográfico de Trajes e Cantares de Manhouce, or the Conjunto Etnográfico de Moldes. At that time, there were only two urban multipart singing groups: Cramol, based at the Biblioteca Operaria Oeirense, and the Grupo de Cantares de Mulheres do Minho, founded in 1997, in the city of Braga.
As mentioned earlier, polyphonic singing groups of women lacked visibility and recognition in folkloric scenes. Hence, much of this tradition continued to be relegated to private spaces. In addition, as Pestana and Da Piedade write, during the first decades after 25 April 1974, the few female or mixed groups that eventually managed to reach the stages of folk music,
always did so through the mediation of male authority: the choral director and/or ethnographer responsible for compiling the group’s repertoire. This invariably male figure … was responsible for the external representation of the group, either in brief speeches delivered during the performances or in mediation with other groups within the social sphere of folklore and with local authorities. The fact of being women distanced them from being represented autonomously until the first years of the 21st century. (167)
Through its almost twenty-five years of experience and its countless performances in Portugal and other countries, Segue-me à Capela opened a space for women on the folkloric stages and gave voice to those who could not have had such a space before.
One strategy to achieve this recognition was their new way of interpreting and presenting women’s traditional polyphonic singing. From their foundation, the Capelas wanted, as Catarina Moura expressed, “to make a leap from traditional music; by giving the show a true show format that would break free from that little formation of ‘neatly lined up girls, singing straight.’” The refusal of the Capelas to line up on stage as the traditional cantadeiras did reflects their freedom, creativity, and necessary strength to do things differently. Perhaps without realizing it, they demonstrate a form of feminist artivism, tearing down the borders of dominant paradigms through their rebellious strength in their creative expression.
These are professional, empowered women, owners of their bodies, their voices, their talent, and their musical product, who do not allow male individuals to conduct or represent them. However, it has not been easy for the Capelas to secure a place of recognition and respect in the field of traditional music in Portugal. Shattering gender stereotypes and changing discriminatory behavior patterns may require constant practice on a day-to-day basis. For example, Catarina Moura and Silvia Franklim recalled their experiences of discriminatory treatment by sound technicians: Franklim says that many times when they asked for anything on the stage, the technicians ignored them. She’s sure they were treated like that because they were women. On several occasions, Catarina Moura recalls having moments of open confrontation with the technicians, who attempted to deconstruct the group’s practices.
The subordination of women’s place in traditional Portuguese music is reflected not only in daily practices but also across musical structures and hierarchies. Margarida Pinheiro reports that the submission of female voices to musical instruments, generally played by men, resulted in the modification of the modal harmonic structure of some traditional female songs in certain places, with the structure at times disappearing completely.
Margarida Pinheiro also points out that, in some areas of the country, women have had to “adapt” their voices to the requirements of the (male) instrumental ensembles in folkloric groups to have a space to participate and be heard. From her point of view, the typical sonority of feminine singing in the region of Minho, characterized by the emission of very high notes from a “chest” phonatory position (see A. Araújo),Footnote3 is directly related to the effort these women must make to adapt their voices to the tonalities of the melodies of the accordions and the concertinas that accompany them. She explains that these instruments were not part of the traditional songs since they never belonged to the domestic background in which the songs were performed, but were introduced in the ranchos folclóricos to stand out in the folklore competitions that the autocratic regime promoted. Such adaptation to newer instruments has been explored by A. Araújo, who explains how the performative vocal practices of the cantadeiras of Alto Minho were required to be in tune with the tuning used by the concertinas. Since the concertina is a diatonic instrument that does not offer possible tuning changes, “the cantadeiras are required to reach the tones set by this accompaniment at any cost, so eventually they end up pushing their voices” (A. Araújo 103). Additionally, A. Araújo points out that the excessive number of concertinas in some folkloric groups “may jeopardize the sound of other instruments, including the voices” (104).
Segue-me à Capela have played a role in changing these patterns by adapting the rural female voices to more typical women’s vocal ranges to comfortably sing the desired notes, thus achieving more contemporary timbres and being easy to listen to. Achieving these transformations has required a strong will from the Capelas to assert their musical and performative artistic criteria, which has been challenged on many occasions. Catarina Moura evokes the battles they had to fight when they were part of GEFAC, and men who played the instrumental parts (traditionally “considered a more masculine task” [A. Araújo 56]) defined the tonalities of the melodies to be played according to their musical instruments (and their ability to play them). She adds that the imbalance of power persists today. Catarina Moura recalls having to make agreements with the men of the instrumental ensemble to continue with the projects:
There was a moment when I even told Margarida; I cannot tolerate those things. We have to rise up because if we are going to participate, we have to assert our position, and I couldn’t even sleep that night. Later we spoke with them, and things were as we wanted. Respect for the range of the [female] voices is the least important thing; therefore, in these things, there is still a lot to be done!
An element that reinforces the autonomous position of the Capelas for the execution of their music is the choice of percussion as accompaniment to their songs, which is not accidental but rather obeys a strategy of creative and musical freedom since this type of instrument allows them to move quickly between melodies, without tying them to a particular key. The percussionists who have worked with them are not part of the group but are hired for their shows. The Capelas thus switch the traditional logic of the subordination of female voices to the instruments and achieve a balance between melody and rhythm, which is a differentiating element of the group.
We value the intervention of the percussion because it allows the construction of richer environments, not only in rhythmic terms but also timbral and, furthermore, because the percussion sets a “layout” of the singing itself. Sometimes to build a dialogue, sometimes to make the vocal interventions more powerful. The percussion always emerges in equal strength with the voice. (“Segue-me … O canto”)
Segue-me à Capela has used traditional female polyphonies as a form of resistance in traditional Portuguese music, achieving a space for recognition and representation through apparently banal actions such as validating their musical criteria in front of sound technicians, to other structural ones, such as challenging the subordination of female voices to instruments, traditionally performed by men.
Conclusions
Segue-me à Capela arose when the context of traditional Portuguese music did not offer a favorable environment for polyphonic singing groups of women. Firstly, this type of singing was not visible on the folklore stages, despite the fact that in the rural context of traditional society polyphonic singing has been practiced assiduously by many groups of women in Portugal. Secondly, multipart singing by women was associated with ranchos folclóricos, whose acoustic and performative aesthetics were dismissed by a large part of the Portuguese public. Thirdly, female singing was in a place of subalternation compared to other folkloric or traditional musical expressions.
Segue-me à Capela had to develop inclusion and resilience strategies to overcome the unwelcoming environment and to persist until today. These strategies have included, 1) implementing a different appropriation of musical traditions; 2) giving their music a show format, performing on stage what traditionally women could only sing at home; 3) carrying out workshops of traditional polyphonic singing of women; 4) challenging the subordination of female voices against instruments played by male individuals; and 5) refusing to be directed, conducted, or represented by male individuals. In this way, they have exercised a feminist artivism, through their acts of performance (on the display of their musical show) and performativity (through the unconscious public reiteration of signs, acts, and texts expressed in their music, by means of their voice, and through their bodies). Their approach transgresses patterns and gender stereotypes around the traditional polyphonic singing of women, proposing other ways of constituting subjectivity, through patterns of corporality and musical beauty different from the traditional, and allowing for them and for other similar groups to reach the stages of folklore representation, to gain respect, acceptance and recognition of their musical product and to subvert the place of subalternation that women occupied in the traditional music of Portuguese society.
While there were only two similar groups when Segue-me à Capela formed in 1999, today there is a growing number of urban polyphonic singing groups of women in Portugal, a trend that has been encouraged by the candidacy process for the inscription of the Canto a Vozes de Mulheres in the National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Portugal (see Pacheco).
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Additional information
Notes on contributors
Luísa Fernanda Ochoa Márquez
Luísa Ochoa is a master’s student in Ethnomusicology and Popular Music Studies at the University of Aveiro, Portugal.
Notes
1. “Canto a Vozes de Mulheres” was the name created during a plenary session. in March 2020 attended by approximately 360 female and male singers to refer to singing with three, four, or five voices successively overlapping, without instrumentation, in a predominantly parallel movement, sung by women, sometimes with the support of men in the lower voices, in the center and north of Portugal (Pestana).
2. All translations from Portuguese to English by author.
3. “The most representative voice characteristics include high and strong voice, with strident timbre, the prevalence of chest register with a non-excessive level of effort, good intelligibility of the text and regional support” (A. Araújo 11). An example can be found in the “Rancho Folclórico” video on YouTube.
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