PERMANENT SEMINAR OF THE RESEARCH GROUP ON ETHNOMUSICOLOGY AND STUDIES IN POPULAR MUSIC
29.04.2026 | 2:30 pm-4:30 pm | NOVA FCSH, Av. de Berna, Tower A (Lisbon) | Room A106 | Online
Free entrance, in presence and online.
Moresca(s): A performance da dominação através dos impérios
Francesca Negro | INET-md/NOVA FCSH
This presentation outlines the key findings of an ongoing research project on the development of the theatrical form widely known as the Moresca, or the Battle of Moors and Christians. Originating in the Iberian Peninsula, this form subsequently spread throughout the colonial world, giving rise to related dance‑drama traditions such as Chavittunadakam in Kerala, the Moro‑Moro in the Philippines, and other performance genres shaped by imperial expansion. Through the incorporation of this performance style into sixteenth‑century plays, a new dramatic genre emerged and proliferated across Southern and Central Europe. It became a strategic vehicle for promoting one of the major political projects of the period: the expulsion of Islamic caliphates from Europe and the affirmation of the kingdoms of Castile and Portugal as champions and propagators of Catholicism. Beginning with a critical reconsideration of the European origins of the Moresca as a dance form, the presentation examines how sword‑dance traditions circulated under this name in colonial contexts. After the sixteenth century, missionaries also employed the Moresca in educational programmes for newly conquered territories, transforming it into a mediatic apparatus designed to shape collective emotions against perceived forms of “paganism”. Over time, this dramatic form evolved into a meta‑apparatus for advancing cultural homogenisation. It offers insight into local struggles for mutual acceptance and tolerance within the Iberian colonial empires, bringing together diverse traditions and mythologies on the same stage and performed through the same creolised bodies.
Francesca Negro | Researcher at INET-md, with a background in Comparative Literature and a particular interest in Inter‑Artistic, Performance, and Dance Studies. In 2019, she published Deuses em Cena, a study on the theatricalisation of African dances in Cuba. She has recently co‑edited the volume Marcel Proust em Busca da Arte (Edições Humus, 2023) and the forthcoming Oral Memory of Africans and People of African Descent, to be published by Palgrave Macmillan in the coming weeks. She also collaborates with the Centre for Theatre Studies and the Centre for Comparative Studies at the University of Lisbon, where she has served as a visiting lecturer in Inter‑Art Studies and Intercultural Communication. Her current research focuses on the Moresca, including the origins and dissemination of sword‑dance theatrical traditions as shaped by the imperial politics of the Iberian powers.