Caio Mourão

Biography

PhD candidate in ethnomusicology at NOVA University Lisbon studying fado. Master in ethnomusicology from the University of Brasilia, where he studied musical entrepreneurship in the Brasília market in relation to alternative music schools and dance bands. Graduated in Music Education from the University of Brasilia with a speciality in electric guitar. Teacher at the Professional Education Center Escola de Música de Brasília, where he works in the areas of popular chambre music, electric guitar, arrangement, music production, history and anthropology of music. He is a multi-instrumentalist, arranger, music and cultural producer and a guitar player specializing in Brazilian rhythms.

Doctoral Project

Title “Andam guitarras a gemer de mão em mão”: the bizarreness of fado from and beyond Fado Bicha

Advisor Andrew Snyder

Co-advisor Sofia Aboim (Universidade de Lisboa)

Abstract In this study I examine fado, the greatest representative of Portuguese musical culture, based on the work of Fado Bicha, which can be either the name of a group or a stylistic proposal. A member of the Portuguese so-called “queer-music”, the group defines itself as the first representative of “fado-bicha” or “fado-LGBT+”, which differed from other fado styles by the explicit presence of non-straight and non-cis characters in song lyrics and music video. Through the artivist performances of the drag queen Lila Fadista, which in a parodic way mixed music and political speeches, the group aimed to obtain validation and belonging of the “fadistagem”, while it tried to conquer the major Portuguese and foreign stages, governed by logic of commercial world-music. However, by maintaining their independent debauchery, they fail, both with the fado community and the mainstream, attributing this invalidation to prejudice due to their queerness. However, instead of giving up, it seems that this rejection strengthened their drive for recognition given the crescendo in their scream since then. What can we learn about the borders of fado and world music from an artivist group that demands the explicitness of marginalized genders and sexualities within the hybrid musical language of fado?

Despite being traditional, fado described itself as “bizarre” in several of its poems, which described transgressive behaviors in its community, since its origins as “fado-batido”, a sensual and satirical Afro-Brazilian dance. Its transgression increased when it was used both by the Portuguese Estado Novo and by opponents of the Regime; both by singers who reproduced politically neutral national folklore and female objectification to enter the world-music market, and by fado singers who disseminated their activist landscapes and dissident sexualities independently. As an oral tradition, fado maintained harsh, but impersonal, rites of passage, which disregarded, for example, the sexuality and nationality of its practitioners. Such complexity transgressed the word “queer”, proposed by Fado Bicha, for the understanding of fado. The concept of “bizarre” was born (or revealed), which added musical, racial, socioeconomic and nationality aspects to the queer markers of identity gender and sexuality, in an intersectional way. From this concept it was possible to demonstrate not only the reasons why the FB was invalidated, which concerned the lack of adaptation to fado singer rites of passage and marketing models; as well as clarifying the reason for their incessant search for recognition, that is, the fatalistic fulfillment of their drag destiny, of their fate, which impelled they to shout from the rooftops that they were the greatest of all failures.

Keywords: Bizarreness, fado-batido, queer-music, fado-LGBT

Funding: Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (UI/BD/151216/2021)