1203 | 880 | Luanda’s Kuduro in Angolan cinema: emerging alternative imaginaries of urban inhabiting | Lavínia Pereira; Andrea Pavoni; Simone Tulumello
After experiencing the end of their world twice, Angolan people strive in the ruins of colonialism, war and oil-driven capitalism. By looking into recently produced cinema in the urban context of Luanda we expect to find emerging imaginaries of possible urban inhabiting beyond Promethean sociotechnical imaginaries, global forms of neoliberal urbanism, and state corruption and autocracy. Researching imaginaries of urbanization in popular culture produced in post-independence Luanda allows us to observe overlapping imaginaries of dispossession and violence as well as embodiment and urban effervescence. By looking into the peripheral and under-theorized context of Luanda, as well as to its cultural production, we intend to investigate everyday practices of ‘inhabiting the uninhabitable’ and their potential to open alternative urban futures. We will present the results of a thematic analysis of a selected group of documentary films produced in Luanda between 2004 and 2014 (from É dreda ser Angolano to Afripédia X Angola), which witnessed the birth and development of a locally produced music and dance – the Kuduro. First born as a street dance, a performed including odd body movements (a mix of everyday gestures, with hip-hop, semba, techno, etc.) in the most peripheral neighborhoods of Luanda – the musekes -, Kuduro was quickly adopted as the rhythm and the voice of the ghetto, as a form of resistance, produced in improvised local studios, circulated through informal networks and, often illegal, transport vehicles (candongueiros). From Luanda to Lisbon, and then to the world, Kuduro was first received with suspicion then with curiosity and enthusiasm; it soon became a symbol of Angolanidade. By analyzing these documentary films we aim to investigate how Kuduro was and still can be understood as a ‘community activator’ with the potential to trigger the deployment of other ways of togetherness and belonging while re-imagining alternative ways of urban space production.
Lavínia Pereira; Andrea Pavoni; Simone Tulumello
Instituto de Ciências Sociais – Universidade de Lisboa; DINÂMIA’CET – ISCTE
ID Abstract: 880