Contra-Dança: Ritual e Festa de um Povo

Abstract

The subject of this dissertation is the counter-dance as cultural, religious and artistic manifestation in the Divine’s Feast, Pentecost, even in Pirenópolis as in Santa Cruz. The categories used to interpretate this social fact will be the concepts of tradition, memory and identity. The principal purpose is to study the counter-dance as fundamental element of this ritual and how the comunity live the local memory, tradition, and identity through its construction and continuous reconstruction in the history. It intends to look at the Divine’s Feast as the most expressive popular manifestation of Pirenópolis and Santa Cruz. The dissertation intends to prove that the counter-dance is an important fact to the construction of the local identity. The informations were collected through the observation, opened interview, questionnaires, and abundant bibliografic documents. Through the research it checked up that, in fact, the counter-dance in the Pentecost Feast is one of the fundamental elements to compose the identity of Pirenópolis and Santa Cruz, at the same time that is transmitted still nowadays from generation to generation and compose the memory of the local citizens.