The presentation of performance theory in Performing Brazil is innovative and interesting across multiple genres and national and international contexts. The analyses of the performance of the Brazilian diaspora in particular are important contributions to Brazilian cultural studies, allowing for a reconsideration of Oswald de Andrade's concept of antropofagia, or cultural cannibalism in a postmodern, transnational context. Brazilianness and hybridity of the foreign and native are explored in a national context more familiar to the discipline but also from the outside looking in, highlighting fascinating instances of what Benedict Anderson would call the “long-distance nationalism” (or lack thereof) of various US Brazilian communities.
Following Kathryn Bishop-Sanchez's helpful theoretical introduction on performance, most of the remaining chapters can be divided into two groups, based on whether they frame Brazilian culture and the performance of Brazilianness in a more national or international context of production and circulation. Chapters 2, 3, 10,...
