Macau to Dance at the 2008 Olympics
The Macau Song and Dance Troupe
(Grupo de Danças e Cantares de Macau)
will be present at the pre-opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games. Director João Fonseca recounts the group’s history, recalling some adventures and triumphs they’ve had along the way.
This August, Beijing has the opportunity to show the world a glimpse of historic Portugal, letting curious spectators wonder what could have brought these men with capes of straw from the countryside to their corner of the world and what these black-clad women whisper to each other under their breath. Little more than three months remain until the 2008 Olympic Games kick off, when the Macau Song and Dance Troupe (Grupo de Danças e Cantares de Macau) will represent Portuguese culture at the event’s pre-opening festivities.
The group owes its upcoming presence in Beijing to the Macau Sport Development Board, who has also offered another side of Macau’s culture, Tai Chi Chuan, to the Games’ organisers. Travelling to the capital in August is a traditional Portuguese folkloric ensemble in which half of the dancers and musicians are Chinese, selected no doubt as a symbol of cultural union to reflect the diversity of the People’s Republic of China. That being said, director of the Macau Song and Dance Troupe João Fonseca doesn’t concern himself with the political ramifications of the choice – always a temptation when speaking of options for Beijing 2008. “It is a great honour. We will present a show of Portuguese culture, and framed as it is within such a large-scale event, the performance is sure to evoke surprise. It will be no different from what we always do, featuring our dances and instruments, but we are a group from Macau. That is our special quality, what set us apart and always has.”
The group’s artists are not without a touch of nerves, however. “This is a great responsibility,” Fonseca admits. “Though we are amateurs, we must be professional. It will be a great effort, and all of us must give our best. We are already working hard, but there will surely be moments of anxiety.” He declares, with a glint in his eye, that this quintessential celebration of sport will be a tribute to culture, as well. “This event is a grand cultural happening, the biggest of them all. The opening and closing ceremonies, the raising and lowering of the Olympic flag, are moments of highest cultural importance.”
This is not the first time the folkloric group will perform for China’s top officials – they were photographed with PRC President Hu Jintao at the Macau SAR’s 5th Anniversary Celebrations – nor will it be their first trip to Beijing. “We were in the Temple of Heaven, that incredibly beautiful, ancient place. The old guys were seated on those plastic chairs, watching us. Imagine the impact! That made a big impression on us!” Fonseca recalls. The ensemble has a 17-year touring history, with excursions to Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam. At times, those voyages presented hazards difficult for the amateur group to navigate. “Once, at a large-scale event, we had to dance on a glass stage, and on the day of the show it was extremely humid. That was complicated,” he laughs.
The only thing that annoys Fonseca are performances that are too brief: “It is a shame when we only have time to dance two numbers. We are just getting warmed up, and they send us away. Motivation is the most important thing for any group.” Now on their way to the Games’ pre-opening ceremony, the ensemble’s morale is high. “A party is a party. It will be contagious, and we’ll have a lot of fun on that stage. We are a happy people, and Macau is imbued with that spirit.”
Apart from their upcoming mission as cultural envoys to the Chinese capital, the Macau Song and Dance Troupe has planted seeds in another part of Asia, lending support to a new folkloric group from Singapore. The Troupe sent them instruments and repertoire and translated their songs to an approximation of the Kristang Creole, a Portuguese-influenced dialect spoken by the small community with mixed European and Asian ancestry from Malacca and Singapore. “They don’t speak Portuguese, but they identify with our culture. They were delighted. We are not exactly ambassadors, but we serve a little in that capacity.”
The road to recognition
post-Handover
The Macau Song and Dance Troupe was formed in 1991 by several Portuguese enthusiasts. Today, it counts around 40 members, half of them Portuguese and the rest Chinese, Macanese or Indian. It was established, João Fonseca says, to fill a void in Macau at a time when there existed no cultural association to promote Portuguese traditions. They chose to dedicate themselves to folklore, but for some time they also promoted other Portuguese arts, such as fado singing. Due to a lack of members trained in fado in recent years, however, the group has renewed its focus on traditional dance.
The ensemble’s rise to renown accelerated after the Handover. “After 1999, we began performing more and more,” Fonseca recalls. “The group gained maturity and recognition. We were approached by several Government institutions and, increasingly, by private entities, and we started organising our own events, as well.”
One of the group’s most active founding members was former Technical Director Abel Moura, who gathered a large part of their artistic repertoire and performed as a musician on the accordion. He organised a tour to Portugal, the group’s first, in 2003. Despite having his passport already full of stamps from previous performing excursions, this trip was a landmark voyage for João Fonseca. The cultural roots and folkloric references present in the group’s dances and songs are always explained to each member, but the native soil has a spirit that memory cannot convey. “Our Chinese members breathed Portugal in,” remembers Fonseca. “They understood why we dance this way and felt the spirit of it. They adored it.”
Direct from Portugal
“Our group’s motto is this: do as our ancestors did,” João Fonseca continues. The ensemble’s equipment is procured in Portugal, from the traditional costumes to the instruments, and, of course, so are the songs and regional customs. The association sends special envoys to research the best-preserved aspects of Portuguese culture. The problem is transporting their discoveries to the other side of the world.
“Just two weeks ago we brought five bass drums from Portugal. We have many people working for us, gathering the best costumes and equipment to suit our needs. The wardrobe and accessories are the most difficult part, because everything is quite expensive,” he laments. The importing is done piece by piece, in the luggage of Portuguese members returning from holidays in their native land. “Now the airlines are measuring baggage by the gram, and we pay enormous surcharges. The fees on the bass drums were nearly equal to the price of the instruments themselves.”
The band features the traditional Portuguese bagpipe as well as guitars, the smaller four-string cavaquinho, bass guitars, bamboo rasps and triangles. Made by hand in Portugal, the instruments must make another overseas trip should they be damaged. “Luckily, we haven’t had any serious accidents,” he says. Fonseca longs to add a concertina to the instrumentation. “We have yet to find a man or woman who could bring that sound to the group. It’s an instrument played from the heart, usually by a self-taught musician, and it’s something we lack.” His group does not have a music school but does its best with weekly rehearsals. “Sometimes it’s difficult to find someone new to play the
triangle, but there’s really no need, since anyone can do it,” he jokes.
The group’s costumes reflect every corner of the Portuguese nation. Though the traditional dress from the northern region of Minho is the one most often associated with Portugal by tourists, the ensemble insists on representing the regional style of each area equally, from the hats of Madeira to the hoop skirts of the Algarve to the straw capes of the mountains. The dances, as well, mirror the daily life from various parts of rural Portugal at the end of the 19th century. “The time of harvest or the wine festival were celebrated differently in each region with typical dances that varied according to the local custom,” Fonseca explains. His wife, Maria José Vaz, who is responsible for the group’s choreography, adds that even within communities of less than one hundred inhabitants, variations in the choreography can arise from small-town rivalries, when two competing groups strive to out-dance each other.
Maria José Vaz is not shy about revealing the source of her choreographic inspiration: “Our dances are created after watching another traditional, regional group perform. This is not stealing. This is our culture, and it belongs to all Portuguese. These are the old ways, which we believe to be the most genuine.” These traditions are brought to life in the Macau group’s repertoire of 150 dances and musical numbers.
Preserving identity
João Fonseca stresses that he does not look back at the high point of Portuguese history as a colonialist, nor does he dwell on thoughts of the former empire. Nevertheless, he laments that today, the Portuguese shrink from their past. “Our folklore, for those who don’t know it – and it’s a shame that many Portuguese are not aware of our traditions – is extremely rich, and it’s present in much more than just the costumes which preserve the 19th-century way of life.”
His group includes some 40 members, but not all of them perform in each show. They participate as their individual schedules permit, but just as with the majority of cultural associations with regional interests, there is a lack of interest. “The group hasn’t been the same since 1999; we used to have more singers, musicians and dancers. These days we are missing key persons at times,” Fonseca laments.
The Portuguese that come to Macau today are different from émigrés living elsewhere in the diaspora. “They are not like the ones who went to work in Brazil or Argentina. Those people sang in their homeland and continued to do so outside.” By contrast, the Portuguese who come here have preconceptions. “They have a complex, a notion that Portuguese folklore is distasteful, rustic, provincial, a thing of the past. But all cultures go through this phase,” he observes. He remembers that fado was also once considered reactionary and is now topping the music charts.
“I am not a psychologist, nor am I a thinker, but I believe there is greater and greater necessity for nations to safeguard what is disappearing. There are people interested in losing their identity, and the further they can leave it behind, the better. But there are others who are searching for it,” he stresses. The governments, on the other hand, are showing signs that they are willing to preserve culture. Fonseca cites the Macau Administration, which gives sufficient support to his group and shares with it a common vision: “People will come together to defend culture.”
The Macau Song and Dance Troupe perseveres through the ebb and flow of the tide, rehearsing once a week and counting on whoever shows up. Nevertheless, at their last general assembly, in 2007, there were only two members absent. João Fonseca sees this as a sign that “the group is responsible and when they need to pitch in, they do it.” He adds, “Our lives are complicated, but as the saying goes, when the death knell sounds, everyone comes.”