The Transnational Flow of Women, Sounds, and Activism: Women Making Music in and Between Brazil and Canada

This project examines the relationship between female musicians in music scenes in Toronto and in the cities of Salvador and Recife in Brazil. Female performers from Brazil and other Latin American countries, as well as Canadian-born female musicians make up the majority and the backbone of the Brazilian music scene in Toronto. As these performers move between Brazil and Canada, so do they bring with them both musical practices and worldviews that have in turn shaped their local contexts. Recently, many of these female musicians have begun to organize all-female groups and events and use the performance of various Brazilian musical traditions to make political statements addressing the status of women. Under the auspices of the Mitacs Globalink Research Award, I intend to examine the connections between this woman-identified scene in Toronto and its roots in Brazil, and elucidate the role of music and transnational migration in the development of group identification.

Faculty Supervisor:

Jeff Packman

Student:

Amy Katherine Medvick

Partner:

Discipline:

Music

Sector:

University:

University of Toronto

Program:

Globalink