Lidia Benavides y Pilar Perez (Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain). Inauguraciones en exposiciones de arte: Un ritual contemporaneo. (Panel 5)

Proponemos un paseo por el ambito del arte en la actualidad desde el fenomeno de las inauguraciones de exposicidn. Analizamos, en diferentes tipos de espacios expositivos, el ritual de la inauguracidn. El punto de vista es el de la estetica y la antropologia visual, a partir de una decodificacion de las imdgenes rituales. Observamos los diferentes participantes en las inauguraciones: espectadores, artista, galerista, criticos de arte, familiares y amigos, periodistas; los distintos tipos de espacio de exposicion; la decoracian del escenario festivo; Ia presencia de la comida y bebida de celebracion; el tiempo en el que ocurre. El recorrido lo presentamos con una serie de imagenes recogidas a troves de un trabajo de campo realizado a lo largo de cinco meses en el presente ono. Observamos la presencia de estereotipos culturales, items de diferencia social, clase, estatus y.cdmo se va reelaborando la construccion de la figura del artista.

Stanley Brandes (University of California, USA). Spirituality, Space, and Ceremony: Alcoholics Anonymous and Popular Religion in Mexico City. (Panel 7)

Since its inception in 1935, Alcoholics Anonymous--the original, paradigmatic twelve-step program--has acquired an enormous international following. AA is not only spiritual in ideology and practice; the organization is also an historical outgrowth of a particular religious tradition, Protestantism. It is for this reason that observers long thought that AA could never become a substantial presence in Latin America and other predominantly Catholic countries. Experience. has proven this prediction wrong. In Mexico City alone there are now more than 1500 Alcoholics Anonymous groups. Thousands of other groups can be found in cities and towns across the entire Mexican Republic. Focusing on ritual symbolism in a working class, male AA group, this paper seeks ,to explain the success of Alcoholics Anonymous in Mexico City. Fieldwork observations demonstrate that the AA meeting, which constitutes the core of the program, may be interpreted as a sacred rite.

Brenda Bustos (Colegio de la Frontera Norte, Mexico). La fiesta de la boda en el noroeste de Mexico: La transformacion de una tradicion. (Panel 5)

En el noreste de Mexico, la fiesta de la boda es un suceso ligado atiri a to religioso donde la comunidad familiar o vecinal se da cite en uno de los pocos espacios que las transformaciones sociales han dejado sobrevivir. be esta manera, mi trabajo de investigacion da cuenta de la relevancia de este festejo pars percibir los cambios sociales y la relacion boda-comunidad en la region norestense de Mexico; to cual realizare a troves del andlisis a troves de tres niveles o ejes: a) religioso; b) social; y c) festivo o It dico. Empleando la entrevista a profundidad, asi come la observacion participante y la fotografia, ademos de la inmersion total o autobiografia, Ilego a la idea de que en las bodas se pone de manifiesto el rigor de la estructura familiar asi come el sentimiento ltdico-festivo de los grupos sociales del dmbito rural y urbano del noreste mexicano, edemas de constituir esta fiesta, come ya lo mencione, un espacio sobreviviente a la transformacion social de nuestras tradiciones.

Ana Cara (Oberlin College, USA). Parading Race in the Buenos Aires Carnival. (Panel 2)

Just as blacks were "disappearing" from the Buenos Aires scene and immigrants were flooding into Argentina at the end of the 19th century, carnival comparsas (musical and dance groupings) of elite, white, rich boys began parading in black-face and performing tangos. My presentation examines the transition of musical and dance traditions as performed by blacks, by whites in black-face, and finally by whites, and discusses the importance of the carnival arena for this rehearsal of culture across color lines.

Judith Cohen (University of Toronto, Canada). Sephardic Music in Imagined Jewish Festivals in Spain. (Panel 7)

Over the past several years, the "Road to Sefarad"(Camino de Sefarad) has led to the development of festivals presented as survivals of medieval Jewish culture in Spain. This paper will examine the use of Sephardic and other music in these festivals and its role in the creation of a neo-Jewish identity for both the people in the village and the perception of them by visitors to the festivals. The two main Spanish towns examined will be Ribadavia (Galicia) and Hervas (Extremadura).

Rachel Delgado-Simmons (George Mason University, USA). 'Transcending Ritual and Sacred Space: Image and a Maya Demigod in Exhibit, Design, and Cyberspace. (Panel 8)

Maximon is a Maya syncretic deity in Guatemala, a convergence of pre-Columbian Maya gods and imposed Catholic religion. Like other Maya gods, Maximon grants favors but also honors 'evil' requests, such as curses upon one's enemy, in exchange for offerings of cigars, liquor, and money. In war-torn Guatemala, the Ladinos or Mestizos are the dominant group in a country with the largest Indian population in Central America. Maya Indians have an antithetical relationship with Ladinos: while Indians are romanticized as commodified images for tourism (the second largest industry in Guatemala) Ladinos treat them with disdain and violence. In recent years, Maximon has moved from the ritual and sacred space of altars in Maya villages to tourist advertisements for Guatemala. Through visual culture, a text and language are formulated that contribute to how knowledge is created internally and externally.

Mike Dubose (Bowling Green State University, USA) Performances of Nationalism: The Cold War and Mediated Constructions of Nationalism in the Boycotted Olympics of the 1980's. (Panel 2)

This paper will focus on the two boycotted Summer Olympic Games of the 1980s: the American-boycotted 1980 Summer Games held in Moscow, and the Soviet-boycotted 1984 Summer Games of Los Angeles. Both boycotts were enacted for purely political reasons. The politics involved, however, centered around the Cold War--America boycotted the 1980 games, for example, in protest of the Soviet Union's invasion of Afganistan. Though the Olympics are designed as (ideally) a purely athletic competition, the Cold War connotations of both games transformed the respective festivals into grounds for the performance of national identity. This paper will examine how major print journalism outposts (such as Time, Newsweek, and selected major newspapers) represented and performed constructions of nationality in their coverage of the boycotted Olympics.

Mary Hufford (The American Folklife Center, Washington, DC, USA). Keynote Address: Facade Performances, Ecological Crisis, and the Body Politic.

Jorge Ignacio Ibarra (Instituto Tecnico Santa Catalina, Mexico). El deseo en accion: Vestuario, ornamento y sociabilidad en la celebracion tradicional. (Panel 5)

Apoyado en las ideas filosoficas de Gullies Deleuze y la sociologic cualitativa intento profundizar en el deseo (trasladado de su orientacion puramente filosofica a un piano mds social y prdctico como categoria explicativa) como un dispositivo de produccion simbolica del participante adolescente y joven de la celebracion tradicional con el cual pueblo sus ornamentos y vestuarios. A un nivel colectivo se analiza la presencia del deseo en el campo de la celebracion en diversas conductas de sociabilidad que se alternan con la gramdtica o normatividad de la celebracion en un juego entre el deseo como rompimiento y la norma como controladora de la conducta. Asi mismo, el deseo se analiza tambien en la modificacidn del vestuario utilizando una lectura semiotica de Ios diversos simbolos urbanos y de carccter Iudico o estetico (no religiosos) operantes sobre lo simbolico tradicional. El trabajo concluye con una interpretacion del deseo en Ios tres niveles ya mencionados; el interno o del participante, el social o colectivo, y finalmente en el material o del ornamento y vestuario. Esta interpretacion da pie a su vez a una confrontacion entre el deseo como articulador de las aspiraciones de un espacio sagrado y estetico entre los jovenes confrontado con los espacios urbanos de entretenimiento y sociabilidad.

Marion Jacobson (New York University, USA). Passover in Public. (Panel 1)

Since the heyday of the Jewish labor movement in the 1920s and 1930s, a significant feature of leftist Yiddish culture in North America was public and private debate about appropriate celebrations of Jewish holidays. For the Jewish socialists and communist sympathizers, the concept of celebrating Passover in public became the nexus of a tradition of public pageantry drawing on diverse sources: the sacred rites of observant Jews, the Yiddishists' zeal to preserve jewish vernacular culture, and the American folksong movement of the 1960s. Since the 1940s, the Workmen's Circle has presented its Cultural Seder, a dramatization of the biblical Passover story combining liturgical dances, choral performances, and dramatic readings. The dialogue among different musical elements, performance practices, and the problematic notion of celebrating a Jewish holiday for an "audience" makes the very notion of a cultural seder a rich and ambiguous one. This presentation will be illustrated by color slides and audio recordings from my fieldwork documentation of cultural seders.

Lucy Long (Bowling Green State University, USA). Dynamics of Meaning in an American Apple Butter Festival. (Panel 3)

Apple butter is a food traditional to northwest Ohio, an area on the edge of the Midwestern plateau of the United States; settled predominantly by German immigrants during the 19th century. Historically, apple butter was a means of preserving the autumn apple harvest and was usually eaten as a condiment spread on bread. It was generally made outdoors, slowly cooked in large kettles over an open fire, a technique also used for making ketchups from tomatoes and other vegetables. Since 1978 it has been celebrated at the annual Grand Rapids Apple Butter Festival, which now draws over 100,000 people. In this paper I analyze the layers of meaning attached to apple butter by this festival and explore the processes by which meanings have been intensified, adapted, and invented. The multiplicity of layers helps to explain the success of this food as an emblem of heritage, a festival theme, and a symbol of contemporary identity.

Lucas Marchante (University of Pennsylvania, USA). Evolution of Spanish Royal Festivals (1461-1700). (Panel 8)

This paper explores the evolution of the forms in which the image of the king is represented in theatrical festivals for the entertainment and praise of the noble and royal courts in Spain from the fifteenth century to the end of the reign of the last Hapsburg king, Charles II. The representation of the King's image would be fashioned relative to an assumed connection, or proximity, to the divinity. The evolution of these forms of theatrical festivals are part of an extensive program of divinization of the king by means of genealogical fabrication that also includes the visual arts. It is the case of the progressive formation of a theater state, in Geertz's terms, in which the court, and the sovereign in the middle as the main character, present themselves as the exemplary center of Christendom and empire.

Jose Angel Montiel and Damian Muiioz Paris (Documentary directors). El latido del Niger en Cuba. (Saturday, June 10, 11:45 am)

Cuba experimenta hoy en din un regreso a las raices espirituales que la configuran como una nacion profundamente mestiza. Los ritos y costumbres de los antiguos esclavos africanos provenientes de la cuenca del rio Niger, mezclados con el catolicismo de origen espafiol han producido nuevas religiones: Ia Santeria y el Palo
Monte. La concepcion del mundo que promueven convierte la isla en un lugar donde cualquier hecho de indole magica es aceptado con normalidad. 5e trata de un universo donde los muertos y los santos concursan en la vida de los hombres que a su vez, a traves de la religion y sus oficiantes tratan de ganarse el favor de fuerzas desconocidas y vencer los obstaculos y sus enemigos. Tal es el fervor que se tiene de ritos y lenguas ancestrales que parece que Africa permanezca viva en Cuba. Este documental se adentra en las estancias mas profundas y secretas de las religiones donde los santos bajan a posesionarse de los creyentes entre el extasis producido por los tambores, donde los brujos extraen a los muertos de sus sepulturas para esclavizarlos, donde la magia y la realidad se confunden. El latido del Niger en Cuba supone un gran paso adelante en el esfuerzo por aproximarnos a unas cultural desconocidas y envueltas en una nebulosa de misterio. Guinn: Jose Angel Montiel; documentacion y produccion: Natalia de Ancos; fotografia: Mario Sanchez Linaje; montaje: Manuel Casted; Locucion: Juli Mira. Producida por Producciones del Pez, Lolita Films y Natalia de Ancos en coproducciOn con NISA, SL.

This film contains brief scenes of animal sacrifice.

Michael Murry (University of Pennsylvania, USA). Join Proud Irishmen and Limerick Men: Rituals of Ethnicity and Protest in the Burn(bash)ing of Angela's Ashes.

It is a week before Saint Patrick's day and about seventy people have gathered at Dave Crowe's pub, Lily Flanagan's, in Rockville Centre, Long Island. The event today was first advertised as a 'book burning' of Frank McCourt's popular memoir of his childhood in Limerick Ireland, Angela's Ashes. It consequently garnered some international news attention and this attention encouraged a softening in the stance of the event organizers, who in the course of four weeks advertised the the gathering as a 'burning' then 'bashing' and, finally, 'protest'. This essay looks at the idea of a burning as it was first proposed by the community as an attack on a (mis)representation of their identity with attention to the act as a ritual of destruction. And, as the burning was softened to protest, the essay follows the subduing of the community's discourse against the memoir as it was played out in the media attention to the event, its advertisement and the actual protest. Also of importance to this question is the role of Lily Flanagan's as the site of the community's protest, reading carefully the role of this pub and its mural of Limerick as surrogates for the city itself.

Carmen Ortiz (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Madrid, Spain Gastronomic, turismo y revitalizacion de fiestas en Espana.

Unusual and new forms of cooking and eating are intimately associated with traditional celebrations. Spain is characterized by a great variety of public rituals and festivities, where different forms of gathering are performed and many kinds of special foods are consumed. After the 1970s a great movement of revitalization of ancient festivities -and the re-creation and even invention of new ones- took place. Very often the food and specifically certain meals were the main points on which the rituals focused. In this paper I analyse the economic and political factors that contributed to the identification of many villages and towns with their food products, and the choice of the public holiday as a privileged time for their consumption by both the local people and the foreign tourists.

Marcia Ostashewska (York University, Canada). Reclaiming Spaces, Contested Places: A Ukrainian Cultural Festival in Poland.

In June of 1997, I conducted fieldwork at the Ukrainian Cultural Festival in Przemysl, Poland. Ukrainians who gathered there, most of whom now live scattered across Poland, were displaced from their homeland when they were forcibly relocated after WW II. This festival, I argue, functions as a site of intense negotiation; the sounds and songs people choose to perform, debate about, listen to, dance to, and produce are important means by which these Ukrainians create senses of local identity in direct relation and in conflict with other Ukrainian communities worldwide. Drawing on ethnographic data collected at the festival (audio and videorecordings, photographs, interviews and fieldnotes), I describe how these Ukrainians use the social and political spaces and performance places of this politically controversial festival to reclaim contested cultural and geographic territory.

Mauricio Parade (Universidad Catolica de Rio de Janeiro, Brasil). Youth's Day and the Hour of Independence.

The efforts of the Brazilian Estado Novo, established by &etulio. Vargas in November of 1937, were marked by a pedagogical. effort to reconstruct the limits of the idea of the nation. Adopting a model of the authoritarian state, the political groups that occupied the political power in Brazil-mainly in the positions of Ministry of Education and Health - forged a new calendar and a new civic culture that dramatized, in the public sphere, the incorporation of several social sectors within the new political project. This article examines two ceremonies of that new calendar: Youth's Day and the Hour of Independence. Both were observed during the Week of the Homeland in September, and focused primarily on students enrolled in the public and private education system. The articulation between the civic ceremonies and the school practices was, therefore, one of the most important strategies for the incorporation of the child into the symbolic body of the nation.

Pilar Perez (Universidad Autonoma). See "Lidia Benavides and Pilar Perez."

Guillermo de los Reyes (University of Pennsylvania) and Paul Rich (Universidad de (as Americas, Mexico). The Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine: Ritual Plagiarism.

A men's secret fraternal order, the Mystic Shrine was organized in New York City in 1872, but claimed to be a continuation of an organization founed in AD 656. Its rituals are based on Islamic motifs and some of its costumes are taken from the Zouaves. Members must either have taken all the degrees in the York or Scottish Rites of Masonry. The Shrine is famous for its children's hospitals, the East-West Football Bowl at Stanford each year, the red fez worn by members, its sponsorship of circuses, and its highly colorful annual meetings. This paper examines a common ingredient of secret societies in the nineteenth century, the claim to be a much older movement with a legendary past. Members had to deal with the problems presented by an actual recent founding, which if acknowledged meant a loss of prestige and mystique. How a more romantic and glamorous past was invented and defended is an example of the invention of fable and myth.

Paul Rich (Universidad de las Americas, Mexico). See "Guillermo de los Reyes and Paul Rich."

Nathan Richardson (Bowling Green State University, USA). The Mark of the Beast and Other Ritual Spaces in Contemporary Spain.

At the beginning of Spanish director Alex de la Iglesia s 1995 comedy, E/ dia de /a best/a (The Day of the Beast), a gigantic cross collapses on a Catholic priest crushing him just as he is about to begin an unsung crusade against Satan himself on the fin de siec%streets of the Spanish capitol of Madrid. The end of the film finds his companion, still alive, in the company of a palm reading charlatan scaling the heights of the most distinctive building of Madrid's postmodern business district in search of the devil, who has made the tilting twin-towered high rise his terrestrial cathedral. My paper will compare such obvious ritual events as Seville's Holy Week and Toledo's Corpus Christi with secular rituals such as bullfighting, arguing for the key spatialization occurring through these events. I will show how such contemporary activities as cruising the M-30 (Madrid s beltway) or the Castellana (Madrid's equivalent of the Champs Elysees), or even simply passing through the Puerto del Sol provides ritual experience that offers to today's Spanish youth a meaningful historical and cultural identity.

Jack Santino (Bowling Green State University, USA) Keynote Address: Reinventing Ritual (as Public Display).

The end of the twentieth century has seen the development of a great many public symbolic events and forms, from the Million Mom March (for gun control) in Washington, DC this past Mothers' Day to the commemoration of holocaust victims by placing markers on railroad tracks in Germany. At the same time, scholars from a great many disciplines, including but not restricted to anthropology, folklore studies, history, and performance studies, have produced important works in a field that can be characterized as unified and which includes holidays, ritual, festival, celebration, and public display events within its purview. This interdisciplinarity reflects the overlapping and hybrid nature of the events found in praxis and also of the porous nature of the analytical categories. It is no accident that as people are creating and adapting traditional forms to serve new occasions, situations, and purposes, that the study of ritual itself has expanded.

Wanda Sisnroy (Norwich University, USA). What's for Lunch: Ritual and Ethnicity at the Office Potluck.

This paper examines food practices in the workplace. Major office celebrations are mostly marked by food. These include Christmas and Thanksgiving potlucks, and occasions to honor favorite employees who leave the ranks to retire, transfer out of the area, or get a major promotion. Sometimes other celebrations are marked by a specific ethnic food, such as Chinese New Year, Black History Month, Cinco de Mayo and St. Patrick's Day, but the office potluck is the most ecumenical. It allows each employee to either display their ethnicity with a family
dish, or neatly hides it behind an American food such as broccoli salad, or a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. In this paper I will examine how foodways break down the small barriers that divide ethnic work populations.

Cory W. Thorne (University of Pennsylvania, USA). On the Edge of the World: Revival/Re-Creation of Community and Tradition at the Brimstone and Burin Folk Festivals in Newfoundland, Canada.

During the past two decades, folk festivals have developed into core tools for the defining of various communities and regions of Newfoundland. They have been adopted trough out the island as a way of attracting tourist dollars, celebrating local talent, and teaching tradition. Some of these festivals, such as the seventeen year old Burin Peninsu/a Festiva/ of Folk Song and Dance, place a strong emphasis on "authenticity," on the need to protect cultural history form outside and contemporary influences. Others, such as Fogo Island's sixteen year old Brimstone Head Folk Festiva/, place a greater stress on community entertainment, with a redefinition of authenticity to favor Newfoundland music as series of living, reflexive genres. These differences in approach have created very different festivals, with similar functions but equally problematic contrasts. By . analyzing the functions and debates of both these festivals, I will demonstrate the power of folk festivals in the formation of and reflection on community and national identity.