|
|
DANCE LEST WE
ALL FALL DOWN
| |
|
|
|
Join Margaret at an event near you
|
10/21/10 at 7 p.m.
University Book Store
Margaret will be joined by a live Samba band!
11/6/10 at 4 p.m.
Seattle Public Library, with Elliott Bay Books
11/14/10 at 4 p.m.
Village Books
|
|
|
See a video on Dance Lest We All Fall Down here.
For details on events or
Dance Lest We All Fall Down, please contact Rachael Levay at (617) 871.0295 or remann@u.washington.edu
|
|
|
An unexpected detour can change the course of our lives forever, and,
for white American anthropologist Margaret Willson, a stopover in Brazil
led to immersion in a kaleidoscopic world of street urchins,
capoeriristas, drug dealers, and wise teachers. She and African
Brazilian activist Rita Conceicao joined forces to break the cycles of
poverty and violenc around them by pledging local residents they would
create a top-quality educational program for girls. From 1991 to the
graduation of Bahia Street's first college-bound graduate in 2005,
Willson and Conceicao's adventure took them to the shantytowns of
Brazil's Northeast, high-society London, and urban Seattle.
In a
narrative brimming with honesty and grace, Dance Lest We All Fall Down unfolds the story of this remarkable alliance, showing how friendship,
when combined with courage, insight, and passion, can transform dreams
of a better world into reality.
"Always poignant and often
productively uncomfortable, Dance Lest We All Fall Down is a highly
personal, beautifully written, and theoretically sophisticated
ethnography of modern connections in Brazil's northeast that focuses on
the successes as well as the shortcomings of non-governmental
institutions and contemporary means of addressing social inequality."
-John Collins, Anthropology, City University of New York
"An
ideal text for classroom discussions about the cultural politics of
development. Dance Lest We All Fall Down illustrates both how
transnational solidarity can improve livelihoods and how it is not free
from the tensions and contradictions that have always accompanied
outside efforts to 'do good' in the Global South. This book gives
proponents and skeptics of NGOs plenty to think about." -Maria Elena
Garcia, Comparative History of Ideas and the Henry M. Jackson School of
International Studies, University of Washington
"A very moving
tale about race, gender, and class in the 'Capital of Happiness' in
Brazil, Bahia...and a powerful and personal account of succeeding
against the odds in breaking the cycle of poverty for young poor black
girls there...Beautifully illustrates that, yes, it can be done through
local empowerment and determination." -Darius Mans, President, Africare
"A
classic in the making. Under the guise of an easygoing and well-written
travelogue, we are taken away into the unbelievable story of Bahia
Street. And we come out of it bewildered and refreshed....If
true-to-life anthropology can be this breathtaking, who needs fiction?"
-Dr. Robert Boonzajer Flaes, Founder and Chair of the Atana Program,
Amsterdam
"Inspiring, unique, and perfectly honest. The idea that
street girls can actually escape a life of poverty and destruction
through schooling and education is as old as the world. Bringing this
idea from a nineteenth-century Victorian fiction setting to the real
life slums of a Brazilian favela at the turn of the twenty-first century
is an adventure...and at times enormously funny. Some books talk about
life. Some books give you insight. And once in a blue moon you find a
book like this that gives life." -Dr. Maaike Verrips, director of De
Taalstudio, Amsterdam
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The 