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From the video recording of the DVD "O Jongo na Serrinha: um tributo à Mestre Darcy" - "An example of joyfulness, drum beating and African tradition, Jongo is one of the greatest relics of the Brazilian popular music and considered one of the ancestors of Samba. This film is about the Jongo da Serrinha, a group created in 2000 to preserve the Jongo tradition." .
The elderly dancer featured in the clip is known as "Tia Maria" whose full name is Maria de Lourdes Mendes, is one of the oldest (87-yrs-old) living practitioners of jongo, a ritual preserved by escaped African slaves and their descendents in Rio de Janeiro and its neighboring states.
Afro-Brazilians used jongo to honor their ancestors, to sing of the pangs of slavery, and even, researchers say, to communicate with one another in a code their overseers couldn’t understand. With its innuendo-inflected storytelling, its call-and-response lyrics, and its competitive yet playful pairings of encircled dancers, jongo is seen by folklorists as a great-grandparent of the treasured samba. A few years ago, it was in danger of dying out, but with the help of a Brazilian government program called Griô Action, jongo and other cultural practices are being rerouted away from history’s dustbin and into the 21st century.
Jongo's rebirth ( Unesco.org )
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