Abstract:
Santo Daime, an ayahuasca religion of the Brazilian Amazon founded in 1930, has as one of its major practices a dance called the bailado that generates energetic currents through collective rocking. Practitioners take on roles of both audience and performer when dancing the bailado and engage in transcorporeal discourse with various beings. Drawing from Santo Daime hymns, participant observation and personal journal entries as a daimista, this paper argues that the bailado decolonizes dance in three ways: as part of a unique caboclo knowledge system; through cultivation of collective subjectivities by participants; and by challenging Eurocentric definitions of dance.
Keywords:
Santo Daime; Bailado; Ayahuasca; Transcorporeality; Decolonial Dance