Two years after Sinógeno

An anthropophagic experience, from sacrilege to attraction in the city’s anniversary

Abstract

In this work, we reflect on the questions about tradition and modernity in the artistic and cultural perceptions of the bell tradition in the city of São João del-Rei in the state of Minas Gerais. We bring as analysis material the audiovisual EP Sinógeno. When it was disseminated, the work was accompanied by several controversies between those who endorsed its contemporaneity and those who accused it of sacrilege. Two years after publication, there were several response movements from artists, incorporating criticism as an object of discussion and marketing. The result is expressed in the city’s 309th anniversary, where a live performance was held in the center, along with processions and commemorative bells. How did a work that was so ostracized by a portion of the population manage to be performed in synchrony with traditional celebrations and be so well received by the public to the point of playing along with bell ringers and processions? Here, we intend to analyze these and other questions. in the introduction, we will present an overview of the streets of sanjoanenses in two moments, at the end of the gold cycle, and on the 309th anniversary; then we will analyze the relationship between the audiovisual production of Sinógeno and the bell tradition, which crosses the soundscape and the daily experience of sanjoanense. The concluding session underscores the path the EP has taken from initial reviews to live performance and proposes that bell culture is reinvented and negotiated by the people who move it daily.