BARBARA BROWNING teaches diasporic literature and cultural studies in the English Department at Princeton University. She has studied, taught, and performed Brazilian dance in Brazil, the United States, and Europe.

"Browning employs her perspectives as a dancer and literary theorist in this very readable book on various dance forms in contemporary Brazil."—Choice". . . a work that is not only evocative, but provocative."—Bulletin of Latin American Research". . . provides dance studies with much needed data and ideas for analyses which will look further than dance-as-text, or dance-as-reflection-of-culture."—Dance Research Journal

• INTRODUCTION1. SAMBA: THE BODY ARTICULATE2. DIVINE CHOREOGRAPHY AND THE EMBODIMENT OF METAPHOR3. HEADSPIN: CAPOEIRA'S IRONIC INVERSIONS4. OF THE DAUGHTERS OF GANDHI AND THE DANCE OF THE CHICKENCONCLUSIONNOTESINDEX