Podcast
The dance, improved in the Bahia Folkloric Ballet, stamped his passport to several countries, but it is between Brazil by birth and Africa of multiple belongings that finds its main stage, today built between movement and music. Nara Couto is the guest of this week of Georgina Angelica and Paula Cardoso in such a podcast
Born in Bahia, Nara Couto became known as a dancer and backing vocal From artists such as Gilberto Gil, Margareth Menezes, Ivete Sangalo and Daniela Mercury, before, in 2017, releasing her voice in her own name.
The premiere took place with the release of the single “Linda and Black”, elevated, in Brazil, the hymn of celebration of black female beauty.
“I always felt beautiful,” points out the artist in this conversation, recognizing, however, that as he grew up, that was not what the world mirrored.
“The aesthetics presented is always white, as a unique model,” he stresses, increasingly aware of the importance of breaking universal patterns.
“The understanding of black beauty is a construction we are doing, deconstructing the story that was told.”
In this process of reconstruction, the theme “Retinta”, which names its first album, of 2022, presents itself as an exaltation not only of beauty, but of existence itself.
“In Brazil we are always looking to go home, even when we don’t know that home is this,” he says, never losing sight of African connections, deepened with the musical project “Other Africas”, and also with Candomblé.
Started in this religion of African matrix nine years ago, Nara sees in her practice a way of preserving a culture that was established in Brazil, from the “junction of peoples and ethnicities” that arrived in the enslaved country.
“It has changed my life,” he assumes without hesitation, and already planning the next step. “I am studying to be a priestess, and at the auspicious moment I will assume this post.”
Until then, art and music live as a “priesthood”, in which reverences who came before.
“I always sing artists’ compositions for whom I have a great admiration,” he notes, including Sara Tavares in the gallery of her references.
“Being in Portugal moves me a lot, remembering that she is no longer physically with us, and we will not hear new compositions is difficult,” admits Nara, who, in this conversation with Georgina Angelica and Paula Cardoso, reveals that the pandemic losses have not been behind.
“You may never recover, because, as spiritualized as we are, we are human. It’s hard when someone very close part.”
The process, sharing the artist, is built with love, which describes as a “revolutionary act.”
Such podcast is a weekly podcast dedicated to interpersonal relationships and human affections. Through deep conversations with remarkable guests, the podcast reveals an original narrative and opens the doors to an international community of reflection and interest.
Pioneer in black and Afro-descendant culture in Portugal, it is a space where all lives fit, emotionally linked by trial experiences and humanization stories.
In long conversations without script, Georgina Angelica and Paula Cardoso feature special guests in new episodes, every Thursday on Expresso, SIC and SIC Notícias sites or any podcast platform.
He specializes in education and social intervention. It acts as an educator, trainer and speaker, with over 20 years of experience in Portugal, England and Angola.
She is the founder of the network and author of the children’s book series ‘African Force’. She is also a host of the TV show “Rumos”, broadcast on RTP Africa.
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