Team: Vítor Belanciano

Vítor Belanciano

Researcher
 
Vitor Belanciano, cultural journalist, music critic and chronicler, has been in the Público newspaper for over twenty years. He has a background in anthropology and sociology. He lived part of his childhood in Niza, grew up in Barreiro, currently lives in Lisbon, and identifies with Alentejo. Over the years, he has been an actor, DJ, social scientist or teacher. Belanciano has been more in journalism, but does not practice impartiality and neutrality. He believes in choices, rigor, transparency, multiple perspectives, analysis, questioning and possibility. Belanciano achieves this by approaching politics, economics, society, music, art and ideas through culture, languages, interdisciplinarity. It is from there that Não Dá para Ficar Parado ( To stand still is no option. Afro-Portuguese Music - celebration, conflict and hope) was born, where he is both a distant observer and a conscious actor. Music is the starting point, but it is only because it includes everything else.
2022

Não dá para ficar parado. Música afro-portuguesa - celebração, conflito e esperança

2020 | Edições Afrontamento We all know. There was a political decolonization in Portugal. But the decolonization of mentalities is still missing. One of the perspectives allowing to reflect upon and question this issue is the one of popular music. This is a territory where both the conflictualities and the ambiguities, or potentialities, of postcolonialism are particularly reflected. The richness of bringing things together, namely as a way of affirmation for Europe, is valued, but chronologies of tension are perpetuated as well. Which does not imply that music is not a fascinating place of social experimentation, generating visibilities, stimulating discourses encompassing different urgent issues. This is a history constructed by numerous authors of the second and third generations of afro-descendants, from General D to DJ Marfox or Dino d'Santiago, who have proved able, in the last two decades, to displace certainties, carrying along new experiences, practising music for dancing, thinking and acting. To stand still is no option.