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Long ago I read a book on Chiquinha Gonzaga's life and career. I already knew her by name for her popular music but I found more: a woman who fought for playwrights' and composers' intellectual rights and worked in theatre and music in a time when "good" ladies wouldn't dare. She was the first woman composer for Carnival; the marchinha "O abre alas"(1899) is still sung in any carnival ball today. And now Sergio Fonta, a Brazilian director, playwright and writer, is promoting the Chiquinha Gonzaga Cultural Institute. The Institute is launching its first online newsletter, the "Corta Jaca", promoting the life, work and activities related to her name and to Brazilian theatre in general. The "Corta Jaca" is a "maxixe" composed by Chiquinha Gonzaga. It was the first popular song that was played in a government's official event, played by Nair de Tefe, wife of the president Marechal Hermes, in 1914. And she played on guitar, another popular instrument, not allowed to be played in such a noble and fancy place.
 Sergio Fonta is the president of the Institute. Regarding Chiquinha, he believes that: "Brazil has female icons in painting, theatre, literature, science and even in music, but no one equals Chiquinha Gonzaga. No one was like her, she assumed some relationships in a time when men held all the land and all of society's voice, and women held nothing. She fought fiercely against slavery and even sold her own music sheets to support the abolitionist cause. She created for herself an artistic career as a musician, conductor, composer, facing a hypocritical society with her head up. Today she is acclaimed and remembered with prestige."
Francisca Edwiges Neves Gonzaga was born on October 17, 1847, in Rio de Janeiro, daughter of a single mother and an army official whose family never accepted her and her mother. At the age of 18 she composed her first song.  When she was 37 she published a song for the first time, it was "Atraente", a polka. She worked as a musician, composer and teacher of music to earn a living when she separated from her husband and from society as well, as the social and moral law of the 19th century presumed. She started working as a composer for theatre in 1880. In 1911 she put to music the play "Forrobodo". The characters were from the Rio de Janeiro popular class, with speech full of slang. The production was not accepted at first but she made it happen and it became a huge success. In 1917 she took part in the foundation of SBAT, the Brazilian Society of Playwrights. Chiquinha declared that she was tired of being exploited. In Paris, for example, she found 20 tangos on her own, and nobody payed her anything for that. Her "maxixes" were famous even at French balls. In theatre the situation wasn't any different for a composer. Musicians, composers, playwrights only got a small or no payment for their work. It was necessary to unite artists in an organization for the protection of their rights.
So on September 27, 1917, Chiquinha Gonzaga and 20 more composers, playwrights and journalists founded the Brazilian Society of Playwrights, the SBAT (the today Brazilian Society of Authors). The first step was done. The impresarios against the new organization argued: "We can't consider the rights of Brazilian playwrights because we don't have a national dramatic literature." Was that so? If so, impresarios and music publishers wouldn't have a profitable business working in theatre and music.
At that time, Chiquinha Gonzaga, composer and conducter, was acclaimed with respect. Young authors revered her and her music became popular, not just because of theatre but for all the original Brazilian cultural roots that she had followed, the maxixe, the lundum, the samba, the chorinho. Chiquinha died in 1935, on the Thursday before Carnival.
The Chiquinha Gonzaga Cultural Institute is located in the SBAT building, where it was created in 2001. Sergio Fonta says with strong feelings: "We are really fighting for the Institute. Sometimes we feel like a legion of Don Quixotes. But, nothing holds us back. After all, our patron, Chiquinha Gonzaga, has given us a lesson of resistance"
There will be new elections in July, but projects are going ahead. For example, there is the important Chiquinha Gonzaga Popular Music Prize. Chiquina Gonzaga would be proud to see that.
Would you like to receive the Corta Jaca monthly newsletter?
Send an email to Sergio Fonta at fontta@terra.com.br
Would you like to know more about Chiquinha Gonzaga?
Read Chiquinha Gonzaga, uma historia de vida, by Edinha Diniz, editora Rosa dos Tempos, 1984. Or Dicionário Mulheres do Brasil, Jorge Zahar Editor, 2002.
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