Field Notes on Current Research in Brazil and Elsewhere
Master Embroiderer of the Bumba-meu-boi: Tania Lucia Soares of Sao Luis
The best known embroidery artisan in Sao Luis (Maranhao) is Tania Lucia Soares. Her style is unmistakable and widely-seen in the Sao Luis festival. She may do a dozen or more bois and many costumes during the course of a single year, all needed for delivery by June 23.
She has a small cottage-industry with her husband and a few young men who help with the embroidery.
Even though her work is regional, she is part of an international market. The best beads, sequins and decorative glass pieces are made abroad and only available in the markets of Sao Paulo. Each year or so she must import another expensive load of material for the new season.
Embroiderer in Dona Tania Lucia Soares workshop, Sao Luis
A closer look, showing the religious figures, St John (Sao Joao) on the left, in his popular attribute in Sao Luis as a child with a lamb
Simone Ferro and master embroiderer Tania Lucia Soares, Sao Luis, June 2015
Detail of a new (2015) skin of the ox (couro do boi), to be baptized on the eve of Saint John
Representation of the Virgin Mary on a new couro, 2015
Detail of the central figure of Jesus, on a couro embroidered for the new (2015) boi/ox for Bumba-meu-boi da Liberdade (also known as Boi de Leonardo)
A couro mounted on a boi, danced in the 2015 season by the group Boi Uniao da Baixada. The white dove, representing the Holy Ghost (Espirito Santo), and the tableau of the last supper are elaborate and popular themes
A new ox of Boi da Uniao Baixada, embroidered by Tania Soares, is freshly baptized and ready to enter the street, Sao Luis (June 23-24, 2015)
