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Letter from the editor | 311

Theater demonstrations

Brazilian rapper Emicida recorded a show at the Municipal Theater of São Paulo for the documentary AmarElo – É tudo para ontem (“It’s all for yesterday”). The musician chose the theater—where a 1922 exhibition known as Modern Art Week demanded greater Brazilian contribution to art—as his stage to talk about Afro-Brazilians who have played a leading role in the country’s history over the last 100 years but have not earned the recognition he believes they deserve. Explaining his choice, Emicida told the El País Brasil newspaper that writer Mário de Andrade, a central figure in the movement despite being associated with the Brazilian elite, realized that popular culture was the best means of understanding Brazil.

Modern Art Week became a symbol for the emergence of modernism in the country. Researchers have been looking for unknown aspects of the movement’s key authors, artists, and works, as well as new interpretations of its history. In three articles, Christina Queiroz outlines recent insights into this constantly evolving narrative, discussing its role in the revival of Brazilian culture, female leadership, and modernist experiences throughout Brazil.

The anthropophagy movement, an offshoot of Modern Art Week, advocated for assimilating different cultures, whether European or indigenous. “Tupy or not tupy, that is the question” is the best-known phrase from the Manifesto antropófago (“Anthropophagy manifesto”) published by Oswald de Andrade’s group in 1928. Recent research shows that Mário de Andrade considered it distasteful to make jokes about indigenous languages and that the movement’s actions were insufficient to understanding Brazil.

Tupi-speaking peoples dispersed across South America in a territorial migration that began almost 3,000 years ago and may have represented a population of 5 million individuals. Analysis of current Tupi genetics suggests that this dispersion was accompanied by a population explosion. In addition to helping understand the expansion of the Tupi peoples, who produced ceramic objects and lived a horticultural way of life, the data, which were compared with data on ethnic groups that speak other languages, contradict the widely held belief that the physical barrier imposed by the Andes prevented genetic mixing between populations from either side.

The spread of omicron has raised new concerns at a time when many restrictions are being lifted. Initial data suggest that the new variant is more transmissible and may be less aggressive than previous variants. It has now been two years since the COVID-19 pandemic was first declared, and physician Eloisa Bonfá discusses the experience of leading the fight against the SARS-CoV-2 virus at the Hospital das Clínicas at the University of São Paulo. As the largest hospital complex in Latin America, it has reorganized its structure, borrowed equipment and staff, expanded its capacity, carried out research, and raised funds.

In this last editorial of 2021, written for the first issue of 2022, I would like to thank everyone who reads, listens to, and watches Pesquisa FAPESP articles, programs, and videos. Your participation is essential to the dissemination of scientific knowledge and we hope to continue this collaboration in the coming year.

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