Dance and Travel

Karana Mudra - Buddha Position for warding off the Evil The most amazing trip I've made this year was in Thailand. To understan better Oriental and Southern Asian culture -  Lonely Planet Book Guide  can help you - you have to know first what Buddhism is and what rappresents there. Buddhism   is not properly a religion, but more a philosophy of life. According to wikipedia it is a philosophy gathering a variety of traditions, beliefs and spiritual practices based on original teachings of Buddha. All Buddhist traditions share the goal of overcoming suffering and the cycle of death and rebirth, either by the attainment of Nirvana or through the path of Buddhahood. However, have you ever noticed that Buddha is always rappresented in different positions?  Its hands, arms, and gestures changes depending the message he want to give us.  Therefore, it is essential to know Buddha's positions to undestant better the Buddhist culture. I was very impressed i...

Cimitero delle Fontanelle's detail Recently I have been travelling in Naples and I am truly convinced that if you don’t know about Superstition and Cult of Death you can’t really understand the soul of this city. Indeed, Naples traditions' are deeply rooted in both superstition and religion, till a point that they mix together and it is impossible to distinguish them. A great example of this melange is the Cult of Death or the Cult of Skulls. Such a religious practice is connected to the concepts of Christianity and a belief in Purgatory. According to the Catholic Church, Purgatory is a place for souls who have not been completely freed of sin. People believed if the living said prayers on behalf of the souls in Purgatory, they will get favors in return. A child's skull in Cimitero delle Fontanelle How does it work the cult of death in Naples? Let's start from the fact that there are a lot of bones buried under Naples, as a result of Centurie...

  As a Portuguese learner and Brazilian culture and music passionate, I couldn’t stop noticing that some words do not have a translation in other languages. In my experience Portuguese language is charming and full of words that hold a tremendous amount of feeling and symbolism. Indeed, Brazilian culture is deeply intertwined with music, rhythm, traditions, and feelings. Some feelings and gestures do not have a translation. Here are my personal list with the 7 most meaningful words in Brazilian Portuguese that simply cannot be translated completely into English. 1 )Saudade Probably the most untranslatable Portuguese word. It is a nostalgic and profound state of melancholic longing for a person, place, a situation or anything that exists. It often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might never return. In English can be expressed with melancholy, longing, or nostalgia. Ex. Que saudade daquela época onde a gente ainda era criança e se divertia c...

Me training in a circus One of my favourite passions which combines dance with acrobatics, is called "Aerial silks". Wikipedia helped me with a definition: “Aerial silks (also known as aerial tissues, fabric, or ribbons) are a type of performance in which one or more artists performs aerial acrobatics while hanging from a fabric. The fabric may be hung as two pieces, or a single piece, folded to make a loop, classified as hammock silks. Performers climb the suspended fabric without the use of safety lines, and rely only on their training and skill to ensure safety. They use the fabric to wrap, suspend, fall, swing, and spiral their bodies into and out of various positions. Aerial silks may be used to fly through the air, striking poses and figures while flying.” I would also add that is an “art” taught in circus school together with aerial trapeze and aerial hoop. Nowadays, yoga centres or pole dance schools have started to open courses of aerial silks, trying ...

Portuguese/Spanish Flags Although Portuguese and Spanish are closely related to the point to be somehow mutual intelligible, there are also important differences between them, which can pose difficulties for people acquainted with one of the languages who attempt to learn the other. In this article, I will focus on the Portuguese learner’s point of view that approaches to the Spanish language. He always has to pay attention to “ false friends ”: In Spanish “estar embarazada” means ‘to be pregnant’. In Portuguese “estar embaraçada” means ‘to be embarrassed’ or ‘to be entangled’. Nevertheless, Spanish has the term “embarazoso/a “meaning ’embarrassing’.’Pregnant’ in Portuguese is “grávida”. Portuguese/ Spanish False Friends: Embarazada Spanish “vaso” means ‘drinking glass ‘, while in Portuguese “vaso” means toilet (from “vaso sanitário”). A ‘drinking glass’ in Portuguese is “copo”, while Spanish “copa” is a wine glass. Here a top ten of the most frequent errors done by...

Why Cemeteries are so important? They are important because visiting them will help you to know the history of the city and the nature of its people, since they represent the heritage of a place. In this case The Poblenou Cemetery (in Catalán “Cementiri de Poblenou”) is the most ancient cemetery of Barcelona. It is located in Poblenou district in Barcelona and it is an authentic open air museum waiting for a restoration necessary to preserve its artistic and historical richness. Historically it was conceived as a solution to the  unhealthiness of the parish graves present inside the city. It was inaugurated in 1775, but destroyed few years later by the Napoleonic troops. In 1813, it was request to a young Italian architect, Antonio Ginesi, to build the outdoor area. The Neoclassical style reflects the tastes and the political aspiration of the new emerging classes of the city,  the businessman and the  indianas  manufactures. In 1821 it was used in almost its...

As a Portuguese learner I had soon to face the problem of learning new vocabularies. Among them it is impossible not making reference to one of the most important: “Saudade”. If you have been in Portugal or in Brazil at least once in your life, you should have heard about this feeling. Yes, because I am talking about “a feeling” which is untranslatable in other languages and that is a key word to understand the culture and the two countries as a whole. As a consequence, in this article I am going to explain the etymology of the term first, then I will try to give a definition. Finally I will propose possible translations of the word. The etymology of Saudade is controversial, however the prevailing theory affirms that it derives from the Latin Solitate which means “solitude”; from that term derives the modern for of Soledad” in Spanish and Solid ã o in Portuguese. Nevertheless, the form Saudade involves also the influences of Saudaç ã o, greeting, and Saude, health, salvat...

When I approach first the Portuguese language as Italian speaker, I was thinking to a single unitary block. I already expected some dialectal influences, in particular in Brazil, due to the fact that is composed of many federal states. However I could never expect that Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese could differ in grammatical, syntactic and lexical forms. We are not talking about British English and American English, we are talking about almost two different languages and cultures. Of course also for the people who do not know the syntactical and lexical differences, it seems to be evident the musicality of the Brazilian variant, due to the different pronunciations of the words. Pronunciations: Ex. Sauda d e, felicida d e, aon d e, d epois (“d” sound for Portuguese, while “gi” sound for Brasilian variant) Ex. Noi t e, gen t e, sen t ir  (“t” sound for Portuguese, while “tch” sound for Brazilian Portuguese) Besides, I recollect 10 different expression...