KNOWLEDGE IN POPULAR ART:

REFLECTIONS ON THE PARAIBAN COCO DE RODA FROM THE SABERES EM RODA PROJECT

Abstract

The purpose of this work was to investigate the experience of the coco de roda from Paraíba: a popular dance, which is understood by those who experience it as a game or play (brincadeira). The article intends to think about the constituent elements and learning possibilities of this cultural and artistic manifestation. The reflection was based on the virtual coexistence established with the teacher Ana do Coco, from the Coco de Roda Novo Quilombo group (Ipiranga and Guruji quilombos - Conde/PB), in the extension project Saberes em Roda, integrated to the discipline Metodologia da Música III. Furthermore, the experience of transmitting this knowledge and the virtuality of encounters imposed by the pandemic reveal interesting questions: popular traditions have their strength as a dynamic event and creation, and not as historical (chronological), calculated and informative knowledge. Thus, in order to understand the aesthetic meaning and learning of coco de roda, it is necessary to enter in the dimension of “knowledge of experience” (BONDÍA, 2002), the scope in which experience drives the movement that establishes the knowledge of a people in the world: experience is knowledge.