Brazilian culture has been shaped by the Portuguese, who gave the country its language and religion, and also by the Indigenous population, immigrants and Africans.

The influence of the latter is particu­larly strong, especially in the northeast, where African religion, music and cuisine have all profoundly influenced Brazilian identity. Capoeira, a martial art developed by slaves to fight their oppressors, enjoys wide popularity.

Architecture, Sculpture & Painting

Brazil has fine colonial architecture in cities like Salvador , Olinda , Sao Luis , Ouro Preto, Diamantina and Sao Joao del Rei. Over the centuries, the names of two architects stand out: Alcijadinho, the genius of 18th-century baroque in Minas Gerais mining towns (he was a miraculous sculptor too) and Oscar Niemeyer, the 20th-century modernist/ functionalist who was chief architect for the new capital, Brasilia , in the 1950s and designed many other striking buildings around the country.

The best-known Brazilian painter is Can­dido Portinari (1903-62) who early in his career made a decision to paint only Brazil and its people. He was strongly influenced by Mexican muralists like Diego Rivera.

Cinema

Cinema opened the world's ears to bossa nova, by way of Marcel Camus' roman­tic Black Orpheus (1958), set amid Rio 's Carnaval. In the 1960s, the Cinema Novo movement, led by Glauber Rocha with films like Black God, White Devil (1963), forged a polemical national style using Afro­Brazilian traditions in conscious resistance to the influences of Hollywood .

The military dictatorship didn't exactly encourage creative cinematography. Hector Babenco's Pixote (1981), the tale of a street kid in Rio , did win the best film award at Cannes , however.

Since the end of the dictatorship, Brazil has enjoyed a film renaissance, even though much of the money and talent these days go into telenovelas (TV soap operas). Carlota Joaquina - Princesa do Brasil (1994) blends fable with historical drama in the satirical story of a Spanish princess married to the Portuguese prince regent (later Dom Joao VI) -"e time of his arrival in Brazil.

Bruno Barreto's Oscar-nominated 0 Que E Isso, Companheiro? (Four Days in Septem­ber; 1998) is based on the 1969 kidnapping of the US ambassador to Brazil by leftist guerrillas. Other directors who took on dif­ficult subjects include Walter Salles, one of Brazil 's greatest directors, who made many films dealing with the painful underbelly of society. Central do Brasil (Central Sta­tion; 1998), one of his more recent works, won much acclaim. The film tells the story of a lonely woman accompanying a young

homeless boy on a search for his father into the real, unglamorized Brazil .

Eu, Tu, Eles (Me, You, Them; 2000), And­rucha Waddington's social comedy about a northeasterner with three husbands was also well received when it came out in 2000. It has beautiful cinematography and a score by Gilberto Gil that contributed to the recent wave of popularity for that funky northeastern music, forro.

Cidade de Deus (City of God ), based on a true story by Paolo Lins, gives an honest and disturbing portrayal of life in a Rio favela (slum). After its release in 2002, it brought much attention to the plight of the urban poor.

Literature

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1839­1908), the son of a freed slave, is widely re­garded as Brazil 's greatest writer. Assis had a great sense of humor and an insightful - though cynical - take on human affairs. His major novels were Quincas Borba, The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas and Dom Casmurro.

Brazil 's most celebrated writer today is Jorge Amado (1912-2001), with his bril­liantly clever portraits of the people and places of Bahia - notably Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon and Dona Flor and her Two Husbands.

Paulo Coelho is Latin America 's second most read novelist (after Gabriel Garcia Marquez). Recent works like Veronika Decides to Die and The Fifth Mountain are more sophisticated than the new-age fables (The Alchemist and The Pilgrimage), which launched his career in the mid-1990s.

Music & Dance

Music is an integral part of Brazilian cul­ture. No matter where you go in the coun­try, you'll find dancing, singing and live music.

Samba, a Brazilian institution, has strong African influences and is intimately linked to Carnaval. Its most famous star, from the 1930s, was Carmen Miranda. The most popular form of samba today is pagode, a relaxed, informal genre whose leading exponents include singers Beth Carvalho, Jorge Aragao and Zeca Pagodinho.

Bossa nova, another Brazilian trade­mark, arose in the 1950s, and gained the world's attention in the classic The Girl from Ipanema composed by Antonio Car­los Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes. Bossa nova's founding father, guitarist Joao Gil­berto, still performs, as does his daughter Bebel Gilberto, who has sparked renewed interest in the genre, combining smooth bossa sounds with electronic grooves.

Tropicalismo, which burst onto the scene in the late 1960s, mixed varied Brazilian musical styles with North American rock and pop. Leading figures such as Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso are still very much around. Gil, in fact, was chosen by Lula to be Brazil 's new Minister of Culture. An­other brilliant songwriter not to overlook is Chico Buarque, recently nominated Bra­zil 's musician of the century by the weekly journal Isto E.

The nebulous term Musica Popular Brasileira (MPB) covers a range of styles from original bossa nova-influenced works to some sickly pop. Jazz-influenced Milton Nascimento is one MPB artist who has kept his innovative touch.

Brazilian rock (pronounced `hock') is highly popular. Groups and artists such as Zeca Baleiro, Os Tribalistas, Kid Abelha, Ed Motta, the punk-driven Legiao Urbana and the reggae-based Skank are all well worth a listen. Racionais MCs, from Sao Paulo , lead Brazilian rap.

Wherever you go in Brazil you'll also hear regional musical styles. The most widely known is forro (`foh-hoh'), a lively, syncopated northeastern music, which mixes the beats of the zabumba (an Afri­can drum) with accordion sounds. Stars of this style include Luiz Gonzaga, Jackson do Pandeiro and Sao Paulo forro group Fala­mansa. Axe is a label for the samba/pop/ rock/reggae/funk/Caribbean fusion music that emerged from Salvador in the 1990s, popularized especially by the flamboyant Daniela Mercury. In the Amazon, you'll encounter the seductive rhythms of Car­imbo, along with the sensual dance that accompanies it.