Dona Onete (born June 18, 1939) is a Brazilian singer and composer. She has been referred to as the "Queen of

Carimbó Carimbó is a Brazilian dance. The dance was common in the north part of Brazil, from the time that Brazil was still a Portuguese colony, originally from the Brazilian region of Pará, around Marajó island and the capital city of Belém. Carimb� ...

Career

She was born Ionete da Silveira Gama in

Cachoeira do Arari Cachoeira do Arari is a Brazilian municipality located in the state of Pará. Its population as of 2020 is estimated to be 24,064 people. The area of the municipality is 3,102.080 km². The city belongs to the mesoregion Marajó and to the mi ...

and grew up in Igarapé-Miri. By the time that she was fifteen, she was singing songs from traditional

music genre A music genre is a conventional category that identifies some pieces of music as belonging to a shared tradition or set of conventions. It is to be distinguished from ''musical form'' and musical style, although in practice these terms are some ...

s such as

samba Samba (), also known as samba urbano carioca (''urban Carioca samba'') or simply samba carioca (''Carioca samba''), is a Brazilian music genre that originated in the Afro-Brazilian communities of Rio de Janeiro in the early 20th century. Havin ...

quadrille The quadrille is a dance that was fashionable in late 18th- and 19th-century Europe and its colonies. The quadrille consists of a chain of four to six '' contredanses''. Latterly the quadrille was frequently danced to a medley of opera melodie ...

s and ''boi bumba''. She taught history and Amazonian studies in Igarapé-Mir and conducted research into rhythms, dances and traditions of the region. She helped establish music and dance groups which preserved traditional music and customs. From 1993 to 1996, she served as secretary of culture for the municipality. Onete recorded her first album ''Feitiço Caboclo'' when she was 73. She developed her own hybrid genre of music ''carimbó chamegado''. After she retired to , she continued to perform. Together with a local band, she has performed throughout Brazil as well as in the United Kingdom, France, Portugal, Germany and

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. In 2013, a biography of Onete ''Menina Onete - Travessias & Travessuras'' was published by anthropologist Antônio Maria de Souza Santos and educator Josivana de Castro Rodrigues. In 2017, she was named to the Brazilian

Ordem do Mérito Cultural The Ordem do Mérito Cultural is an honor bestowed by the Ministry of Culture to personalities, bodies both public and private, national and foreign, as a recognition of their contributions to Brazilian culture. The award was established bLaw N ...

. Her album ''Rebujo'' was considered one of the 25 best Brazilian albums of the first half of 2019 by the

São Paulo Association of Art Critics SAO or Sao may refer to: Places * Sao civilisation, in Middle Africa from 6th century BC to 16th century AD * Sao, a town in Boussé Department, Burkina Faso * Saco Transportation Center (station code SAO), a train station in Saco, Maine, U. ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Onete, Dona 1939 births Living people Brazilian composers 20th-century Brazilian women singers 20th-century Brazilian singers People from Pará 21st-century Brazilian women singers 21st-century Brazilian singers Women in Latin music