Rio Gringa

Batalha do Passinho Comes to New York

Batalha do Passinho, a documentary about Rio's passinho dance craze and the city's passinho dance competition, has come to New York.

The documentary debuted on July 22 at Lincoln Center Out of Doors, and was followed by a passinho dance party featuring dancers from the film. Even though they flew in this morning, the dancers still managed to wow the crowd and even teach their moves to curious partygoers. The movie will be shown again on August 2 at the Film Society at Lincoln Center, and the passinho dancers will perform at Lincoln Center Out of Doors on July 24 and July 26.

 

I've been following the passinho craze for awhile, and interviewed the documentary's director last year. The movie is an excellent way to learn about the dance and how it's become a cultural phenomenon in Rio. But for international audiences, here's some extra context that may help you understand more about the dance's significance and why it's a big deal that it's being featured in New York.

Funk, the music that passinho is set to, has been around for awhile but has had a complicated history. Akin to rap, it's had a stigma signifying poverty and violence attached to it, despite its popularity. Even though wealthy youth sometimes attend funk parties in favelas, a person who likes funk, a funkeiro, is associated with a person who lives in a favela. For this reason, it is a huge deal that funk and passinho are being featured at Lincoln Center, the stage for some of the world's greatest music and dance companies.

The film doesn't delve too deeply into the dancers' lives, but the truth is that it's refreshing to see a documentary focused on Rio's favelas that's not devoted to poverty and violence. The fact is, though, that passinho represents a potential opportunity for young people who get involved in the scene, and an alternative to another dominant force in their communities: drug trafficking. One of the dancers says in the film that his "dream is to be recognized," which to me sounded like not only recognizing his dancing but also recognition for being more than just a favelado, a kid from a favela.

Another element that I found interesting about the passinho is how it's a reflection of other elements of Brazilian culture: a fusion of styles incorporating foreign and Brazilian influences.

In this case, passinho melds hip hop, pop and lock, breakdancing, samba, and frevo. It's also reflective of Brazilians' abilities of creativity and spontaneity, given that the dance is frequently improvised.

The next important thing to know is that passinho's transition from becoming popular in the favelas and being picked up by major media was a huge step. Xuxa, one of the country's most famous entertainers, featured several of the dancers on her show, as shown in the film; and Globo, the country's biggest media conglomerate and TV station, has showcased the dance on numerous shows. One of them is Esquenta, a show that has brought favela culture and issues to mainstream audiences. In some of these cases, dancers speak openly about where they're from. Just a few years ago, "the idea of asking someone what favela they were from, on national television, was unthinkable," wrote Rio Real blog's Julia Michaels last year.

Passinho also reveals the shifts taking place in Brazil, notably conspicuous consumption by the new middle class and the power of digital inclusion. The film highlights the fashion and aesthetic styles associated with passinho, which recalls funk ostentatação, or ostentatious funk, where performers sing about consumption and fans seek expensive name brands to imitate artists. Plus, this type of consumption is part of being a member of Brazil's new middle class. And finally, passinho owes its quick spread to social networks like Orkut and Facebook and videos on Youtube. With more young people having access to the internet and smartphones, passinho not only spread throughout Rio, but also in Brazil. Plus, internet exposure from artists like Ricky Martin featuring passinho dancers have helped bring the dance worldwide.

 

Q&A with Petrit Pula on Brasil Summerfest

Pula, bottom left, with members of Planet Hemp and Summerfest organizers

One of the most exciting things happening in Brazilian culture in New York is Brasil Summerfest, a music festival in its third year. The 2013 edition, which took place from July 20 to 28, featured a wide range of performers, from a highly anticipated reunion of the famous rap/rock band Planet Hemp to the flamboyant tecnobrega queen Gaby Amarantos to bossa newcomer Alexia Bomtempo. Along with a performance at Summerstage in Central Park, shows took place throughout the city. Those with enough stamina to stay until the wee hours of the morning at Nublu's Marcelo D2 launch party were treated to an intimate performance by Seu Jorge, who also played briefly at several other Summerfest concerts.

I spoke to Petrit Pula, the festival's founder and curator, who is also an executive of Nublu Records, about why he became involved with Brazilian music and his plans for the festival.

Where are you from originally?

I'm from a tiny country of Europe called Kosovo, a place where very few people are familiar with. But I'm really a New Yorker; I was born here and spent my whole life here with the exception of 8 years which I spent away. I arrived here (for the second time) with my family in 1991 at a time when there was a lot of turmoil in ex-Yugoslavia and I have been in New York ever since.

Seu Jorge and Toninho Horta at Summerfest

How did you get involved with Nublu Records? Can you tell me about the label?

The owner of Nublu [an NYC nightclub] started the label in 2005 and I've been at the forefront of it since early on. The label started as need to record a lot of the bands that were naturally forming at the club which back then included the Brazilian Girls, Forro in the Dark, Kudu, Wax Poetic, etc. The label signed and released a lot of the bands that were coming out of the club and later branched out to signing artists outside of our clubhouse including bands from other parts of the world like Brazil. The record label doesn't focus on a genre, but more on sound or spirit that feels like Nublu.  

How did you come up with the idea for Brasil Summerfest? Any big plans for next year's edition?

Because I had been working and promoting Brazilian music for the past 8 years, I felt there was a gap for an event or festival such as Brasil Summerfest. The idea was to create a platform where so many talented Brazilian artists can perform here to a wide public. I think Brazil's greatest cultural export is music and it made sense to offer something at this scale. There are big plans for next year and we've already started working on it. I can't give into any of the details because it's still too soon, but the festival has been growing each year and we expect an even bigger event for next year. My vision is to continue growing the festival beyond music. Brazil has a big film industry and a thriving art scene, not to mention its gastronomy. I hope that the festival can incorporate these elements in the future. This year was the first year we presented a film series and we hope to do more in 2014, but music will still remain the main focus and attraction of the festival.

Gaby Amarantos at Summerstage

Where does your interest in Brazilian music and culture come from?

I developed an appreciation of Brazilian music once I started discovering it when I was in college. And once I started working with Nublu, there's a lot of Brazilian influences there which we all absorbed over the years. Getting to work with a lot of artists, making a lot of friends, multiple trips to Brazil are all part of how I was nurtured in getting to know and appreciate Brazilian music and culture. I am still an outsider and still have a lot to learn about Brazil, but this is great because we learn as we do.

What are the advantages of working with Brazilian musicians? The challenges?

In my experience, Brazilian musicians are easygoing and it's always great hanging out with them. The challenges sometimes are on the organizational end. How people see time in New York is very different to how it's treated in Brazil. I have to say that we've always had some visa scares but this year very surprisingly everything went very smoothly. Maybe they're getting better. Maybe the clock is starting to turn faster in Brazil.

Learn more about Brasil Summerfest and Nublu.

Images by Eliseu Cavalcante.

Brazil: Hot in the U.S.

Brazilian culture is enjoying growing popularity in the United States, with everything from music to video games, from Neymar to cachaça. In some cases, they aren't positive or accurate visions of Brazilian culture, so it's something of a mixed blessing to see Brazil becoming increasingly visible stateside.

Beginning in May, Max Payne 3 brought gritty visions of São Paulo to gamers in the U.S. and all over the world. While it glorifies the violence often featured in other forms of entertainment about Brazil, it also had a surprising attention to detail, ranging from loads of Portuguese with native speakers to real Brazilian designer furniture in a penthouse scene.

 

The same month, Macy's began a huge Brazil campaign nationwide, featuring both Brazilian products and designers as well as Brazil-inspired products from international brands. Apex, Brazil's export promotion agency, partnered with Macy's on the project. The flagship store in New York designed parts of the store to "look like" Brazil, including a Rio-style calcadão. Stores sold everything from cashews and Guaraná to Natura hand creams and fitas do Bomfim. Lots of products and clothes featured bright colors with "tropical" themes, and language around the campaign used words like "sensual" and "exotic." Nevertheless, the campaign put Brazil in the spotlight in one of the biggest retail chains in the country, and for the past few months, Brazil-themed Macy's shopping bags were ubiquitous throughout New York.

 

Indeed, Brazil is especially big in New York this summer. The Brazilian national soccer team played Argentina at the Metlife Stadium in June to a nearly sold-out crowd. In a single week in July, the New York Times featured two separate stories on Brazilian culture: a profile on soccer star Neymar and a feature on cachaça. In July, there was even a Broadway musical about Rio featured at a local festival, as well as a Nelson Rodrigues play for a short run. Everywhere you look, Brazilian keratin and blowout treatments are popping up around the city.

Brazilian music in particular has had a good run this summer. This month, an annual music festival at Lincoln Center dedicated a night to two forró bands, which were also featured in the New York Times. The event brought Brazilians, Brazilophiles, and curious New Yorkers alike to dance to the Northeastern beats. Brasil Summerfest returned for a second year, with a week of Brazilian shows including a big performance by Criolo in Central Park. And Michel Teló is now in the top 10 of the top 25 Latin songs in the U.S., with "Ai se eu te pego" continuing to spread among all audiences.

Criolo at Summerstage 2012

This year's Brasil Summerfest brought Criolo, one of Brazil's biggest new music stars, to New York. Ending a tour in Europe and two U.S. cities, the paulistano singer gave an electrifying performance, upstaging the other performers at Central Park on Saturday. The incredibly versatile performer sang a number of songs from his award-winning record Nó na Orelha, ranging from rap and hip hop to samba, reggae, bolero, soul, and pop. 

Raised in a São Paulo favela, Criolo focuses on issues from his upbringing and life in Brazil's biggest city. Among his best known songs, Não Existe Amor em SP, captures a somewhat dark view of São Paulo:

Não existe amor em SP/
Um labirinto místico
/Onde os grafites gritam
/Não dá pra descrever
/Numa linda frase
/De um postal tão doce/
Cuidado com doce
/São Paulo é um buquê/
Buquês são flores mortas
/Num lindo arranjo/
Arranjo lindo feito pra você

Não existe amor em SP
/Os bares estão cheios de almas tão vazias
/A ganância vibra, a vaidade excita/
Devolva minha vida e morra afogada em seu próprio mar de fel/
Aqui ninguém vai pro céu

Another song, Sucrilhos, focuses on favela identity, racism, and how favela residents are perceived:

Calçada pra favela, avenida pra carro,
céu pra avião, e pro morro descaso.
Cientista social, Casas Bahia e tragédia,
Gostam de favelado mais que Nutella
Quanto mais ópio você vai querer?
Uns preferem morrer ao ver o preto vencer

Though he was born Kleber Gomes, the singer adopted the stage name Criolo, an adapted version of the Portuguese word crioulo. In Brazil, this word can be used to describe a person of African descent, but can also be used as a racist epithet. Criolo told a Brazilian publication that he chose the name to honor his father, who is black. In Sucrilhos, Criolo talks about how he's proud of his heritage and his ethnicity. "This is how I am, and I'm happy...I'm Brazilian!" the song goes.

DJ Dandan performed with Criolo.

In addition to Criolo, mineiro rapper Flávio Renegado performed, as did singer Bebel Gilberto.

There was also a graffiti artist who created a new piece on the sidelines of the concert.

Read more about the show from The Wall Street Journal. See more photos of the show by Eliseu Cavalcante.

Yamandu Costa

I caught one of Brazilian guitar genius Yamandu Costa's shows in New York this weekend after a tip from a friend, and it was not disappointing, even though I rarely spring for purely instrumental shows. Though Costa's been a big deal in Brazil and abroad for years, I was glad I was able to see him live. For those unfamiliar with his work, Costa is a 32 year-old classic guitarist who hails from Rio Grande do Sul and plays a number of Brazilian and Latin American styles.

I was worried I might be bored, but at just over an hour run time with occasional bits of entertaining commentary and quick breaks for him to sip his cup of chimarrão, it was great. Plus, there were times when I tried to follow his hands because I couldn't figure out how he was producing two very different sounds at once. I've really never seen anything quite like it.

Costa is currently on tour in the United States before he heads to Africa, Europe, and Brazil. If he is heading to your neck of the woods, I highly recommend checking him out. (See his tour schedule here)

 

 

Also, if you are familiar with Costa's work, you'll likely really enjoy Rodrigo y Gabriela, an amazing Mexican acoustic guitar duo who are getting a lot of attention here in the States.

Michel Teló and Brazilian Identity

Michel Teló has become something of a Justin Bieber figure in Brazil: a wildly popular singer who is also reviled by those who see him as cheesy or untalented. But his fame has spread well beyond Brazil, from Europe to the Middle East. The sertanejo (country music) singer's hit "Ai Se Eu Te Pego," (If I Get You) a short, incredibly catchy hit combined with simple choreography, has become a worldwide hit, appearing in Youtube videos in various languages and starring in not one but two Israeli videos (one of soldiers in uniform dancing, and another in a political satire music video). Videos of how to do the choreography are also all over the web. The song became the top selling song on iTunes in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Sweden, Chile, and Argentina, and according to Época, it is now the most-listened to Brazilian song in Youtube history. It also was in the top 10 in Belgium, Germany, France, Holland, Poland, and Switzerland.

 

Part of the reason for the song's worldwide popularity is because several famous athletes danced to the choregraphy to celebrate wins or in the locker room, namely Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar, as well as Rafael Nadal. After that, soccer players from Brazil, Europe and Turkey starting using the dance to celebrate goals. Denver Nuggets players from Brazil, Spain, Italy, Greece, Russia, and the U.S. also danced to the song in a video shot at the team gym.

The popularity of both the song and the singer lie partially in the soccer connection, as well as the shared cultural lines between Latin America and Europe. Though Teló released the song today in English, it seems unlikely it will gain much traction in North America, but it does seem possible he'll continue to maintain his fame, at least for a little while, in Europe and South America.

 

Despite Brazilians' varying opinions on Teló and his music, it seems he's an example of the enormous potential of Brazilian soft power. As Forbes columnist Anderson Antunes points out in a profile on Teló, several Brazilian stars have tried to go global without success. While many Teló fans may not even understand the song lyrics, or even know what kind of music he sings (I've seen several references to Ai Se Eu Te Pego as "samba"), they know he's from Brazil.

Brazil isn't just seen as an economic heavyweight, or a growing political power in the developing world. Part of its power lies in soft power, of which cultural exports beyond soccer and Carnival could become increasingly more important. From 2005 to 2010, Brazil's soft power ranking doubled, making it the soft power leader in Latin America in 2010 and the 4th most powerful among developing countries. Brazilians were ranked as the second "coolest" nationality, based on an international 2011 survey by website Badoo. A 2011 country branding index measuring the degree to which people admire other countries based on a number of factors--including culture--put Brazil in 20th place, the highest among developing countries. Even international Google search queries about Brazil are on the rise. With the World Cup and Olympics approaching, there are even more opportunities for Brazilian stars to make it big abroad, especially in Europe.

Despite the international appeal, elements of Brazilian popular culture like Michel Teló are somewhat controversial in Brazil. A growing middle class has created something of a cultural divide between the traditional middle class and the new "C class." Music like Teló's represents the new middle class, one from suburban or rural areas with an affinity for entertainment traditionally popular among the working class. In other words, while Brazil's lower income families expand their wealth through increased wages and more employment opportunities, their cultural preferences tend to stay the same, which can make the old middle class elite uncomfortable. But as with other Brazilian cultural trends that began amongst the country's poor or working classes, it can also gradually permeate the country's culture. Sociologist Heloísa Buarque de Hollanda explained in an article about Teló that Teló's music came from a part of society that now has greater legitimacy, and that this part of society from city outskirts and from rural areas have begun to have a greater influence on culture and consumption. Says the article: "The periphery has become a center of innovation in music, behavior, and even fashion."

In an opinion piece entitled "Is Brazil embarrassed by Brazil?" for website Brainstorm9, tech entrepreneur Bob Wollheim explains how Teló's popularity, particularly through social media, has exposed this cultural tension:

"It's interesting that social media has become an enormous mirror for us, a huge window where we are all exposed, everything there for whoever wants to look. The subjects are naked! Orkut, Facebook, Twitter, Google +, it doesn't matter where we are, we're there ridiculing our own idiosyncracies, our ways, our flexible ethics, our 'do as I say, not as I do,' our Gerson's law, our Brazilian jeitinho, our musical and literary tastes, our humor, our education, our religion, our syncretism, our habits, our customs, our languages, our prejudices, our racism, our originality, our inventiveness, in other words - all of our Brazilianness!"

So while Spaniards and Turks sing "Ai Se Eu Te Pego" and German soccer players dance to Michel Teló, they're unaware that one of Brazil's latest cultural phenomena is actually revealing an long-debated question about what "real" Brazilian culture should be--and whether to celebrate it or reject it.

Brazil Summerfest

This Sunday, a special Summerstage show kicked off the first annual Brazil Summerfest, a celebration of Brazilian music in New York. Marcelo D2, Pitty, and DJ Nuts started off a week of performances by Brazilian artists, including Forró in the Dark, Brothers of Brazil, Davi Vieira, and Percussivo Mundo Novo, amongst others. The festival also happened to come right after Tom Zé's first New York performance in 12 years. The Central Park show had a huge turnout on one of the hottest weekends of the year.

Despite the scorching temperatures and a brief rainstorm, there was an impressive turnout on Sunday. Though the crowd appeared to be largely Brazilian, there were plenty of gringos there interested in Brazil. Quite appropriately, Marcelo D2 sang "A Maldição do Samba," or the Samba Curse, which includes the refrain:

A maldição do samba
O gringo subiu no morro e bebeu cachaça, fumou maconha e obteve
a graça. Depois do samba sua vida nunca mais foi a mesma

The samba curse
The gringo went up to the favela and drank cachaça, smoked weed and had a good time
After the samba, his life was never the same.

It was a great way to start a new summer tradition in New York, showing off the fusion of different Brazilian styles. Pitty, an acclaimed rock star, could have easily been confused for a tourist going to brunch; she was dressed in a cute pink dress with a pink headband and ballet flats, a very different look from her usual black and denim rocker style.

She gave an impressive show, keeping the crowd excited despite the oppressive heat. At the end of her set, she sang a song in English, "You Know I'm No Good," in honor of Amy Winehouse.

Marcelo D2, who was profiled in The New York Times on Thursday, showed off his fusion of musical styles: hip hop, rap, samba, reggae, and African-influenced percussion, and as he sang in "Gueto," "um pouco de europeu, um pouco de africano" (a little European, a little African). He even had the security guards dancing.

Later in the afternoon, he surprised the crowd by singing with Bebel Gilberto, a sneak peak for their show on August 3rd at City Winery. At the end, despite confessing he was about to faint from the heat, he invited around 20 women on stage to samba with him in his closing song.

There's a tremendous opportunity for Brazilian cultural events in the US, with an increased interest in everything Brazil. Plus, there's also plenty of opportunity to attract and engage the Brazilian community in major metropolitan areas for events other than Brazil Day. Though Summerfest only features music events, it has already been able to accomplish both by appealing to Brazilian and American audiences. Aside from film festivals, there's a lot of focus on Brazil Day in New York, but there's obviously room for more comprehensive events with a focus on Brazil. Clearly, the Brazil Summerfest organizers are on to something, and there's even more room to grow.

For more concert photos, click here. For a full line up of this week's events, click here.

Photos by Eliseu