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.

 

Rio's Favelas, Over A Decade After City of God

In 2002, a Brazilian movie called City of God was released. It was filmed in Rio's favelas with favela residents as actors. It became an international phenomenon, and was nominated for four Oscars. And since then, there hasn't been a Brazilian film with the same commercial success in the United States since, nor a Brazilian movie that has managed to loom so large in the American imagination about Brazil.

As the World Cup is set to begin, the image of the favela is firmly entrenched in the U.S. coverage of the event, be it the news or commercials. Favelas have been in the foreign spotlight even before the film (think: Michael Jackson), but "favela chic" and the fascination with favela imagery is a clear part of City of God's legacy.

This week, the Brazilian Film Festival of New York debuted the charming documentary City of God: 10 Years Later, which catches up with the actors from the film to find out how they've fared.

A few have saw their careers take off, like Seu Jorge and Alice Braga, and others managed to build acting or showbusiness careers in Brazil. But the majority of actors interviewed in the film are living similar lives. Some have become family men; others are just scraping by. A number were arrested for robbery or involvement in the drug trade; one is presumed dead. One man is selling peanuts and hoping to kick off a music career.

 

Like the actors, Rio's favelas have undergone changes in the time since City of God came out. Pacification has meant that some communities have seen a drop in homicides, though a rise in disappearances and other types of crimes mean the overall result has yet to be defined. A huge socioeconomic shift brought millions into the middle class, meaning that nearly two-thirds of Brazilian favela residents are considered part of the "new middle class." With the development of mobile technology, cheaper phones mean that 90 percent of the new middle class owns a cell. That means homes in favelas are much more likely to now have TVs, computers, and electronics than back in 2002, and a growing number of favela residents are getting access to education and better jobs.


Still, the concepts that City of God cemented are ones that haven't changed much as far as foreign perceptions of favelas. There's still this romanticized or demonized notion of favelas that you'll continue to see throughout the World Cups. Do favelas still suffer from violence, drug trafficking, and poverty? Yes. But they're also an important part of how Brazilian society is transforming.

With this in mind, last month I agreed to be a volunteer writer and translator for Voz da Comunidade, a community news site based in Rio's Complexo do Alemão, run by Rene Silva. My first piece, a translation of my Ingrid Silva profile, ran last week. I agreed to contribute through writing New York stories and doing English translations of Rene's reporting because not only will it be fun to write for a Brazilian audience, but I also think there's a great benefit to getting Rene's coverage to a larger international audience.

Because while violence is an unfortunate reality, there's so much going on and Rene and his staff are able to report from within the community. It's important that foreigners realize that some things haven't changed in Rio's favelas, but thanks to technology and the socioeconomic shift, residents are telling their own stories every day.

Images: U.S. poster for City of God; Rocinha by Steve Martinez, and favela shot by Midia Ninja.

A Brazilian Ballerina in New York: Interview with Ingrid Silva

Ingrid Silva was eight years old when she started doing ballet. Like other little girls, she started out going to classes with a sibling—in her case, her brother—and worked her way up to professional training and eventually, achieved an accomplishment many only dream of: getting into a company.

But Ingrid isn't your typical ballerina.

The daughter of a domestic worker and a retired Air Force employee, she grew up in Rio de Janeiro''s Benfica neighborhood, a working-class area not far from the city's famed Maracanã Stadium. At around age 13, she started getting serious about ballet, quitting swimming and other sports to dedicate herself to dance.

Ingrid started out dancing in Mangueira at Dançando Para Não Dançar, a program based in a dozen of Rio's favelas that provides classical ballet training to kids and teens who could otherwise not afford dance classes. It's had a great track record in training dancers that go on to train at the city's esteemed Teatro Municipal school and later, to dance in companies abroad.

She was one of the success stories of the program, and also trained at the Teatro Municipal school and with Deborah Colker's company, as well as appearing in the movie Maré, Nossa História de Amor. She danced in college and then in 2007, she got into the Dance Theatre of Harlem (DTH)'s summer intensive, and went to New York to train. A year later at age 19, she went back to New York to join DTH's ensemble, and later went on to join the company.

Now 25, Ingrid is disarmingly self-assured and mature. She throws around words like balance, priorities, discipline, and focus talking about her path as a dancer. She told me about how hard it was coming to New York by herself. "I had to get by on my own. That's when I grew up and learned to appreciate what my parents had taught me," she said.

When she first arrived, she didn't speak English or know anyone. She first lived with roommates, and missed the community atmosphere she'd grown up with, as well as her family. Later, she lived with a friend of her grandmother's, an older Brazilian woman, where she felt more at home. Now, she lives in her own place with her new puppy, and peppers her Portuguese with occasional English words.

I asked Ingrid about role models. While she said she looked up to Brazilian ballerinas like Ana Botafogo and Cecília Kerche, she learned that she had to inspire herself. For her, finding a role model isn't just wanting to be like a dancer. "It's how to get there," she explained. Because of that, she said she's become her own role model. She's gotten this far by herself, she says, "as a black dancer from a [low-income] community in Rio without my parents having the financial means to get me there."

Race is a huge issue in the ballet world, and not just in Brazil. At the Teatro Municipal school, Ingrid was one of four black dancers in her class of 25. And when she was younger, she wanted to join the Teatro Municipal company. But she later realized that Rio's premiere ballet company doesn't have a single black female dancer, and only a handful of black male dancers. For black female dancers in Brazil, she said, you have to go abroad to have a shot at ballet.

In the United States, the situation isn't great, but there are opportunities like the DTH, along with a few black dancers appearing in some of the country's top companies. Ingrid explained that racism in ballet is a shame, because in reality, "it's for everyone."

 

Ingrid dancing at New York's Greene Space in 2013

Still, she insists that her success has nothing to do with her race or background. "I'm not here because I'm poor," she said. "I'm here because of my dancing." She recalls always being one of the best in her class growing up, and worked hard at her art with the hopes of being treated equally.

Ingrid would like to go back to Brazil someday, though she doesn't know how many dance opportunities she'd have there. Plus, she points out, ballet doesn't get much recognition there. For now, Ingrid wants to focus on her dance career and later on wants to study psychology and become a dance psychologist.

These days, Ingrid is on the road much of the time with the company. She travels so much she lost track of how many times she's traveled this year. She estimates the company has around 50 to 60 trips annually to perform around the United States and throughout the world. But she can feel an extra element of home at work. Out of 18 dancers in the company, three are from Brazil, including Ingrid.

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Dance Theater of Harlem is performing at Lincoln Center in New York from April 23 to 27. Get tickets here. Ingrid will be dancing in Gloria, Dancing on the Front Porch of Heaven, and Contested Space.

Follow Ingrid on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

First and third photos by Eliseu Cavalcante Photography. Second photo courtesy of Ingrid Silva's Instagram.

Survey: The Things They Bought

Brazil may be one of the world's largest economies with a growing middle class and reduced inequality, but consumer goods still tend to be very expensive there. As a result, Brazilians traveling abroad tend to buy all sorts of interesting things that are cheaper in other countries, from iPads to pacifiers.

I'm conducting a survey to find out the strangest things Brazilians buy in the United States, as well as surprising shopping requests by Brazilians for family members or friends traveling to the U.S.

Here are some real examples from friends:

• a boat anchor [request, not granted]
• a bicycle [request, granted]
• a Persian rug [request, not granted]
• baby clothes, bought before getting pregnant or having children [purchase]
• coffee, in K-cups [purchase]

Leave a comment here, share with me on Facebook or Twitter, or email me.

Image: Andre Manoel/Flickr.

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-U.S. Exchange: Empowering Underserved Youth through Social Media

This month, the U.S. consulate in Rio launched a brand new pilot program that brought two young New York journalists to Rio and will later send two young Carioca journalists to New York. The program, called Empowering Underserved Youth through Social Media: A Community Journalism Exchange, was inspired by a visit from young Brazilian journalist Rene Silva and his colleagues to the U.S. consulate in Rio last year. In an email, Press Attaché Sara Mercado explained how she created the program, appealing to an innovation fund from the State Department and also winning funding from the U.S. embassy's public diplomacy resources. 

Mercado said that the United States is looking to expand people-to-people diplomacy in Brazil, and the program was a perfect opportunity. "Our ambassador, Thomas Shannon, has said that diplomacy in the 21st century is increasingly done people-to-people, and less between national governments," she explained. "The goal for the program is to support those critically important exchanges of people between the U.S. and Brazil that lead to real mutual understanding among our people and institutional linkages between groups." For the partner city, the consulate decided to pick New York. "We looked for big, urban cities which had grappled with some of the same challenges currently being confronted in Rio," Mercado said.

The consulate chose to partner with Harlem organization Brotherhood-SisterSol, and later picked two young people from New York, Nicholas Peart and Marsha Jean-Charles, to participate in the one-week program in Rio in early January. "In speaking to the Harlem-based team, we discovered that the communities shared many of the same challenges, and had each found different solutions to some of those issues," explained Mercado. The consulate also partnered with Bridge Language School, which offered free Portuguese and English classes to the participants. Two youth from Rio were also chosen--Silva and Daiene Mendes--to travel to New York in the coming months.

In the Rio exchange, the consulate designed a program to expose participants to underserved communities in Rio, as well as non-profits, government, the arts, public security, and other key issues. The two Brazilians who will travel to New York accompanied the Americans throughout the visit; Mercado says the consular staff was happy to see they formed a "cohesive bond." The program even garnered media attention, including Globo's Bom Dia Brasil. The two New York participants chronicled the visit in blog posts, which were also shared on Facebook and Twitter; highlights from the trip were also featured on the U.S. embassy's social media pages.

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I met Peart in New York after he returned from the exchange. A mentor at Brotherhood-SisterSol who graduated from Borough of Manhattan Community College in liberal arts last year, Peart is easygoing and well-spoken. He described the exchange as "life-changing" and "magical," and already wants to go back to Brazil.

In 2011, Peart wrote a powerful opinion piece for The New York Times on stop-and-frisk and police brutality in New York, and continues to speak out about this civil rights issue to the press. So for Peart, seeing police engagement in favelas to improve the relationship between communities and the government made an impression. In visiting the UPP in Complexo do Alemão, he saw a lot of potential in improving police-resident ties, even though problems persist. Meanwhile, he said, New York has a long way to go. "The relationship between the police and the [Harlem] community is so hostile," he told me. "It would take an entire generation for it to change." He was also unfazed by the violence in Rio. "Violence happens here, too," he said.

That said, Peart was struck by the poverty and divisions between rich and poor in Rio. "What about the people on the hills?" he wondered out loud. "These are the forgotten people left to govern themselves." But he was also impressed by the resilience of communities. "There's hope," he noted. Though he really liked Ipanema, he noticed the high gates that dominate the neighborhood.

It was Peart's first visit outside the U.S. other than Jamaica (he is of Jamaican descent). He loved Rio culture, from the music to the beach to the food. He was happy to discover the gastronomical similarities between Brazil and the West Indies, especially rice and beans. Peart's favorite stop during the trip was Afroreggae, where he said they "use art as their weapon for change." He's still learning Portuguese, and hopes more high school students from New York have a chance to participate in exchanges so they're inspired to learn a language. Peart studied Spanish in high school and college, but wasn't too interested. "You have to give things meaning," he said.

Peart and his American colleague spent a lot of time with their Brazilian counterparts, even spending time with them after the official activities had ended. Meeting Silva and Mendes, Peart was struck by their maturity and self-awareness. But he also found they had a lot in common, even as they communicated through a translator. "We're not so different," he said. "It's just where the boat left us at."

First photo: Peart, Mendes, Jean-Charles, and Silva, by Rene Silva.
Second photo: Nicholas Peart in Rio, by Bruna Basilio.

Q&A with Quenia Ribeiro

There are plenty of places in New York where you'll find gringos swapping stories of trips to Brazil and their latest Portuguese class, but one place you may not expect is in the halls of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, one of the top dance schools in the country. Through the Ailey Extension, which offers open classes to absolute beginners and seasoned dancers alike, students can learn samba from the indefatigable carioca Quenia Ribeiro. To the beat of five excellent percussionists (which is quite a thrill for an open dance class), students learn samba no pé and Bahian-style samba to the rhythms of samba carioca and samba-reggae as well as maculelê, afoxé, maracatu, xaxado, and frevo.

Not only is Quenia's class incredibly fun and suitable for a variety of levels, but like other classes at the Ailey Extension, it's really judgement-free, unlike other big dance schools that offer open classes in New York. Quenia's something of a samba ambassador; she runs her own samba group in New York, and has performed in Brazil, China, Greece, and throughout the United States.

I spoke to Quenia about her experience teaching samba in New York and her perspectives on Americans' interest in Brazilian culture.

Where did you study ballet, and why is it important for learning samba?

I studied classical ballet for 18 years in Rio de Janeiro. I started dancing when I was six. Some of the schools I attended were Teresinha Goulart Escola De Ballet in Tijuca and later at the Escola Estadual de Danca Maria Olenewa. I also received a scholarship at Dalal Achcar.

In response to your question, you don't need to have a ballet background to dance samba. For me it helped and I feel a firm background in ballet is helpful for dancers in general. I always tell students of all ages that they need to keep their minds open to all forms of dance; just because you dance one thing it does'nt mean you shouldn't try and learn from other genres of dance as well.

When did you move to New York? Why did you decide to move?

I moved from Rio de Janeiro to New York City in 1995. My mother and brother were already living here and I was always very close with them. I think I inherited my mother's adventurous spirit and I wanted to be in a new place that had a lot different cultures and people of different interests and backgrounds.

When did you begin giving classes at Ailey, and why did they decide to start offering samba?

I have been teaching at the Ailey Extension for about seven years. At the time, the Ailey Extension was interested in expanding to include more ethnic dance forms and I had been teaching at various studios in New York since 1997. I was approached by the director of the extension to teach samba and Afro-Brazilian and I have been there ever since.

What brings students to your class: interest in dance, in Brazil, or both? After taking your class, do students consider going to Brazil?

My students attend classes for a variety of reasons. Some of them have a great passion for various forms of dance and a solid dance background, whereas others are looking for a fun upbeat way to exercise that has some history and substance attached to it. As a student, you don't necessarily have to have direct roots to the culture to appreciate, learn, and participate; just a real interest. 

Some of my students are getting ready to take a trip or have just returned and are intrigued by Brazil's culture, music, and dance. Others are interested through their own cultures; maybe they have some roots in Africa, or through the diaspora in the Caribbean or South America. Brazil also has a real appeal to people the world over. I think movies and media has shaped many people's ideas about Brazil in both negative and positive ways and the truth is that Brazil is not one thing: it is really diverse culturally and geographically, and has many faces.

During your time living in the United States, have you noticed any changes in Americans' perspectives on Brazil?

In my environment in the United States, people were always really interested in Brazil. When I moved here, I started taking capoeira classes, so there were a lot of people from the U.S. and from Europe, Japan, etc. who were already very interested in the culture of Brazil. Now, I think in general people are really more clued in to Brazil as an economic and global player through the media and that has expanded people's ideas and consciousness as well.

Many foreigners tend to think of samba and soccer when they think of Brazil. What's your take on that?

Brazil is really famous for samba and soccer so they're always going to be associated with Brazil in many people's minds. That is not say that Brazil does not have a lot of other things to offer as well. I think in general people don't really understand the cultural power or significance of samba to many Brazilians. It's a social phenomenon: it's something that came from simple people that transcended color and monetary and social barriers. The thing is that samba and soccer are a combination of a lot of different elements and that is why they are so recognizeable to non-Brazilians. They are both living art with many colors and variations, highly developed and evolving, but firmly connected to the roots and history of Brazil.

Visit Quenia's website and see her teaching schedule at the Ailey Extension.

Photo: Antoine Tempe, courtesy of Alvin Ailey Dance Theater.