Life, Death, and Art

By Suzy Khimm, December 8, 2003

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For 10 years the Grupo Cultural Afro-Reggae has been providing an alternative to drugs in Rio de Janeiro's most infamous ghetto.

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All photos from Grupo Cultural Afro-Reggae's website: www.afroreggae.org

Beto Pacheco is trying to get the youth of Vigário Geral to pay attention. It's not an easy task to accomplish in a room of 25 energetic 11-year-olds, especially on this sunny Wednesday afternoon. The room is bustling with people; as usual the mothers chat in the back, staff members pass in and out, and siblings linger in the doorway that opens out to the street. But when the music starts up, the room of chatty girls and one boy springs into action.

The kids throw themselves into routine, a high-energy mixture of hip hop, jazz, samba, and African dance steps. Pachecho, for the most part, stays back by the boom box, observing the routine unfold. "I treat my classroom like a kind of laboratory to explore all different kinds of movement," he says. "I bring what I know to them, but each of them has their own way of expressing themselves."

On the surface, it may seem like just another after-school dance class, but the class is happening here in Vigário Geral, infamous throughout Rio de Janeiro and Brazil for being one of the city's most violent neighborhoods. As Pacheco counts off the steps, nearly half the room of on-lookers mouths the words to the music -- the band Afro-Reggae's "Capa de Revista" ("Magazine Cover"). In a burst of conga drums and electric guitars, the song speaks of the neighborhood that the newspapers and magazines call "the terror of Rio," becoming "a new crowd / that no one will hold back," a new "explosion of Rio / that has come to stay." The air vibrates from the chorus of overlapping drumbeats, palpable evidence, it seems, of the force of the Grupo Cultural Afro-Reggae.

Life and Art in the Favelas

This year marks the 10-year anniversary of the Grupo Cultural Afro-Reggae (GCAR), one of the most active and well-regarded non-profits working here in Rio. Its home base and cultural center still in Vigário, the GCAR currently runs over 16 sub-groups in four different favelas, offering free workshops for youth in music, dance, circus arts, video, and radio production. It is home to a health information service, a health-issues theater troupe, four distinct music groups, and, most prominently, the professional hip hop band Afro-Reggae.

GCAR's objective is clear: to use arts and culture to provide youth in the favelas with an alternative to the drug trade. Favelas -- usually translated as "slums" or "shantytowns" -- developed over the past century in Rio de Janeiro as the poor were forced out of the more desirable parts of the city and into the hills. Beginning as illegal settlements, favelas still often lack the most basic kinds of infrastructure such as paved roads, enclosed houses, and reliable electricity.

In Rio de Janeiro, one of the most economically divided cities in one of the most economically divided countries in the world, 25% of the 5.5 million inhabitants live in favelas or favela-like neighborhoods. While Brazil is a far more mestiço ("mixed race") society than, say, the U.S., the racial disparities are marked: the darker your skin, the more likely that you will be poor, living in a favela, and subject to violence.

With many residents lacking basic health care, food, and education in the favelas, social services hardly exist and welfare is unheard of. "Everyone here in Vigário knows about the daily shoot-outs, of the misery, the poverty, and the hunger that exists here," says Carlos Eduardo Vasconcelos, the community coordinator of the GCAR.

One of the most recent and extreme episodes of violence in Vigário occurred this past July 17. 11 people were massacred within 48 hours in or near Vigário, an event that called the attention of the international press. The deaths were the result of the on-going war between the two drug cartels that dominate Vigário and the neighboring Parada de Lucas. After an intense gun battle between the rivaling drug traffickers, seven local residents were sequestered, tortured, and killed. The following day, four traffickers from Vigário were killed by the police during an organized invasion of Parade de Lucas.

The killings happened just weeks before the anniversary of the August 29, 1993 massacre, in which 21 innocent civilians from Vigário were slaughtered by police. The massacre happened the day after four police officers were killed by local drug traffickers. Of 50 officers accused of participating in the massacre, only five were found guilty, and only two are still in jail. The last 10 accused were absolved just days after the victims‚ families and other Vigário residents gathered to commemorate the tragedy.

From these facts alone, it seems that little has changed in the ten years since the first massacre. But while Vigário mourns its losses, both new and old, it also has reason to celebrate the possibility -- and the reality -- of a new future for its youth through the work of GCAR.

The Art of Seduction

To talk about the violence that plagues Rio is, inevitably, to talk about drug trade. The rivalry between the two dominant drug cartels in Rio -- the Comando Vermelho ("Red Command) and the Terceir Comando ("Third Command") -- is so fierce that some prisons have separate wards for the two factions. More often than not, the most serious instances of assault and murder have some kind of connection with the drug trade, as does the corruption that pervades the police, the local government, and many state-sponsored institutions. While the cartels are connected to a global system of drug traffic, it's often the favelas that provide a home base for local traffickers, serving as a place to store arms, conduct business, and recruit new traffickers from neighborhood youth.

Traffickers are often among the most powerful, privileged, and, frequently, respected members of the communities they inhabit. In Vigário, where the Comando Vermelho remains dominant, there are internal sets of rules that the residents know to follow, among them implicit codes of silence and regulated hours of exit and entry into the favela. In turn, there is a certain level of security and protection that the traffickers offer. Everyday muggings and petty crime, for example, tend to occur far more frequently in wealthier neighborhoods like Copacabana than in the favelas.

Considering the sub-standard living conditions within most favelas, the status, money, and privilege that the drug trade seems to offer are undeniably tempting to Rio de Janeiro's youth. "So," says Johayne Hidelfonso, an Afro-Reggae theater instructor, "you have to find other ways to seduce them."

Breast. Breast. Breast.

It's Saturday, August 23, and a pair of gigantic cloth breasts, one white and one brown, appear center stage. The music starts up and the flashlight-nipples are turned on, eliciting giggles from the mothers, siblings, and friends in the audience. The cast fans out across the stage, decked out in high heels, ties, and feather boas. One by one, each actor looks straight out to the audience and says, with deadly force: "Breast. Breast. Breast. Cancer of the breast." Clearly, this is not your typical public service announcement.

Since its formation in 1997, the Trupe da Saúde, GCAR's health-issues theater troupe, has given over 300 presentations in favelas, public schools, bus terminals, hospitals, and public plazas to raise awareness about health issues. Hidelfonso was invited to direct the group four years ago to give the troupe a more "professional look." Incorporating hip hop dance, samba music, stilt-walking, and diva-style power ballads, the troupe brings humor, energy, and theatrical flair to its presentations.

Halfway into the breast cancer piece, Raphael Rodrigues, a 17-year-old Vigário resident bursts across the stage in full drag, donning a long platinum-blond wig and an absurdly large pair of breasts. As usual, a crowd has gathered to watch, sitting on the rickety chairs in the back, hovering in the doorway open to the street. The room erupts in laughter as Rodrigues spins, high-steps, and lip-synchs to the music. Even though it's just a rehearsal, it's always a show.

"Before I joined the group four years ago, I had never danced before in my life," says Rodrigues. "Three days later, I had my first performance, in the street, with clothes, make-up, and everything." Rodrigues is now an assistant dance instructor for Afro-Reggae and commutes between Copacabana and Vigário during the week to attend jazz classes.

"We are the Proof"

While young performers like Rodrigues quickly find a home in the Afro-Reggae community, reaching out to Vigário youth is hardly an easy task. While the group's reputation within Vigário has grown considerably, the temptations of trafficking are strong, and Afro-Reggae's rules are strict: none of the participants are allowed to drink, smoke, or use any kind of drugs, either during or outside of classes and rehearsals. "Most of Afro-Reggae's leaders are young, like me, and it's easier to convince kids to join up that way," says Anderson Elias dos Santos, one of the band Afro-Reggae's percussionists and a Vigário resident.

At 20 years old, Dos Santos has already spent two years playing with the band Afro-Reggae, which has toured extensively through Europe and put out a CD in 2001 by Universal; they have plans to record a new CD this winter and have a gig at Carnegie Hall this spring. In 2000, Dos Santos left the country for the first time when the Banda Afro-Reggae attended a music festival in Holland. More recently, he spent three months on "No Limit," a Brazilian reality TV show. "My life changed after I started playing music," says Dos Santos. "I began to take responsibility for something -- for my instrument, for myself."