Two Brothers Foundation / Instituto dois Irmãos

Guerreir@s do Ritmo (big debut)

The tenth of October 2009 in the commnity of Rocinha here in Rio de Janeiro was like any other day here except for the fact that there were three additional gringos sleeping peacfully awaiting the big performance. The three of us were worn out from teaching numerous workshops and dancing and battling on the street all weekend long in São Paulo then quickly taking the overnight bus and preparing for more teaching on little to no sleep. We were in a happy daze the three of us. Bboys and bgirls, temporary embassadors for our country desperately trying not to let the artform of breakng die. Making sure that some way some how the world knew that there was and still is a beautiful dance called breaking that graced the streets of NYC, spread to thre rest of the country and finally the rest of the world. A dance that allows its participants entrance into a world community that wants a better world. It was and is our duty coming from the richest country in the world and sadly one of the ones without a ministry of art and culture to fill this position and hold onto our culture, our art, our history, to pass it on to others and see what they do with it, what becomes anew.

I knew my kids probably didn’t sleep much this week either and bugged their parents witless of course. They had been telling me for weeks how excited and nervous they were. When I told them after class one day that the following class was cancled one girl said that she was going to come anyway just in case. I was so proud of them. They had transceneded all the cultural stereotypes of the average Carioca. They all had almost perfect attendence, they were punctual, often early, and they were working towards a goal together. Stepping back to look at their progress and mine over the past few months I was so happy to have also covered another milestone without even knowing it. The relationship beteen the sexes here in Rio is a tough one. They are hypersexualized from a young age here and there are few opposite sex friendships. The women also happen to be very brutal towards one another when it comes to men.

Looking at my little guys and girls I realized I had been so pleasently surprised that the two little boys had stayed and actually developed friendships with their female peers. Nevermind that the other day when I was showing them battle tactics one of which was to pretend like you were pulling the pants off your opponent one of the girls actually did pull the pants off the littles guy in the class. Thank god he had a long Michael Jackson shirt that I had given him on that covered the goods. He didn’t seem to be too phased by it though. I gave him a hug and made her appologize and he was smiling the wholetime. The most import thing is that they are friends and can work together towards a goal despite their differences, it was beautiful.

***

Me, my red headded friend of Slovakian descent and my Chinese American friend ate our breakfast of bread butter and bananas and an avocado shake and headed out the door. Passed the oozing landfil that greets me every morning as I leave my home, the very young very attractive and very sad young men with guns on their morning shift outside my door. After living here almost a year I feel quite strongly that for most of these young men it is just a job and all of them a sense of power in a world that is reluctant to relinquish it.

We passed the corner stores and bars that decided to stay open from the night before just to suck the last alcoholic dry or if nothing else see if he or she would do anything entertaining in the wee hours of the morning. We walked down the dark moist little alleys that smelled like a mixture of feces, chicken, barbeque, and vomit where we were often greeted by one or more of these treasures face to face or shall I say foot to foot finally making it to the little “Instituto Dois Irmãos” nestled in the middle of one of them. It was raining of course as it had been for the past week and a half and so the sewers were overflowing and of course the alleys weren’t big enough to open an umbrella up fully. Luckily my friend had his fully opened when a brick came loose from an closeby building and fell right onto what would be his head. Most people usually gave up and let the rain soak them through, hey 9 time out of 10 it wasn’t all that cold anyway.

When we arrived the little girls and two boys who had survived a class with all pre teen girls for 5 months were there already and ready to go along with a few family members. One mother looking like she was less than thrilled to be there but at the sametime a gossip queen just like her daughter who had been caught in a lie in front of her the same day. She had a million questions and didn’t seem to trust me much at all and kept on giving me the stink eye.

We gathered all the little ones and were on our way. The bus ride was about an hour, although it should have taken about half the time, thanks to Rio infrastructur which is better than most developing countries but still needs a lot of work. From the central station we waded through pools of questionable liquids with the ocasional solids to our destination. Usually I try to have a pair of shoes for walking and one for dancing seeing as how the type of dance we do requires us to put our heads on the ground quite a bit but lately I have just been projecting the image of cleanliness onto my shoes and the shoes of my students because few have the luxury of buying more than one pair of tennis so I am almost certain that I put my head in some nastiness on a daily basis…builds up the immune system, no swine flue for me!

The venue was a small theatre that was part of the prefeitura. A art and cultural centre that the director was nice enough to donate to my friend for the event. She spent the day before with us explaining our options with all the rooms and theatres. We had decided that the front space would be best and that is where we walked in that Saturday afternoon, me and my little ones. There were already quite a few people dancing and forming cyphers or rodas calling eachother out to battle or just enjoy one anothers dancing. The little ones, from here on out called Guerreir@s do Ritmo, their crew name, stuck close to me in the beginning scared to dance. I pushed the more boisterous ones into the middle and it was over. They spent the rest of the day dancing all over the place and jumping in and out of the cyphers.

My attention was required by just about everyone there. The adults were growing anxious after a few hours but because nothing works on schedule here in Rio and everyone is “pressed for time” I couldn’t give them a set schedule. The kids were getting tired and starting to piss eachother off. My friend who’s event it was didn’t know how he wanted me and my friends to judge the competitions so we had to come up with the scheme ourselves. I had to translate for just about everyone there who wanted to talk to me and my friends and pass some hip hop knowledge “from the root”.

Finally after the preliminary selection of the breaking battle and 5 hours having passed it was time for the first big performance of the Guerreir@s do Ritmo. It took us about 5 minutes for them to get into formation and I was worried they were going to blank out. I was so proud standing there watching them in their black and purple silk screened lace shirts I had made for them. They looked so professional, so sweet, so accomplished, so beautiful and handsom.

The music started and they were off. I was taken aback, they were better than I had ever seen them in class. Their positioning, their character and their smiles and with only a few slip ups they ended with a bang! It was beautiful. After the performance people came up to me left and right saying how good they were and how they had never seen kids here so young do choreography so precisely. I was offered another teaching position as well which will probably not manifest seeing as it takes people forever to get things together here and everyone likes to talk about doing things and not get them done.

Regardless my little ones my little Rhytm Warriors were a hit. They couldn’t stay still too long at the end and all the little girls came up to me and hugged me from all sides while the little boys danced all over the place in various cyphers. They were also even teaching some of the other little ones there. I was so proud of them and felt extremely blessed to have this experience the Fulbright provided me. I hope to stay in the lives of these little warriours forever.

For those of you interested in seeking the fruits of their hard work:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PYjeLjQJAM