{"id":39631,"date":"2017-10-26T18:25:03","date_gmt":"2017-10-26T21:25:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=39631"},"modified":"2017-10-30T20:13:07","modified_gmt":"2017-10-30T23:13:07","slug":"breakdancers-and-rappers-battle-for-bragging-rights-in-mare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=39631","title":{"rendered":"‘Active Favela’ Day Brings Together Elements of Hip Hop and Inspires Youth in Mar\u00e9"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

On a beautiful Saturday, on October 21, breakdancers, rappers, MCs, graffiti<\/a> artists, community members, and other fans of hip-hop<\/a> culture from around Rio de Janeiro congregated in Complexo da Mar\u00e9<\/a>, in the North Zone<\/a>. The occasion was a full-day event called\u00a0Favela Ativa<\/a> (Active Favela), organized by the hip-hop and breakdancing collective\u00a0Mar\u00e9 Skills<\/a>\u00a0in collaboration with the Jamaica Gang Collective\u00a0<\/b>(CJG).<\/p>\n

The event was held at the end of Ari Le\u00e3o Street in Parque Uni\u00e3o<\/a>\u2014one of the sixteen favelas that comprise Mar\u00e9<\/a>\u2014below the Linha Vermelha highway overpass where a paneled wall was installed between the road and the favela complex ahead of the 2014 World Cup<\/a>. \u201cIt was built in order to hide Mar\u00e9 from tourists<\/a> upon their arrival to Rio,” one event participant speculated, due to the highway being the main route from the South Zone to and from Rio’s international airport.<\/p>\n

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Mar\u00e9 Skills was founded in 2016, inspired by the Conscious Breakdance Group of Rocinha<\/a> (Grupo de Breaking Consciente da Rocinha\u2014GBCR) from the famous South Zone<\/a> favela. The Mar\u00e9 Skills collective encompasses two dance groups,\u00a0Atari Funkerz<\/a> and Ativa Breakers<\/a>, and its dancers provide classes for children and young adults in the community to inspire them to develop their talents and to build appreciation for the power of hip-hop.<\/p>\n

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One Mar\u00e9 Skills participant, Ricardo Prema, identified himself as a proteg\u00e9 of Mestre Jagal, whom he credits with building the hip-hop movement in Rio and inspiring the Mar\u00e9 Skills collective. Jagal saw hip-hop’s potential as a positive outlet, always insisting that “we have to organize and do hip-hop day and night,” Prema remembered. Prema, a designer for the Atari Funkerz breakdance group, now lives in Niter\u00f3i<\/a> but continues to organize an annual hip-hop event in Mar\u00e9 called Batendo de Frente, in homage to Jagal who passed away in 2007.<\/p>\n

Hip-hop originated from the Bronx in New York City, and its history of stigmatization<\/a> before becoming mainstream shares similarities with the trajectories of samba<\/a> and funk<\/a> in Brazil. Hip-hop today has the reach and popularity to inspire individuals and groups in countries, like Brazil, where it is not part of the mainstream music culture.<\/p>\n

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The name of Saturday’s event, Favela Ativa, was proposed by a Mar\u00e9 Skills member during a planning meeting for the community event. The name aimed to highlight the importance of keeping the youth and all other community members physically active and artistically creative. As the majority of mainstream media coverage<\/a> about Mar\u00e9 tends to focus on violence and adversity<\/a>, the organizers of Favela Ativa wanted the event to emphasize other aspects of life in Mar\u00e9 and invigorate residents through art<\/a> and dance<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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When asked what made this event different from others, Mar\u00e9 Skills member James emphasized the diversity of activities happening in one space: \u201cIt\u2019s a union of all the elements of real hip-hop: breakdancing, rapping, graffiti, and photography<\/a>.\u201d Aspiring graffiti artists were encouraged to use the event space’s walls to practice their art and improve the aesthetic of the area. There was also space for young entrepreneurs and designers to sell their “authentic street style” clothing. Altogether, it was a great day of artistic exploration and collaboration for participants from Mar\u00e9 and around the city.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas On a beautiful Saturday, on October 21, breakdancers, rappers, MCs, graffiti artists, community members, and other fans of hip-hop culture from around Rio de Janeiro congregated in Complexo da Mar\u00e9, in […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":161,"featured_media":39739,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1288,1333,1268,329,1329],"tags":[2569,2570,258,280,1522,504,320,221,382,511,457,1370,551,37,362,572,1809,12,458,1568,259],"writer":[2539],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-39631","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-highlight","8":"category-event-reports","9":"category-favelaculture","10":"category-solutions","11":"category-by-international-observers","12":"tag-breakdance","13":"tag-collective","14":"tag-community-solution","15":"tag-complexo-da-mare","16":"tag-cultural-production","17":"tag-culture","18":"tag-dance","19":"tag-favela-culture","20":"tag-hip-hop","21":"tag-linha-vermelha","22":"tag-graffiti","23":"tag-music","24":"tag-niteroi","25":"tag-north-zone","26":"tag-parque-uniao","27":"tag-photography","28":"tag-rap","29":"tag-rocinha","30":"tag-street-culture","31":"tag-training","32":"tag-youth","33":"writer-sidney-magana"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/161"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/39739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39631"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=39631"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=39631"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=39631"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=39631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}