{"id":58902,"date":"2020-04-16T16:02:22","date_gmt":"2020-04-16T19:02:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=58902"},"modified":"2020-04-20T13:29:01","modified_gmt":"2020-04-20T16:29:01","slug":"do-you-know-the-mysteries-of-serrinha-the-source-of-rios-cultural-abundance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=58902","title":{"rendered":"Do You Know the Mysteries of Serrinha? The Source of Rio\u2019s Cultural Abundance"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

My name is Fl\u00e1vio da Silva Fran\u00e7a Alves, better known as Mestre Flavinho. I am a batuque and jongo percussionist, member of the Imp\u00e9rio Serrano<\/a> samba school, and founder of Projeto Herdeiros<\/a> (the Heirs Project). Born and raised in the favela of Morro da Serrinha<\/a>, since the first hours of my life I have received visions of my ancestral origins from Olorun<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

The History of Morro da Serrinha<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The community of Morro da Serrinha has existed for more than 100 years. It is situated in Madureira<\/a>, in the North Zone<\/a> of Rio de Janeiro. Its story starts soon after the beginning of the 20th<\/sup> century. After the abolition of slavery by law and the proclamation of the Republic in Brazil, people who had been enslaved didn\u2019t receive any kind of compensation. The jobs they were doing in the fields under slavery were replaced with the labor of European immigrants<\/a> who, unlike those who had been enslaved, earned money for their work. The lack of prospects in the country forced a black migration to the then capital<\/a>, Rio de Janeiro.<\/p>\n

At that time, the downtown Centro<\/a> area of the city seethed with people from different races and classes, something that didn\u2019t please the bourgeoisie. In response, then-Mayor Pereira Passos<\/a> put into practice the famous Bota-Abaixo<\/em><\/a> upgrading reforms, demolishing the tenement buildings in the area to construct what is now Rio Branco Avenue.<\/p>\n

Why go so far back? Because to understand Serrinha, we must connect with our past. The first residents of Serrinha came from those same plantations in the Para\u00edba Valley region<\/a> and Rio’s Centro following the Bota-Abaixo<\/em> demolitions. Each brought their own knowledge with them; some brought a plethora.<\/p>\n

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My Story in Serrinha<\/strong><\/h3>\n

When I was younger, I was always really fascinated by the conversations and questions that the community’s elders shared with us, the information they brought us from the time of slavery in Brazil. My granddad, Guaracy Rosa, a dock worker by profession, originally from the Congo, was a batuque<\/em> and jongo percussionist. He brought with him the teachings of his father, and from there, passed on to me what he had learned. He would often say that \u201ceverything was a mystery and that children couldn\u2019t get very involved in those things.\u201d That\u2019s where my questions come from, because it was always like that: maintaining the tradition of the jeitinho<\/em> that my granddad taught, everything came down to a coffee and a good old chat.<\/p>\n

When I would take hold of my mother’s pots and pans, from an early age I was already drumming on them. The old man would say to me: \u201cYou do it like that? Patum patum papa tacaticat\u00e1,<\/em>\u201d honoring the oral culture and the continuity of samba. It was in this way that I learned and passed on our musicality to my children.<\/p>\n

As children, we would create a new game every day, from games of tag to setting up drums out of old cans and buckets and pretending to be the mestre sala<\/em> and porta bandeira<\/em> samba school dance partners. Our favela has a contagious rhythm.<\/p>\n

From the 1990s, funk carioca<\/a>\u2014also of African rhythmic origin\u2014took over our imaginations and our house, making everybody shake their behinds and twist and turn their bodies. My mother danced to funk while she washed the dishes. I, all active and quite grown up in the 2000s, got together with the crew from my generation and created a group of funk dancers, the Bonde dos Neguinhos<\/em>. It was a historic and impactful moment in our lives.<\/p>\n

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Serrinha as a Great History Lesson<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Jongo<\/a> and Samba<\/a> came to Serrinha as a result of public policies of exclusion. We regard jongo as the father of samba. There are those who say that it is the grandfather. It is the rhythm of an African ethnic group that was trafficked from their homeland to do slave work in Brazil, and who survived through all the suffering on the plantations. On the sugarcane and coffee plantations, black people used the jongo songs, called pontos<\/em>, to communicate. When they used metaphors, they could only be understood by jongo players.<\/p>\n

Samba was born after the abolition of slavery<\/a>, with a strong political bias\u2014and it is like that even today. During the period of segregation policies, Afro-Brazilians couldn\u2019t take part in the great carnival party and so they created their own party, which was founded on samba. It was not only a party, but an act of resistance. At the beginning of the 20th<\/sup> century, samba was a marginalized and criminalized rhythm due to these African origins. In fact, all kinds of cultural expression of African origin have been marginalized throughout history\u2014yesterday’s samba is today’s funk<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Like with samba, religious practices of African origin were also criminalized. Serrinha wouldn\u2019t have its musical origins without the terreiro<\/em>\u00a0practitioners who put up their tents in the community. There were days and nights where sound met, in which Umbanda and Candombl\u00e9 terreiros<\/em> would light their melodious bonfires in harmony with the land.<\/p>\n

All this turned Serrinha into a factory of local culture. Walking in Serrinha today is like a history lesson. Going through its streets and alleys, we see the presence of the artists of Serrinha who lived here. Entering through Composer Silas de Oliveira<\/a> Street (the poet behind Aquarela Brasileira<\/em>), we arrive at the House of Jongo<\/a>, which in turn is next to the V\u00f3 Maria Joana<\/a> daycare center, named for a great jongo matriarch. A bit above, we go down Mestre Darcy do Jongo<\/a> Street, and ahead to the left is the famous Balaiada<\/a> Street\u2014which is now called Tia Eul\u00e1lia Street. That was how Tia Ciata<\/a> and Tia Eul\u00e1lia<\/a> organized the famous pagodes<\/em> with samba and jongo players. And it was in her house that the Imp\u00e9rio Serrano<\/a> samba school was born. Let\u2019s not forget the late Mano D\u00e9cio da Viola<\/a>, after whom the street parallel to Composer Silas de Oliveira street is named\u2014both got together with Manoel de Ferreira<\/a> to compose the anthem \u201cHer\u00f3is da Liberdade<\/a>\u201d (Heroes of Freedom) for Imp\u00e9rio Serrano\u2019s 1969 carnival parade.<\/p>\n

Serrinha today<\/strong><\/h3>\n

All this history and culture strengthens current local actions. A living example of this is the Casa do Jongo da Serrinha<\/a> (Serrinha\u2019s House of Jongo), which accepts local children for dance, music and popular culture classes, in addition to housing Projeto Herdeiros<\/a> (Heirs Project), of which I am the founder. The project unites young people in musical instrument classes, giving continuity to the samba legacy that has been present since the foundation of the community. In this way, we facilitate the training of future percussionists in our Samba Symphony<\/a>. The documentary film Herdeiros<\/em><\/a> (Heirs), which is nearly finished, portrays this attempt to occupy the space and appropriate narratives to launch a new perspective on the local culture and recover forgotten names in the history of music, as well as empowering future generations in an effort to create a sustainable system.<\/p>\n