{"id":73748,"date":"2023-03-20T18:28:14","date_gmt":"2023-03-20T21:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=73748"},"modified":"2025-09-13T14:09:23","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T17:09:23","slug":"pasmado-play-reclaims-the-memory-of-a-forgotten-favela-removed-from-botafogo-in-the-1960s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=73748","title":{"rendered":"‘Pasmado’ Play Reclaims the Memory of a Forgotten Favela Removed from Botafogo in the 1960s"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Protagonists Z\u00e9z\u00e9 and Jo\u00e3o acted by Kamilla Neves and Anderson Barreto respectively. Photo: Leonardo Lopes (Peneira)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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

Pasmado\u00a0<\/em>is a new play exploring residents’ experiences of the forced eviction<\/a> of the Pasmado<\/a> favela, formerly located in the Rio de Janeiro South Zone<\/a> neighborhood of Botafogo<\/a>, during the 1960s. The play was written by Luiz Fernando Pinto, also one of the play’s directors, who was born and raised in Vila Alian\u00e7a<\/a>, a favela in Rio’s West Zone<\/a>, where many of the Pasmado residents were relocated. The play was developed from residents’ accounts and draws on Pinto’s family history as his grandparents were residents of the former Pasmado community.\u00a0 It was crafted and performed by the Peneira Cultural Association<\/a> which delivers artistic and cultural initiatives based on the interactions and interpersonal relationships of day-to-day life in Rio de Janeiro.<\/span><\/p>\n

The play premiered in December 2022 with five different <\/span>laje<\/span><\/i> (favela rooftop terrace) performances across Vila Alian\u00e7a. The free community-based performances in December included a post-play dinner with residents, cast, and production team to stimulate discussion and reflect on the play’s themes. According to <\/span>Pinto and his co-director Priscila Bittencourt, it was essential to bring<\/a> theater to a peripheral area<\/a> of the city which rarely receives performing arts and culture. Following the community-based premieres, the play was performed at the Teatro Caf\u00e9 Pequeno<\/a>\u00a0in Leblon<\/a>, in Rio’s South Zone, over the first two weekends of February 2023.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Remembering the Pasmado Eviction through Art<\/h3>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Jo\u00e3o inspecting “Jurema”, an item of furniture inherited from his mother. Photo: Felix Foot<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 1964, the Pasmado favela, like many other communities in the city’s affluent South Zone, was subject to a violent “sanitation operation,” orchestrated by then Guanabara State Governor Carlos Lacerda<\/a>. As part of the forced eviction, the city’s fire department supervised a “controlled” fire that consumed the community destroying over 500 homes and, according to residents, claiming thousands of lives.<\/span><\/p>\n

Directed and performed by descendants of former Pasmado residents, the play focuses on the relationship between two siblings, Zez\u00e9 and Jo\u00e3o, played respectively by Kamilla Neves and Anderson Barreto. However, there is a third, invisible character who drifts in and out of scenes: the voice of Dona Celina. These snippets are taken from original recordings of the matriarch who experienced the forced eviction and are a chilling reminder of the brutal event.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The opening scene features Dona Celina’s crackly voice over the buzz of engines and the street in the background as the elderly matriarch recalls her tangible memories of Pasmado: “What can I remember?… History is very difficult, isn\u2019t it?” <\/span><\/p>\n

Together, Jo\u00e3o and Zez\u00e9 try to establish a link between their present situation and their past. <\/span>This delicate relationship between the past and present is highlighted when Jo\u00e3o warns: “Be careful now! You could be standing on someone\u2019s history [right now],” referring to the many areas in the South Zone today which have been built over demolished favelas.<\/span><\/p>\n

As the play builds towards a climax, Jo\u00e3o begins to smell something in the air. Pacing around his sister who is oblivious, he repeats \u201cCan you smell that?\u201d Smoke begins to drift onto the stage until the entire room takes on a burning red color and the sound of hissing and crackling becomes deafening.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Siblings Zez\u00e9 and Jo\u00e3o. Photo: Leonardo Lopes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Creative Memory: Understanding the City through the Past<\/h3>\n

For directors Bittencourt and Pinto, the play combines Pinto’s <\/span>personal connections to Pasmado and Vila Alian\u00e7a and Peneira\u2019s overarching aim to investigate forms of artistic expression that highlight relationships between people, their memories, and communities. Since 2018, Peneira has begun the process of constructing a personal and emotional archive of different parts of Rio de Janeiro. Their first project<\/a> took place on Rua Joaquim Silva in Lapa, in Centro<\/a>, with 18 different people, including Dona Marlene, whose voice can be heard throughout the play, recounting their experiences with people and places in Rio<\/a>. Bittencourt\u00a0commented how:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cGenerally, when people talk about a city, they speak about projects, streets, architecture. We are speaking from the micro perspectives of the powerless. Well, it\u2019s the small things, the everyday relationships between people and their memories.\u201d \u2014 Priscila Bittencourt<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Pinto reaffirmed this point stating that a goal of Peneira is this creation of an artistic archive about the city:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe construction of the city is so linked with this process of eviction<\/a>, with many of the communities that have grown in Rio a product of this process of eviction.\u201d \u2014\u00a0Luiz Fernando Pinto<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The play, and indeed the very activity of narration, is then an active process of revisiting these stories and dealing with the often troubling memory they bring with them. Barreto, who plays Jo\u00e3o in the play, recounts how acting for him is a process of returning to his past, pointing to the red mud stains on the floor of the stage as “bringing memories of childhood, memories of home.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The play not only looks backwards to what has happened, but is inextricably linked to the contemporary context of Vila Alian\u00e7a and the West Zone. Hellowa Corr\u00eaa, a resident of Realengo<\/a>, West Zone, is a journalist who attended performances both in Vila Alian\u00e7a and Leblon. Talking to <\/span>Corr\u00eaa and the directors, they spoke about how the play \u201caffected every carioca,<\/em>\u201d and pointed to the young favela residents in the audience who, although not directly affected by the evictions in Pasmado, don\u2019t have access to these kinds of cultural facilities or theaters<\/a> and might be threatened with other eviction processes in the city today<\/a>. Corr\u00eaa highlighted the profound sense of territory and space evoked by the performance.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a resident of the West Zone, and it seems to me that, in the play, the space itself is a character as well. In Vila Alian\u00e7a performances, this was a very strong perception.\u201d \u2014 Hellowa Corr\u00eaa<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Peneira group standing together after their last performance of Pasmado. Photo: Angus Beazley<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By reviving the memory of a forgotten Rio favela and exploring the ramifications of this brutal eviction in the present\u2014and bringing this artistic expression to the communities that were directly affected\u2014the Pasmado<\/em> play creates a space to connect, understand, and ultimately help resist the discriminatory processes which continue to shape the city of Rio.<\/p>\n

\n

Support\u00a0<\/b>RioOnWatch<\/i><\/b>\u2019s tireless, critical and cutting-edge hyperlocal journalism, online community organizing meetings, and direct support to favelas\u00a0<\/b>by clicking here.<\/a><\/b><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas Pasmado\u00a0is a new play exploring residents’ experiences of the forced eviction of the Pasmado favela, formerly located in the Rio de Janeiro South Zone neighborhood of Botafogo, during the 1960s. The […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":239,"featured_media":73750,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"template-full.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1333,1268,329,1329],"tags":[396,67,504,221,674,11,188,654,709,419,962,3599,826,156,319,121,21],"writer":[3571,3570],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-73748","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-event-reports","8":"category-favelaculture","9":"category-solutions","10":"category-by-international-observers","11":"tag-art","12":"tag-botafogo","13":"tag-culture","14":"tag-favela-culture","15":"tag-memory","16":"tag-forced-evictions","17":"tag-history","18":"tag-lacerda","19":"tag-laje-rooftopterrace","20":"tag-leblon","21":"tag-oral-history","22":"tag-pasmado","23":"tag-realengo","24":"tag-south-zone","25":"tag-theatre","26":"tag-vila-alianca","27":"tag-west-zone","28":"writer-angus-beazley","29":"writer-felix-foot"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73748","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\/239"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73748"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73748\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81646,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73748\/revisions\/81646"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/73750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73748"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=73748"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=73748"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=73748"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=73748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}