RIO DE JANEIRO — It all started with skillful leg movements, strong steps back and forth, accompanied by Brazilian funk. Then he adopted break moves, samba, capoeira, frevo — whatever was around.
Passinho, a dance style created in the 2000s by children from the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, was declared in March as “intangible cultural heritage” by Rio state legislators, bringing recognition to a cultural expression born in the growing job market . class neighborhoods.
The creators of passinho were boys with a lot of flexibility — and no joint problems. They started experimenting with new movements at home and then showing them off at funk parties in their communities and, most importantly, sharing them on the internet.
In the early days of social media, young people uploaded videos of their latest exploits to Orkut and YouTube, and the style began to spread to other favelas. A competitive scene was born and young people copied and learned from the best dancers, leading them to innovate even more and strive to stay at the top.
“The step in my life is the basis of everything I have”, said dancer and choreographer Walcir de Oliveira, 23, in an interview. “It’s where I can earn my living, I can show people my joy and let off steam, you know? That’s where I feel happy, well.”
Brazilian producer Julio Ludemir helped capture this spirit and discover talent by organizing “passinho battles” in early 2010. At these events, young people took turns showing off their moves in front of a jury who selected the winners.
The “Out of Doors” festival at New York’s Lincoln Center hosted one such duel in 2014, giving North American audiences a taste of the power moves. Passinho went beyond the limits of the favelas and disconnected from funk parties, often associated with crime. The dancers began to appear on mainstream TV and gained prominence during the opening ceremony of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
Ludemir describes the style as an expression of Brazilian “anthropophagy,” the modernist concept of cannibalizing elements from other cultures to produce something new.
“Passinho is a dance that absorbs references from all dances. It is a crossroads of cultural influences absorbed by children from the periphery as they connected with the world through social networks in internet cafes,” he said.
Passinho was declared a state heritage site by the Legislative Assembly of Rio through a law proposed by Rio de Janeiro deputy Verônica Lima. It was unanimously approved and sanctioned on March 7. In a statement, Lima said it was important to help “decriminalize funk and the artistic expressions of young people” in the favelas.
Ludemir says that the heritage recognition will certainly consolidate the first generation of passinhos as an inspiration for young people in the favelas.
Among them is Pablo Henrique Gonçalves, a dancer known as Pablinho Fantástico, who won a passinho battle in 2014 and later created a male group called OZCrias, with four dancers born and raised like him in Rocinha, Rio’s largest favela. The group wins money by performing at festivals, events, theaters and TV programs, and welcomes heritage recognition with satisfaction.
Another dance group is Passinho Carioca, in the Penha favela complex, on the other side of the city. One of its directors, Nayara Costa, said in an interview that she came from a family where everyone was involved in drug trafficking. Passinho saved her from that fate and now she uses this to help younger people — in addition to teaching anyone interested in learning.
“Today I teach people who are in their sixties; passinho is for everyone”, said Costa, 23 years old. “The little step, in the same way that it changed my life, will still change the lives of other people.”
___
Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at
This story originally appeared on ABCNews.go.com read the full story
