Trace Magazine - The Final Issue

STYLES AHEAD

produced by Transcultural Styles + Ideas

SALVADOR Carlinhos Brown Ilê Aiyé Mãe CarmeM Cabaré da RrrRraça

RIO Taís Araújo Caetano Veloso Vik Muniz Regina Casé

us $5.99 can $7.99 uk £3.95 Fr €5.50 Photography Evangelia Kranioti Fashion Christine de Lassus

BRASIL 2010

photo_Evangelia Kranioti

6

MASTHEAD

8

CONTRIBUTORS

10

EDITOR’S LETTER

CODE 12

Rio People and Places Rio Rising People and Places that make up the heart of Brasil

18

Rio Resistance Culture is Our Weapon The Afroreggae movement fights poverty, violence and social inequality in the heart of Rio’s darkest favelas

22

Rio Passion The Legacy of Estádio do Maracanã Filmmaker Felipe Lacerda documents the last days of Maracanã

26

Rio Power Iconic Featuring cover star Taís Arajuo, Caetano Veloso, Vik Muniz, Oskar Metsavaht, Ernesto Neto, and Hermano Vianna

48

Rio Powerhouse The Reigning Queen of Rio Regina Casé, Brazil’s most lovable and entertaining on-screen personality shows us why she is the real star of Rio

ISSUE No.

2

December 10-31, 2010

www.blackworldfestival.com Be our friend, join us at Facebook: www.facebook.com/BlackWorldFest

photo_MARC Baptiste

MAIN - BAHIA RISING 52

The Soul of Brasil People and Places of Salvador da Bahia

68

A Day in the life of Carlinhos Brown Featuring Museu du Ritmo, Centro de Música Negra and Candyall

76

Ilê Aiyê Legend Antônio Carlos Vovô and the group that works to raise the consciousness of the Bahian black community

80

A Divine Experience Renowned priest and artist Mestre Didi and his wife Juana Elbein share their deep spiritual connection to West Africa

84

The Light of Consciousness A spiritually enlightening encounter with Mãe Carmem of Gantois

88

An afternoon visit to the Pierre Verger Foundation Pierre Verger’s legacy lives on at Fundação Pierre Verger

94

Bahian Beauty Marc Baptiste captures Salvador local Rebeca Campos at Porto da Barra

100

The New Pelourinho A journey through some of the most fascinating landmarks and architectures in Salvador’s Pelhourinho district

104

Bando de Teatro Olodum featuring Cabaré de RRRRRaça Chica Carelli and Marcio Meirelles pave the way for a new type of Brazilian avant-garde theater

108

Natural Invasion Carlito Carvalhosa’s Roteiro para Visitação at the The Palácio da Aclamação

112

The Awakened Generation Celebrating fifty years of Brazilian artwork at the Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia, featuring work by Mario Cravo Neto and Christian Cravo

116

FASHION Concrete Jungle Bold prints and bright colors make a statement in the streets of Salvador

OUTRO 126

4

Flash! The TRACE Selection The best places to stay and eat in Salvador

BILJANA DJURDJEVIĆ UROŠ DJURIĆ VLATKA HORVAT JOHANNA KANDL KUNSTHISTORISCHES MAUSOLEUM PAUL ALBERT LEITNER MARKO LULIĆ AHMET ÖĞÜT MARKO PELJHAN DAN PERJOVSCHI DARINKA POP-MITIĆ ANRI SALA WALTER STEINACHER ZORAN TODOROVIĆ RAŠA TODOSIJEVIĆ MILICA TOMIĆ STEFANOS TSIVOPOULOS KATARINA ZDJELAR

SERBIA

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS THROUGH JAN 11, 2011

E X H I B I T I O N 11 E 52. ST. | NEW YORK W W W. A C F N Y. O R G

masthead #88 Chairman & Editor in Chief_Claude Grunitzky Editorial Assistant Editor_Mikaela Gauer Editor at Large_Stephen Greco International Editor_Anicée Gaddis Creative Consultant_Marc Baptiste Art Art Directors_Andy Li, Crayon Lee Assistant to Art Directors_Kyn Fashion Director_Christine De Lassus Fashion Market Editor_Robyn V. Fernandes UK Editorial UK Editor_Pardeep Sall Print and Production Manager_Kelly Goddard Fashion Editor_Davina Mashru Editorial and Fashion Assistant_Melissa Simpemba Art Assistant_Simon Auckland

Taís Araújo photography_Evangelia Kranioti fashion_Christine de Lassus dress_D Squared2 makeup_L’Oréal

Contributing Writers_Damian Platt, Evangeline Kim, Felipe Lacerda, Patrick Neate Contributing Photographers_Evangelia Kranioti, Marc Baptiste, Paolo Zambaldi Advertising Representative_Damaris Taylor Trace UK is published by Reactor Media UK Publishing Consultant_Ben Martin Sales Manager_Christopher Keeling UK Interns_Marquita Harris, Michaela Nessim Webmaster_Invisible Square Inc.

Join the Trace Magazine group on Facebook and read the Trace blog at http://blog.trace212.com ©2010 TRACE MAGAZINE

6

25 Cooper Square, new york, new york, 10003 www.thecoopersquarehotel.com

CONTRIBUTORS Marc Baptiste Marc Baptiste was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. He moved to New York at an early age and began to study photography in high school. After receiving his formal training in photography, graphic design and advertising, he pursued his passion for photography by traveling between Paris, New York and London shooting the collections for various magazines. Marc’s work continues to appear in magazines such as Harpers Bazaar, Vanity Fair, Elle, Cosmopolitan, Trace, German Glamour, and Clam. He has photographed a host of celebrities including: Yoko Ono, Eva Mendez, Colin Farrell, Forest Whitaker and Chloe Sevigny. Solo Exhibitions of Marc Baptiste’s work include Dactyl Gallery in New York November 2003; Modernbook Gallery in San Francisco, CA December 2003; Exposure Gallery in London February 2004; and Milk Gallery in New York April 2007. Book projects include: Beautiful Nudes 2001, Intimate Nudes 2003, and Marc Baptiste Nudes 2007; all published by Universe Publishing a division of Rizzoli International (worldwide). Marc currently lives in Brooklyn, NY with his wife and Children.

Evangelia Kranioti Evangelia Kranioti was born in Athens, Greece. She holds a BA in Law from the National and Capodistrian University of Athens, a BFA in Visual Arts and an MFA in Editorial Design from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs of Paris, France. She was chosen twice as the recipient of the Basil & Elise Goulandris Foundation fellowship and has been awarded different grants (Fondation Marc de Montalambert, French Ministry of Culture, French Ministry of Foreign Affairs) enabling her to pursue her work as artist in residence in various institutions (Mediterranean Center of Photography, Cité Internationale des Arts, Capacete Rio de Janeiro, amongst others). In her projects she combines media such as photography, video, drawing and storytelling. Living and traveling away from Greece nourishes her art and has gradually led her to focus on the complexity of notions such as distance and desire.

Evangeline Kim Evangeline Kim is a management consultant in for-profit and non-profit sectors with projects dealing with international commercial business development as well as in cultural fields. She has provided strategic advice to UNESCO to raise awareness in the U.S. about UNESCO’s Culture Sector activities in preserving world cultural heritages and cultural diversity through specific project modalities and development of rapport with key American cultural organizations.

She was invited by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to serve as a selection panel member for the National Heritage Fellowships Awards in 2004, America’s most prestigious award for the traditional performing and visual arts and handicrafts. She has also worked as an advisor to many arts and cultural organizations, including the Mexican Cultural Institute, New York’s American Museum of Natural History, the Museum for African Art, and Afropop Worldwide, as well as an advisor for The African Development Bank and the U.S. Department of State. Evangeline regularly contributes feature articles on global music and African cultures in various American and international publications.

Paolo Zambaldi Paolo Zambaldi is an Italian photographer who spends his time moving between Paris, Milan, New York and Los Angeles. He started assisting some of the great photographers at a very young age. His photography is inspired by great cinema, as he feels that it is essential that his images tell a story.

He is in constant collaboration with both large advertising agencies, as well as with the most elegant fashion magazines such as Vogue Italy, Vogue Spain, Vogue Russia, Uomo Vogue, Vogue Jewellery, L’officile, Vanity Fair, and GQ. He has shot advertising campaigns for Hogan, Exte, MTV, Campari, Vespa-Piaggio, Rado, Biasia, yamaha, La Perla, Salvatore Ferragamo ,Veuve Clicquot, Roberto Cavalli, Breil, Samsonite, Adidas, Nike ,Lacoste, Testoni, Emanuel Ungaro, MontBlanc, Leon Hatot, L’Oreal, Bnp Paribas, Timberland, Kohler, Rebecca,Lg, Orange, Sky channel, Sony Music, and Olivetti.

8

EDITOR’S LETTER

“Everything comes to an end, reader. It is an old truism to which may be added that not everything that lasts, lasts for long.”

- Machado de Assis These words, which were written in “Don Casmurro”, the great Afro-Brazilian writer’s 1899 masterpiece, say a lot about how I feel right now. I never thought it would come to this – my final TRACE Magazine editorial. The time has come to say goodbye. When my cousin Suneeta Olympio and I first launched TRUE Magazine, the short-lived predecessor to TRACE Magazine, in June of 1995, I remember our then music editor Dimitry Léger saying that he was looking forward to the magazine’s twenty-fifth anniversary edition. As most true TRACE fans know, TRUE lasted only a year, before I re-launched the monthly publication as TRACE “urban” magazine in London’s Clerkenwell neighborhood.

The month was November 1996, exactly 14 years ago this month. This magazine gradually matured with my evolving interests and cosmopolitan curiosity. In the spring of 1998, my tiny team and I moved from grungy London to flashy New York and, sometime around the beginning of this new millennium, TRACE became a magazine about “transcultural styles and ideas.” The fashion layouts became more prominent, and the covers became more, well, styleconscious. We may have featured one too many trendy model on the cover, to the detriment of emerging R&B stars like Beyoncé, who bizarrely never made the TRACE cover. Regardless of whether TRACE’s longtime fashion director Christine de Lassus (then and now one of my closest friends) had anything to do with this shift, none of those editorial decisions really matter now.

10

We are publishing our final issue, as we transition to the web under the old/new TRUE brand. We feel immensely proud to have been the mega-zine that helped launch the careers of singers like Kelis, Alicia Keys and Rihanna, of rappers like 50 Cent and T.I., of models like Alek Wek and Selita Ebanks, of gifted journalists like Jon Caramanica. I will never forget the Terry Richardson TRACE fashion shoot from the spring of 1997, when the then-unknown photographer immortalized the lascivious kiss of gay New York B-boys with his Yashika T4 camera. (No taboos allowed in TRACE.) Nor the 1998 Albert Watson cover shoot with Mike Tyson when the champ asked me if, as an African, I’d ever considered converting to Islam.

True, we may have run one Kelis cover too many, and perhaps some of our early issues may have read as Wu-Tang newsletters – blame TRACE supporter Jon Baker for that – but we always responded well to tough love. And to constructive criticism. At TRACE, we remain proud of our achievements. As a self-confessed magazine junkie, I always feel overjoyed when I see bits of TRACE Magazine in other publications, because it confirms my belief that there will always be a corner of the world that is forever TRACE. Imitation, they say, is the most sincere form of flattery, and I am happy that TRACE had a lasting impact on other publications, in the same way that I was deeply influenced by pioneering magazines like Actuel (from Paris) and The Face (from London).

ISSUE No.

BRASIL 2010

Around the year 2000, when we published our seminal “Brasil 2000” edition, featuring 18 year-old model Adriana Lima on the cover, our readers (and most TRACE editors) noticed that I had become more and more interested in Brazil. (I wrote more than 95% of that particular issue, because I couldn’t afford writers.)

So these days, when my friend Emmanuel André jokes that I was able to find every possible excuse to interview Brazilian models on Ipanema beach, he may have a point. In reality, to me, Brazil is more than beach interviews. Brazil is the country that allowed me to rediscover who I was, to understand a certain kind of spirituality, and to trace many of my foreign interests back to my Togolese roots.

When, faced with shrinking numbers of readers and ad pages, I first started thinking of publishing the final issue of TRACE, about a year ago, it seemed natural that the last edition be devoted entirely to Rio de Janeiro and Bahia, two Brazilian states I have learned to love for their humanity and authenticity. To this day, humanity and authenticity are the two attributes I most closely associate with TRACE Magazine.

Over the years, TRACE Magazine had become my best friend, and many TRACE team members became close friends, too. I particularly want to thank, in no particular order, my mentor François-Xavier Huberlant, Andrew McAngus (my business partner since day one), Richard Wayner (who helped me to take the TRACE vision to a higher level) and Anthony Evrard (the former TRACE marketing director who somehow became my little brother). But I am also deeply indebted to Christine de Lassus, whose name I mentioned earlier, to Peter Lucas, who found the name TRACE in one of our early brainstorming sessions, to Graham Rounthwaite, who was TRACE’s first art director back in the London days, to Deryck Vonn Lee, who was our longest serving designer in the Broome Street days, to designers Crayon Lee and Andy Li (who crafted this issue), to Amy Andrieux, who rose from intern to managing editor over the course of many editorial arguments, to Nami Sakai and Tomoko Yano, my two Japanese sidekicks, to Carmen Zita, our longtime art editor whose eye for the visual arts is, in my humble opinion, unmatched, to Steve Psyllos, who stood by me when no one else would.

Above all, I want to thank Jefferson Hack (who encouraged me when I told him I wanted to start a magazine), Steve Greco (who guided me though the maze of New York City publishing), Mikaela Gauer (my right hand woman for the past few years) and Anicée Gaddis, my doppelgänger. To the many members of the TRACE family I forgot to name on this page, I say thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All of you.

Claude Grunitzky

11

Rio People & Places

A sailor from the Navy Museum is facing the Ilha Fiscal, a small island between the airport Santos Dumont and the port, known as the location for the first and last party of the Empire before the proclamation of the Republic in November 1889.

The people and places that make up the heart of Brazil text_Claude Grunitzky

12

photography_ Evangelia Kranioti

On the top of the ladeira Santa Teresa, a breathtaking view of the Centro and the curious yet impressive modern style Catedral de São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro, the Cathedral of Saint Sebastian, the patron saint of Rio de Janeiro.

Rio, the so-called “Marvelous city,” has been a big part of my life since my first trip there in early 2000. The first time I landed at Antonio Carlos Jobim airport, having arrived from a difficult reporting trip to Brasilia with photographer Marc Baptiste, Shade Boyewa Isaksson and a few other devoted members of my small TRACE Magazine team, I realized that this was my city. I realized that I was made for this city, and that this city was made for me.

We were broke and we stayed at a cheap hotel in Leme, and I remember my Rio-based photographer friend Vicente de Paulo telling me, on our first evening there, that Copacabana and Ipanema were the touristy areas where most of the real action was. Little did I know that those two neighborhoods, and the areas around Gavea and Jardim Botanico, would soon become a second home, the locales where feelings of optimism and real, authentic emotions would sallow me to rise above the adversity that one often associates with New York City life.

13

Priviledged in terms of view, some of the favelas in the Zona Sul (south part of Rio) enjoy a more scenic panorama than the Sheraton hotel’s clients in Alto Leblon.

It takes about ten minutes by car from Santa Teresa to reach the Paineiras, some of Rio’s famous cachoeiras (waterfalls) and to be transported in the heart of the tropical forest, o mato, surrounding the city.

I returned to Rio a couple of months after that first trip, in early April 2000, with a close friend, who happens to be TRACE fashion editor Christine de Lassus.

One afternoon, having returned from a very short interview at the Copacabana penthouse of architect Oscar Niemeyer, to another cheap hotel, also located in Copacabana, I received a call at the hotel lobby. It was my sister informing me that our beloved father was in a coma, and that he might die within a few days.

He did die a few days later, and I will always associate Rio with those feelings of sorrow, mixed with the joy of having met people whose love for life kept me going during one of my darkest hours.

Christine, Marc and I returned to Rio in the spring of 2010, exactly a decade after I received that dreadful call from my sister. This time, we were accompanied

by TRACE assistant editor Mikaela Gauer, contributing writer Evangeline Kim, and Greek photographer Evangelia Kranioti.

14

15

top: January 1st, an early morning in Arpoador. Ernesto Neto’s traditional New Year’s beach party is still going on outside the frame. Dressed in white for the occasion, two partners take a break to meditate on their New Year’s resolutions. top-left: It takes about ten minutes by car from Santa Teresa to reach the Paineiras, some of Rio’s famous cachoeiras (waterfalls) and to be transported in the heart of the tropical forest, o mato, surrounding the city. bottom-left: Norma is an empregada (maid), a “normal” post for many colored people in Brazil. Her still figure is reminiscent of the Namoradeiras, the folkoric statues of Minas Gerais representing the bust of a sensual woman looking longingly out of the window for her beloved to pass by or just the day to go by. The only difference was that Norma, few seconds after the photo, came back to life and went back to work.

Evangelia, who shot the cover of this issue, featuring actress Tais Araujo, in the lush gardens of Jardim Botanico, is the lens behind the photos in this portfolio. These pictures were shot entirely on film. In one of her personal projects, Evangelia, who lived in Rio for seven months between 2009 and 2010, combines photography and creative writing in an exploration of what she calls “exoticized femininity” in Brazil. I love these pictures, because they show the complexity of Rio’s unique brand of hedonism. Cariocas love music, they love food, they love caipirinhas, they love nature, they love sex. Above all, they live to love – they’re in love with love. In Rio, it’s always about the matters of the heart. Evangeline (our contributing writer, not to be confused with Evangelia our photographer) said something very deep to me one day, and her statement became the spine of our Brasil 2010 issue. Evangeline said, “if Salvador is the soul of the country, then Rio is the heart”.

17

Rio Resistance

Culture is Our Weapon: Making Music and Changing Lives in Rio de Janeiro Excerpts from the beginning chapters of “Culture is Our Weapon”, a tale of the rise of the inspiring Afroreggae art and music movement that seeks to fight poverty, drug wars, violence and social inequality in the heart of Rio’s darkest favelas. text_Damian Platt and Patrick Neate

18

photography_Damian Platt

It’s a Saturday morning and we’re sitting on the roof terrace of an apartment block in an affluent part of Rio, the hillside overlooking the world-famous Copacabana Beach District, fifteen minutes’ walk from Avenida Atlántica. This is where we’re staying.

After several days rushing around with an estate agent to be shown nothing but claustrophobic bachelor pads—all tacky décor and far too many mirrors—we finally got lucky. Aurélio, another northeasterner now living in Rocinha, led us to a bright, airy, and frankly enormous two-terraced penthouse that he looks after for its owner, a French theatre director. It happened to be available, and at a bargain price, too. The only condition was that Leida would come in every day to water the plants and make breakfast. No problem.

The flat is a cobertura—the chic, upper-middle-class equivalent of the laje— high on the eleventh floor. Paradoxically, however, the height of the penthouse setting actually sets us cheek by jowl with the neighboring favela and all its noise and activity. This is a typical Rio irony.

This favela, Ladeira dos Tabajaras, clusters around the road that winds its way up the hillside behind the building. Every morning is greeted by a chorus of barking dogs and crowing cockerels. But that’s just the beginning of the daily racket. Saturdays, for example, are dedicated to blasting forró and funk, while Sunday nights are taken over by the thundering drums of the samba school: Its

weekly practice sessions are becoming ever more enthusiastic in the months leading up to Carnival. Despite the refined surroundings of the cobertura, our ears belong to the favela.

One day at dawn, the dogs and cocks are drowned out by the sound of a helicopter that spends hours hovering over Tabajaras. It’s a civil police machine overseeing some sort of operation on the ground. This is one of many such operations being carried out in the city in early November that are most likely related to the police killing of Bem-Te-Vi, the boss of drug trafficking in Rocinha. He was one of Rio’s most wanted men.

Since Bem-Te-Vi’s death, the police have undertaken a number of incursions into favelas dominated by drug factions that rival Amigos dos Amigos (ADA— Friends of Friends), the gang to which Bem-Te-Vi and, consequently, Rocinha belong. The purpose of these raids? To squash any plans by ADA’s rivals to invade and take Rocinha and wrest control of its lucrative drug trade.

Over breakfast we read the news. Bem-Te-Vi’s immediate successor, named in the newspapers as “Soul,” has been killed by fellow members of ADA, the victim of an internal dispute—some “friends” they turned out to be. Rio’s papers follow each step in the unraveling drama as if it were a soap opera, and the subplots come thick and fast: Bem-Te-Vi’s patricinha girlfriend is arrested and photographed for the front pages. Rio’s Public Security Secretary poses

19

went to lie down on the floor in the kitchen. You’re safer there because it puts two sets of walls between you and the bullets. So we grab what we can and run to the kitchen. If there isn’t enough time to get to the kitchen, we hide underneath the shower in the bathroom. It’s a horrible feeling and nowadays it’s happening more and more often.

“We heard them running past shouting, ‘Vamos matar,’ letting everyone know it wasn’t the police. When I heard that, I shivered with fear because I thought it must be another invasion [by a rival faction]. From time to time the shooting stopped, then started again. It went on for an hour and a half. When we were almost asleep, we went back into the bedroom with our backs aching. We’d been in the kitchen for two hours in all.”

Leida tells us that because of the internal dispute, people are saying that there are many members of Soul’s group who’ve fled or gone into hiding. Her neighbor has a son who was affiliated with Soul, and he’s disappeared. The other night ten traficantes went into this neighbor’s house. Some of them were wearing masks, but the neighbor knew exactly who they were since they used to work alongside her son. She told them she didn’t know where he was. They said that if they found him, he was dead. They claimed he owed them money and his mother didn’t have enough to pay. “In the end,” Leida says bluntly, “what they’re doing is asking the mother for money not to kill the son.”

As Leida talks, her eloquence grows and she gives a fascinating insight into life in the midst of Rio’s drug war: “I’ll never get used to living like this. I’ve been here for six years but, before the war, Rocinha was the favela where everyone wanted to live. It was peaceful—shoot-outs were rare and it was calm. You used to be proud to say you lived in Rocinha. Now I can’t tell some people that this is where I come from.

ghoulishly for the cameras, brandishing the dead drug lord’s gold-plated Uzi. Most bizarrely, a group of men gathering jaca fruit cause panic in a road tunnel near Rocinha when motorists assume they are a gang of armed traficantes.

Dozens of cars are abandoned midtunnel, and the men are seized by the cops along with the sacks and knives they were using to cut jaca.

The terrified atmosphere—all rumor and counter-rumor—owes much to concern that the death of Bem-Te-Vi will reignite last year’s turf war between Rocinha and the neighboring favela of Vidigal. In April 2004, Dudu, head of trafficking in Vidigal, led some seventy men in an attempt to take over drug sales in Rocinha. Numerous civilians were killed during several days of fighting, first between the two factions, then between those two factions and the police, one thousand of whom were deployed in a belated attempt to control the violence.

Dudu’s attack took place two months after Rocinha residents petitioned the state authorities, saying they expected just such an invasion by traffickers from Vidigal any day. Their appeals for protection had been ignored.

Bulletins from the front line Most mornings Leida provides us with an update from Rocinha, which we try to digest with our coffee and fresh papaya. Her calm testimony provides a fascinating and disturbing counterpoint to the newspapers’ hyperbole. Today, for example, she describes the Sunday night they killed Soul, the way the shooting began in the upper half—parte alta—of the favela.

“We didn’t know what was happening at first. I called my husband and we 20

“I have a friend I can’t even go and see. She lives near here in Ladeira dos Tabajaras which is controlled by the Comando Vermelho , and there’s no way I can go to her house. If they find out I’m from Rocinha and they don’t like it, they could beat her up or expel her from the favela. I’m even frightened to take a bus that goes past favelas run by other factions. If I want to meet my friend, we have to meet elsewhere; and I’m her daughter’s godmother. She comes from Maranhão, too—people arrive from the northeast all the time. For everyone that leaves Rocinha, two arrive. When there’s a war, people move out, rent out their houses, and so on. Other people move in and, if there’s no fighting going on, they’ll have the illusion that things will get better tomorrow.”

As Leida tells her story there is a rapid series of loud bangs from the hillside behind the flat. It sounds like a dozen doors being slammed in quick succession.

“Tiros,” she says, lifting a finger in the air. There are a few moments of quiet and then—BANG BANG BANG BANG—the bullets are flying again. “They must be testing some new weapons.” She shrugs and smiles. The automatic gunfire, directly level with the plush cobertura, continues intermittently for a few minutes.

“I don’t think there’s anything good about o tráfico. You can’t have a child, because you’re scared they’ll get involved. You can’t keep an eye on them all the time—you’d have to keep them in the house and you’d both end up as prisoners.

My husband and I have talked about it a lot but we’re not ready for all that yet. For instance, your child goes to school but you don’t know what happens on the way from school to the house because you’re out at work. So your kid could become a filho do tráfico. This happens a lot. You see ten-year-old kids with guns. A traficante might be in a bar, drinking and hanging out, and he’ll give the kid a gun. And that kid feels like he’s something. Then they’ll ask him to run a message or deliver some money. The kid becomes an aviãozinho. That’s it, he’s in. “My mother-in-law has a grandson who is seven years old. It’s frightening. Below my house, there’s a little bar. One day a traficante called him over. Luckily my husband was there and he was able to say no. My husband grew up in Rocinha and he knows most of them. That’s the only time it might be beneficial to know a traficante.

“ ‘It sounds like a dozen doors being slammed in quick succession.

“Tiros,” she says, lifting a finger in the air. There are a few moments of quiet and then—BANG BANG BANG BANG—the bullets are flying again.’ ” “Say one of them is rude to you, you can go to another one you know who can speak to the boss. And the boss will tell the rude guy that if he carries on behaving like that, he could die or be punished. So there’s an advantage in knowing the traficantes in some situations but, even so, if they weren’t there in the first place you wouldn’t need to, would you?

“Many mothers are scared because of this. They’re also scared of all the shooting and stray bullets. Their kids could be playing outside and all it takes is one bullet to finish someone’s dreams. It must be very sad. And it’s difficult for the mothers of traffickers, too. Because no mother wants her kid to get involved. The trafficker might get killed by the police, another faction, or even his own.

We’ve told Leida why we’re in Rio; that we’re writing a book about AfroReggae.

Perhaps this is why she’s so frank with us. She knows about AfroReggae and their work and she asks if it’s true that their bands are made up of ex-soldados.

We tell her that, yes, some members of the bands and other people working in the organization did work in the tráfico in the past. Leida has one other question: “When they get out of trafficking and go into AfroReggae, do they manage to stay out?” *** To read on about the AfroReggae movement and how it is creating dynamic change in the favelas in Rio, visit www.vpbookclub.com or www.penguin.com to purchase your copy of “Culture is Our Weapon”.

“My mother-in-law lost a son. He was killed by the guys he worked with. In fact, he’d already quit trafficking but he knew too much. So they came back and killed him, even though she’d been to the boss in person to ask him to forbid it.”

21

Rio Passion

the legaCY Of estÁdiO dO MaraCanã much has been said about the impact of globalization on local cultures. everywhere, people look for the “positive” and “negative” aspects of such changes. What people don’t seem to see, or refuse to conceive, is that the whole understanding of culture as a finished stable thing is, by definition, a mistake.

Cultures are dynamic and no one has come up with an “authentic-meter” for them. so, when we observe closely, we can discover a world of differences that only seem uniform from afar. text and photography_felipe Lacerda

22

“Brazil found improvisation, inspiration, and spontaneity as their leitmotifs, and these words began to shape the true definition of a national spirit and idiosyncratic culture. “

in 1950, Brazil was a very different place from what it is today. on July 16 of that year, a crowd of nearly 200,000 fans packed in the brand new Maracanã stadium in Rio de Janeiro, only to see their national team lose the world cup Final, leaving behind a city and a country in complete shock. People who witnessed the tragedy described it: “we could cut the silence in the air and carry it like a suitcase, so heavy it was.” the world had finally recovered from world war ii and the real 20th century was beginning. as new world powers emerged, Brazil had hopes of leaving behind its “supporting actor role” in order to reveal itself as a real player on the international stage. winning the largest tournament ever assembled seemed like a good start, but losing it at home was definitely a major setback that put the country’s self esteem in a pit that would take eight years to recover, when in 1958, Pelé would win the title.

23

“All of them were unanimous in expressing their awe for the unique vibrancy and exhilaration of that place – the passion of a roman circus set up in the world’s most iconic arena.’”

Over the next six years, Bossa Nova, Cinema Novo and a brand new capital began to shape the nation as the “country of the future”; home of the happiest people on earth. Even more so, Brazil found improvisation, inspiration, and spontaneity as their leitmotifs, and these words began to shape the true definition of a national spirit and idiosyncratic culture. In the magic of football, in the daring lines of Niemeyer’s Brasilia, in Cinema Novo’s motto “an idea in the head and a camera in the hand”, in the completely subversive divisions of João Gilberto in Bossa Nova – Brazilians found a mirror they could be proud of. They found an identity on which to build their country.

And so, this framework helped build the Brazil of today. While improvisation and spontaneity helped Brazilian fine arts grow to find their unique place in the world, the same characteristics birthed great tragedies, such as the uncontrolled and chaotic growth of shantytowns, as well as outbursts of violence untamed by poorly trained police force. In particular, up to the turn of the 21st century, Maracanã Stadium remained much as it was in 1950. A worn, chaotic giant. With cheap ticket prices and a disorganized field calendar, the place was home to more battles in the stands than family gatherings.

No one accustomed to going to the Giants stadium could even have a clue of what it was like to go to Maracanã. I took countless gringos there. All of them were unanimous in expressing their awe for the unique vibrancy and exhilaration of that place – the passion of a roman circus set up in the world’s most iconic arena. The atmosphere encouraged passion and celebration, where over 150,000 fans would gather to sing for two to three hours – some might say it was a religious experience. A ritualized war became the greatest party on earth, three or four times a week, all year long. Nowhere else but in Maracanã.

For the XV Pan American games, hosted by Rio in 2007, Maracanã had a facelift and became a bit more like a modern arena. Organizers imposed a strict set of new rules, mirroring the “order shock” that was permeating the rest of the city. Alcohol was no longer allowed, as was standing during a game. Most of the apparatus that fans brought to the stadium are now tightly regulated by a new visible police force, the Stadium Battalion – no fireworks, fewer instruments, and smaller flags. On September 5, 2010, Maracanã hosted the last match before closing for the US$ 400 million renovation for the World Cup. When the stadium reopens on December 2012, the public will wait with baited breath – will the same magic that initially made Maracanã the world-famous stadium that it was remain, or will it be destroyed along with the old structure?

Will the show lose its glamour? Will the party be the same? Will Brazilians be “less Brazilian” in a more structured and controlled environment? In order to explore the evolution, destruction and reconstruction of Maracanã Stadium, I directed a crew of over 30 cameramen who documented the final days of Maracanã, the giant as we knew it. The film will be available in movie theaters in 2011.

24

25

Rio Power

dress_D Squared

2

Taís Araújo Confident, natural, and unpretentious, Brazilian actress Taís araújo sets a refreshing new standard of what it means to be truly beautiful. text_Claude grunitzky

photography_Evangelia Kranioti

fashion_Christine de Lassus

i first met taís araújo on december 26th, 2005, at one of actress Regina casé’s legendary post-christmas parties, which, until 2008, were held at her duplex overlooking Rio’s leblon beach. Regina and her husband, the director estevão ciavatta, have a long-standing secret santa – “amigo segredo” – tradition, which consists of giving and receiving a post-christmas gift from a secret friend. Regina and estevão’s rules are pretty simple: no cds or dVds allowed as presents; in order to be re-invited to those parties, one needs to be imaginative and somewhat witty in one’s approach to gift-giving and gift-receiving. due to the fact that the crowd is always an unusual mix of entertainment, intellectual and street folk, the kookiest presents receive the most attention. not to mention, once a present is given, the receiver must dance with their secret santa right after opening their gift.

we chose to focus on those two states, the most culturally and racially mixed of all Brazilian states, because we believe that Bahia and Rio remain the true centers of Brazilian creativity. lázaro hails from Bahia, and taís is from Rio. they keep a house in salvador, and travel there often, even though, for professional reasons, Rio remains their primary residence. with the exception of a few male stars like the late Biggie smalls, lenny Kravitz and t.i., we have mainly featured only women on the cover of tRace. once we looked at the Brazilian landscape, taís emerged as our natural choice for the cover, because she represents a connection between the two states, between the two mindsets, and her story, as i would later discover over four separate interview sessions, is one of a quest for identity and recognition.

i was secretly hoping that taís, an actress i’d been following since she starred in a Rede Globo soap opera – “telenovela” – called “Xica da silva”, would be my secret santa. But when i opened my gift, and saw that my secret santa was one of the (male) film editors who work in estevão’s office, i realized that i should not be so lucky. taís had come to the party with her husband, the Bahiaborn actor lázaro Ramos. i remembered lázaro from his leading role as the capoeira-practicing homosexual outcast in Karim ainouz’s 2002 film Madame satã. after they both received their gifts, and danced with their respective secret santas, i walked up to the couple and asked if i could photograph them with my small digital camera. they agreed, and smiled for my camera, but i also realized that they were deep in conversation, so i decided to walk away without telling them how much i enjoyed their screen presence, or how much their status as the lead black actors of the new Brazilian cinema meant to me.

when taís arrived for the cover shoot, on a sunny saturday morning, the tRace team was prepared for the worst. we had been unable to book a hair and makeup team for the cover shoot, which had been postponed a few times because of her hectic schedule. we didn’t know how to tell her that we’d dropped the ball, but tRace fashion director christine de lassus and i apologized to her immediately upon her arrival, explaining that is was really too short notice for the teams we had in mind. Most celebrities would have walked away from the shoot then and there, because in this business these days, it is highly unusual to shoot a magazine cover without a full glam team inspecting every aspect of the actor’s appearance. Plus, we had seen her on the covers of several recent editions of Brazilian magazines like Vogue, so we were a bit nervous.

i have been following lázaro and taís’s careers ever since, knowing that our paths would cross again someday. last april, which was more than four years after that first encounter at the party, i was faced with a difficult decision: who to pick for the cover of our Brasil 2010 edition, which would also be remembered as the final issue of tRace Magazine. this issue was conceived as a modernday Bahia-Rio dialectic; as a celebration of the optimism and spirituality that africans brought to a land where they were once chained as slaves. above all,

“no problem,” said taís, in her deliciously accented english. “i will take care of my own hair, and we’ll be fine with my own makeup.” we were all the more surprised, as taís had recently been selected as a high profile addition to the stable of l’oréal Paris models. as the main face of the cosmetics brand in Brazil, one would have expected a bit more diva attitude. But taís was cool like that, and when she began to try on the designer clothes that had been gathered and assembled by christine into a makeshift portable wardrobe, we realized that we’d chosen the right cover star. taís’s star is on the rise, because she has the right, positive attitude.

27

“ ‘I know that I have become an inspiration – a role model – for little girls out there, little black girls who take pride in seeing that a black girl can make it to the lead role in the number one TV show in the country.’ ”

dress_D Squar

28

red

2

29

Although she ventured into television as a young teenager, it was Walcyr Carrasco’s 1996 TV version of “Xica da Silva” that allowed Taís to position herself as the sympathetic modern embodiment of Xica, a Brazilian slave who became famous for working and talking her way into fame and fortune. “Xica gave me my big break,” Taís told me one day when I was interviewing her at the sidewalk beach café facing a Rio hotel called Arpoador Inn. “Nobody knew who I was before that novela came out, and I will always be thankful for the opportunity that Globo gave me when I was still a teenager.”

In 2004, Rede Globo gave her another opportunity, with a leading role in yet another telenovela, “Da Cor do Pecado”, which also became a runaway hit, but her prime time moment came last year when Globo made her the lead in their top rated novela, “Viver a Vida”, which was broadcast daily during the prized 9pm slot. (“Viver a Vida” ended last May because, by design, Brazilian telenovelas have a short life span.) As the main protagonist of “Viver a Vida”, which was distributed internationally under the title “Seize the Day”, Taís played a cheeky and malicious yet very likeable character called Helena Toledo Ribeiro. Brazilians related to the Helena character because she was a lot like them. Helena epitomized that complexity of Brazil, of that particular Brazilian brand of seduction, and of the love triangles that keep these novellas fun and spicy.

Every five minutes or so, our sidewalk interview would be interrupted by

30

passersby angling for their photo op. Taís obliged every single time, but before I realized that an interview in this public location might not have been one of my best ideas, Taís explained why she gives so much to her fans. “I think that Brazilians have grown to love me because they see that I am a lot like them, that I am not pretentious, and that I love them back. My story starts with my parents, who always insisted on sending their kids to the best schools in Rio, even though they didn’t have a lot of money and couldn’t always afford it. My sister is a doctor, for instance, and growing up we didn’t have too many black doctors around. When I started becoming successful, I could see that I wasn’t becoming successful only for myself, or for my family, or for my friends, but also for an entire generation of black Brazilians who were raised to believe that they couldn’t amount to anything. I know that I have become an inspiration – a role model – for little girls out there, little black girls who take pride in seeing that a black girl can make it to the lead role in the number one TV show in the country.”

Back to that sunny Saturday morning and our cover shoot. After she applied her own (L’Oréal) makeup and fixed her own curly hair, she asked for our opinion – she looked “faaaabulous” – and we had her try on the green glamazon outfit we’d identified as the most spectacular complement to her serene, sexy confidence. We headed to Jardim Botânico, a landmark botanical garden in a centrally located park that was located about a mile from where we were staying. No car service here – Taís drove herself to the park, and once we got

T-shirt_Osklen

there, we realized that we might need a permit from the city to shoot in such a guarded location. I bought tickets for everyone: Taís, Christine, photographer Evangelia Kranioti and Marc Baptiste who was trying to hide the top of the line Canon 5D camera he was hoping to use for video recording purposes.

For about five minutes we pretended to walk around, taking pictures of the flowers and the enormous trees, but as Evangelia directed Taís toward the trunk of a large tree we clearly weren’t supposed to approach, fellow park visitors starting approaching Taís for their own photo ops. When the guards, who were debating whether or not to kick us out of the park, finally came towards us, the sight of Taís posing with tourists and all kinds of visitors seemed irresistible and they, too, asked if she could kindly pose for a photo with them. Before we knew it, Jardim Botânico had become the privileged setting of one big lovefest between Taís, the TRACE Magazine team, the guards and the tourists. We were able to calmly proceed with our cover shoot in different restricted areas of the park.

When the shoot was over, around lunchtime, and we felt absolutely certain that we had secured our cover image, Taís walked over to her car, which was parked right at the main entrance of the park, and proceeded to change back into her own clothes right in her car. She then headed to the Globo studios, where she would shoot another episode of “Viver a Vida” that same afternoon.

Early last June, Taís sent me an email informing me that she and Lázaro had decided to take a well-deserved vacation in Greece. She told me that they

would spend a few days in New York on their way back from vacation. I decided to organize a dinner at my place in her and Lázaro’s honor. I invited about fifty people for the dinner, and it turned out that few of my New York guests had heard of her and Lázaro. Taís had told me during a previous interview that her dream was to work with American directors like Spike Lee. I felt that, as a beautiful, hard working actress from Brazil, she could succeed in America, in the same way that her fellow Brazilian actresses Camila Belle and Alica Braga (another TRACE cover star) had managed to make a name for themselves on the independent film circuit.

When Taís and Lázaro arrived on my terrace for the al fresco dinner, late one evening on a starry summer night in July, I could see that they were still very much in love, and that the Greek vacation had inspired them both. They looked rested, and joked around (in English) with my guests. Taís told me that she wanted me to call her one more time, for a final interview. We agreed to speak two days after they returned to Rio. During that final interview, she told me about an upcoming play she was about to star in, this time in an old São Paulo theater. I asked her about the steps she had taken recently, in her endeavors to launch a career in the United States. “Things have changed slightly,” she told me. “I still want to have a nice career in the cinema, and also in the United States, but I realize that life is about priorities. I think that it’s more important for me, right now, to have a baby. That is something we have been talking about.”

At 31, Taís Araújo seems to have her priorities straight.

31

32

“When the guards, who were debating whether or not to kick us out of the park, finally came towards us, the sight of Taís posing with tourists and all kinds of visitors seemed irresistible and they, too, asked if she could kindly pose for a photo with them.”

33

Caetano Veloso Hailed as Brazil’s greatest songwriter, known for his strong philosophical and political opinions as well as active leadership in the Tropicália movement, Caetano Veloso reveals the influence that his Bahian upbringing, specifically Candomblé, has had on his music.

At 68, Caetano Veloso is still not a morning person. When the photographer and I arrived – the objective being a discussion of Candomblé – at his beachfront apartment in one of the more luxurious buildings in Rio’s tiny Leblon district, late one afternoon this past April, it seemed as if he’d just woken up. Not from a power nap, but from the previous night’s revelries. Or perhaps from a late session in the recording studio. I have known Caetano for almost a decade, and spent time at his houses in both Rio and Salvador, often late into the night, and I am well aware that he likes to discuss politics and current affairs until the break of dawn. Still, on this particular late afternoon, it appeared that the man many consider to be Brazil’s greatest living singer/songwriter, had many things on his mind. He was about to go back on tour in the United States, he told us, and his schedule had turned a bit hectic.

Although Caetano now spends the majority of his time in Rio, his persona and essence are very closely associated with the state of Bahia, with Salvador, where he lived as a college student in the mid-sixties and, perhaps more significantly, with the city known as Santo Amaro da Purificação, where he was born. “I was born and raised in Bahia,” he told me. “All these things concerning Candomblé and African religions have been part of life forever. Bahia is the nucleus of this culture, because that’s where the majority of black slaves were brought. My father was a mulatto, and my grandmother was almost black, but it was very obvious, even when I was a child, that the connections to this religion were no longer race-related.”

Caetano feels that there may be other dynamics at play. “The American evangelical churches have influenced Brazil, and grown tremendously in recent years, mostly among poorer people, and many of these poorer people are black. I grew up entirely Catholic, and when I was a child in Santo Amaro, a person who was close to us was into Candomblé, but I was afraid of trance.

When I was 9 or 10, although I’d always kept a mystical sensibility, I thought I was an atheist, mainly because of the hypocrisy I encountered in religious circles, but also because I didn’t have any evidence confirming the existence of God. So I was afraid of trance, even though I was an atheist. When I saw people falling on the ground, rolling their eyes, shaking and dancing, I could

34

see that they seemed possessed by the gods, but I hated the idea of losing my consciousness and I stopped going to these Candomblé houses.

“Then, when I was 18, I moved to Salvador, then to Rio, then to São Paulo, then to London. When I came back to Rio, I saw that my sister Maria Bethânia (who’d been living in Rio) had become very interested and attracted to the Candomblé thing. She introduced me to some people who were supposed to be Candomblé priests and I just didn’t trust them. I saw that they were just as hypocritical as the Catholic priests. So I told her, why don’t you talk to Mãe Menininha (the leader of the Gantois Candomblé house in Salvador)? Bethânia went to see her, and I came along for the ride. It was fantastic, because the Gantois people were different from the fakes I’d seen Bethânia hang out with in Rio.” Soon enough, Bethânia decided to become very involved in this religion, and Mãe Menininha insisted that she and Caetano be initiated together, because she saw them as the same person. (The physical resemblance is, indeed, striking, and many people see Bethânia as a dead ringer for her older brother).

Although Caetano now says he never believed in the religion as much as his sister did, he did agree to go through all the rituals. There is a wonderful scene in Andrucha Waddington’s spellbinding 2007 documentary “Maria Bethânia Pedrinha de Aruanda,” where Caetano, Bethânia and their mother Dona Canô sing an ode to the late high priestess – “Oração da Mãe Menininha” – right on the porch of the Veloso family house in Santo Amaro on a starry night.

In that scene, as one observes the dynamics between the siblings and their mother, with their friends gathered around the tribe of world class musicians (Bethânia interrupting her steady groove with serene, soulful smiles in her trademark white outfit and Caetano singing slowly and convincingly while fiddling with the guitar on his lap), it becomes apparent that the influence of that particular type of African mysticism can be felt in many of Caetano’s most recent records – like last year’s enigmatic “zii e zie” – as well as in his his earliest Tropicália compositions from the sixties.

35

36

“ ‘I was born and raised in Bahia,’ he told me. ‘All these things concerning Candomblé and African religions have been part of life forever. Bahia is the nucleus of this culture, because that’s where the majority of black slaves were brought.’ “

37

Vik Muniz Visual artist Vik Muniz describes his everevolving love affair with Rio de Janeiro, and how the natural beauty and resilient spirit of Rio triumph over despairing poverty in his latest project, Waste Land.

I caught up with TRACE favorite Vik Muniz early last summer in his Brooklyn live/work studio. The huge, remodeled, modernly decorated house is where he spends most of his time when he is not working or relaxing in his Ipanema beachfront apartment. The first thing the São Paulo native said was that, until 1999, his relationship with Brazil was almost exclusively based on work. Arguably the most successful Brazilian artist of his generation, Vik shot to fame in the late nineties when an international market opened up for his distinctive brand of drawings and paintings, which are often photographed after being conceived out of nontraditional materials like chocolate, peanut butter or jelly.

He started the interview by revealing that, before 1999, he’d been living with a French woman. They would often travel to France, Spain, and Italy, and he admitted to neglecting his roots for a while. Then, in 1999, he was invited by a well-known curator named France Morin to help conceive an ambitious educational project, called “The Quiet in the Land.” During the course of creating that complex, multilayered project, he rediscovered Brazil, particularly Rio, a city he would return to more and more often, eventually buying property near Rio’s famed Jardim Botânico - a house which is now his parents’ main residence.

“My mother is from the São Paulo countryside, my father is from (northeastern Brazilian state) Ceará,” he told me. Vik’s story is one of the working class Brazilian Diaspora. He came to America in the late eighties, looking for an economic alternative to what he had in Brazil. His parents were poor; the son of a waiter and a lowly switchboard operator, his excuse for an America visa was an English language course. The six-month course was eventually stretched to 27 years, a journey that can only be described as the American dream. “For six years, I was an illegal alien and could not exit the country. For six years, I did not see my mother in Brazil, even though she would occasionally come to visit me. There was this unresolved thing, and it may have something to do with being from São Paulo. I often feel that if I were born in Rio, I would probably never have left Brazil.”

Vik is now in love with Rio because he sees it as a city where anyone can talk to anyone. Although Rio is not devoid of class and race issues, it is a city that has what he calls “an openness” – unlike São Paulo. “In Rio, everything is very casual, and everything is kind of superficial. That thing Cariocas do – when they say ‘Let’s get together’ but no one ends up calling – is kind of interesting.

38

39

40

“I often feel that if I were born in Rio, I would probably never have left Brazil.”

In Rio, you end up with thousands of acquaintances, and I find this fascinating, this intense social fabric.” Many people blame that bearable lightness of being on Rio’s beach culture, but Vik sees another dimension, which informs much of his art. “As an intellectual, you have to be able to translate that into artwork. Rio has the full gamut of human experiences. Another thing I see, as someone who travels a lot, is that the quality of life in the south of the city – the area known as ‘zona sul’ – cannot be compared to anything else in the world. It is unique, because you have all the amenities of a ten million person metropolis, encrusted into this surreal natural setting, all blessed by good weather.”

Still, Vik admits that he finds it difficult to spend extended amounts of time in the South Side without being plagued by guilty conscience. “In the three years I was establishing myself and creating a base in Rio, I would think to myself that it felt like morning in the disco and that it was time to go back to New York. And I think that had a lot to do with the way the city of Rio was a few years ago. It’s hard not to be infected with the chauvinism that the Cariocas have.”

To that end, six years ago, Vik started looking for a venue where he could create socially meaningful projects. He found a hangar in the port area, near the Rodoviária, a huge, slightly dysfunctional bus station that was built in 1965. In that locale, he set up an NGO called Galpão Aplauso, which now finances a highly respected art school and other creative endeavors. Galpão Aplauso is anchored around an enormous workshop where Vik started collaborating with local children from underprivileged families and underserved communities, in the disciplines of dance, circus, theater, music and all typed of plastic arts.

A natural born salesman, much of the funding for these projects comes from major corporations like Louis Vuitton and L’Oréal, in addition to respected nonprofit institutions like the Roberto Marinho Foundation.

At the end of our interview, which ended up lasting close to two hours, he led me to his desktop computer and showed me excerpts from his most visible new collaboration, an award-winning feature, directed by Lucy Walker, called “Waste Land.” “Waste Land” follows Vik as he journeys from his Brooklyn home to the world’s largest garbage dump, Jardim Gramacho, located on the outskirts of Rio. In that dump, he photographs an eclectic band of “catadores” – self-designated pickers of recyclable materials – and all of a sudden the transnational Vik Muniz journey takes on a new, more powerful meaning.

41

Oskar Metsavaht Sports-medicine specialist turned fashion designer, Oskar Metsavaht balances his time between sketching, surfing and sipping caipirinhas in Arpoador when he’s not creating killer beach-to-mountain inspired collections.

Oskar Metsavaht, the owner and founder of leading Rio-based sportswear company Osklen, is used to being in charge. When TRACE’s fashion director, our photographer and I arrived for the photo shoot at his stylishly decorated high design apartment facing Rio’s famed Arpoador beach, he immediately suggested three different settings for the sitting, a sign that he was about to “art direct” our shoot. Not surprising. For the past 21 years, Oskar has been in charge of virtually every aspect of the design, production, image and expansion of his fast-growing empire, which is now global, with outposts in major fashion cities like New York, Milan and Tokyo.

With the roots and iconography of the Osklen brand firmly planted in snowboarding and surfing culture, it was natural for Oskar, who was born to Estonian parents in Southern city Caxias do Sul in 1961, to eventually settle in Arpoador, a famous surfer beach which is located between Ipanema and Copacabana.

“I chose to live in Rio,” he told me during one of a series of conversations we have been having for the past six years. “I chose Arpoador, the exact place I am living with my family now, because I wanted the comfort and sophistication that comes with this area. That balance, that cosmopolitan contrast: very few cities in the world have it. I like the mix of ages, races and sexualities on the beach.

It’s called diversity, and the way we are able to mix cultures, music and food is my definition of Brazilian soul. Sydney, where the beaches are pretty far away, Santa Monica and Malibu, they are just not the same. Here, we have dolphins, surfers, divers, girls from Ipanema, and guys from the favela, all mixing right in the middle of the beach.”

Oskar’s charmed life, which I have witnessed on several occasions, is about reading art books and sketching in the mornings, surfing in the afternoons, playing fútbol and closing deals on the beach, being driven to work at his headquarters in the working class São Cristóvão neighborhood, having caipirinhas with Madonna and Valentino at the Fasano Hotel near his apartment, and heading home to his wife and kids in time for dinner before leaving again for late-night parties in the city.

These days however, he talks a lot about urbanization in the favelas, his E-institute, which funds research on sustainability and the environment, and his work with UNESCO on youth education in Brazil. “We need to take better care of this beautiful nature that is God’s gift to us,” he says. “I am part of a team that is currently helping to bring back the original flora of this Ipanema neighborhood, and I know this will lead to an even better lifestyle around here.”

42

“I chose Arpoador, the exact place I am living with my family now, because I wanted the comfort and sophistication that comes with this area. That balance, that cosmopolitan contrast: very few cities in the world have it.�

43

44

“What makes Cariocas special is the fact that we do not follow the rules. We are not on time, and we choose to express our individuality through a very specific form of civil disobedience. Take that away, and you take away the spirit of Rio.”

Ernesto Neto Renowned for his impressive abstract, larger-than-life sculptures, contemporary visual artist Ernesto Neto brings TRACE behind-the-scenes to witness the creative chaos behind his minimalistic, experiential art.

When the TRACE team entered through the open gate, walked up the stairs past the army of assistants and seamstresses and finally arrived at the third floor of his busy studio, which is located in Rio’s old city centre, the artist Ernesto Neto was seated in front of a laptop computer at his messy desk. He was busy arguing with someone on the other end of the phone. We later found out that he was resolving an “issue” with a curator from London’s Hayward Gallery.

He showed us small-scale models for a series of installations and sculptures entitled “The Edges of the World,” which he would show three months later as part of the London South Bank’s “Festival Brazil” festivities.

The multilevel studio, which includes several offices – “escritorios” – and a crammed library, is full of assorted fabrics and samples of various unusual materials. Soon after he showed us the small models, he headed towards his hammock and started talking very fast, as if he were trying to make as many points as possible during the visit. We talked a little bit about his art, as he is now well known for the installations he and Vik Muniz created for the Brazilian pavilion at the 2002 Venice Biennale.

Although his most famous work might be the 2006 “Léviathan Trot”, a socalled “anthropomorphic” display of high level creativity suspended at Paris’s Panthéon, my favorite Neto piece might be the monumental work he created in New York City last year. Randy Kennedy wrote in the New York Times that that installation at the Park Avenue Armory, which is made of hundreds of yards of stretched Lycra tulle, “looks something like a superfine spider web, laden with

egg sacks, that has drifted down onto the skeleton of a forgotten species of dinosaur shaped like a cephalopod.”

I have been a friend – and fan – of Neto’s (as most people call him) for a decade, and we have met often on Ipanema beach for discussions about music, film, love, sex and the beach culture itself. Neto, along with his good friend the art director Marcus Wagner and other Rio beach souls, is known for throwing legendary New Year’s Eve “reveillon” events on Ipanema and Arpoador beaches. I have attended many of those parties – one gains admission by purchasing a limited edition white printed t-shirt - and although the idea of this particular interview was to discuss the changing face of Rio de Janeiro as a modern metropolis, as soon as I uttered the word “Rio,” he interrupted me mid-sentence, and launched into a long tirade against the new regulations that are reducing the Cariocas’ civil liberties, particularly on the city’s beaches.

“It’s become unbearable,” he said. “We are not free anymore. We cannot buy our food and our drinks and our coco water from the beach vendors anymore.

Everything is regulated, and everything is sponsored by the big corporations, particularly these Brazilian beer companies that are trying to take over our lives, from the umbrellas on the beach to every aspect of our Carnival. This is not right, because what makes Cariocas special is the fact that we do not follow the rules. We are not on time, and we choose to express our individuality through a very specific form of civil disobedience. Take that away, and you take away the spirit of Rio.”

“They are creating their own decentralized cultural industries, like Baile Funk, which has gone global, all the way to Berlin and Luanda.”

Hermano Vianna The lesser-known Vianna brother discusses the effect Funk music has had on the evolution of Brazilian subculture.

Hermano Vianna, the anthropologist, composer and cultural critic, is not a household name in Brazil. However, many Brazilians know him as the older brother of Herbert Vianna, the lead singer of hugely popular Rio rock band Os Paralamas do Sucesso. The Viannas’ family life took a tragic turn in February 2001, when Herbert and his wife suffered an accident with an ultralight plane in resort area Angra dos Reis, near Rio. The fall killed Herbert’s wife, Lucy, but Herbert gradually recovered, after spending 44 days at the Copa D’Or hospital, in Copacabana. When he woke up from his coma, however, Herbert found himself confined to a wheelchair, but he has managed to resume his musical career, despite his paraplegic state.

The Vianna siblings will always be closely associated with Brazilian music, and one of Hermano’s most important publications is titled “The Mystery of Samba,” an essay (which was translated into English in 1999) where the author makes the case that an understanding of samba leads to a more thorough analysis of the modern Brazilian identity. The academic Nelson H. Vieira wrote of that book that is “points to the Brazilian nation’s strong expression of popular culture as a long term transcultural experience between cultural elites and popular voices both inside and outside Brazil.” Recently, however, Vianna has reinvented himself as a leading specialist of the “Baile funk” phenomenon.

Those funk balls, which combine rhythms considered derivative of electro and Miami bass, became very popular in Brazil’s favelas about a decade ago. Having crossed over into the mainstream, they are known for their viral influence on Brazilian dress codes and youth attitudes. Vianna has become an expert at decoding funk’s disruptive effect on Brazilian subcultures, through its assault

46

on the Portuguese vocabulary, in a conscious reinvention of everyday slang.

When I first met Vianna, about seven years ago at one of Regina Casé and husband Estevão Ciavatta’s house parties, just as “Baile funk” was taking off in a big way, it seemed that all the guests were asking him about his take on the influence of funk on Rio society.

Recently, I caught up with him, and asked him about the recent changes he has noticed in Rio’s culture. “Rio is bigger,” he said. “Not only in geographical and population terms, but our urban ‘imaginary’ has boomed as well. Rio has spread all over the place; it has become more plural, in a healthy way. Ten years ago, when people talked about Rio they were talking about the rich neighborhoods of “Zona Sul” - Copacabana, Ipanema and Leblon – and people thought about favelas only during Carnival. Now the other “Zonas,” including the new, immense West which has created its own downtown somewhere around the Barra shopping mall, are fighting and partying for their rights. There is a brand new plethora of very active collectives and movements. They want to secure a place on our cultural map, online and offline. And they don’t need the Zona Sul mass media to do it anymore. They are creating their own decentralized cultural industries, like Baile Funk, which has gone global, all the way to Berlin and Luanda. These other Zonas are broadcasting their many mash-ups of other Carioca sounds and images and ideas.”

47

Rio Powerhouse

The Reigning Queen of Rio Vivacious and radiant, Brazil’s most lovable and entertaining on-screen personalities shows us why she is the real star of Rio text_Claude Grunitzky

48

photography_ Regina Casé

Regina Casé is a something of a character, to put it mildly. Some would call her a force of nature. A bona fide, natural born comedian, she is one of Brazil’s beloved TV and film personalities. The director Daniela Thomas, who has known Regina since the seventies, once told me that Regina was “the empress” of Rio de Janeiro. Regina Casé also happens to be the central character of this issue, because the majority of the profile and features are somehow directly or indirectly related to her.

Among the anecdotes enhancing the architecture of her influence is the fact that I first met this issue’s cover star Taís Araújo at Regina’s apartment back in December 2005; Caetano Veloso and Hermano Vianna, both profiled for this issue, are two of her closest friends. I discovered Salvador and Bahia ten years ago through the lens of Regina, her husband Estevão Ciavatta and her former neighbor Mari Stockler (who’s husband, Carlito Carvalhosa, created the monumental show at Salvador’s Palácio da Aclamação which I reviewed in the Salvador section of the issue). In other words, all roads in TRACE’s survey of Brazil in 2010 lead to Regina.

A “Carioca da gema” – meaning a person who was born in Rio de Janeiro proper – she first entered the Brazilian consciousness in the seventies when she was part of the Rio-based theater ensemble Asdrúbal Trouxe o Trombone.

Her crossover moment came a few years later, with her central role in the groundbreaking weekly comedy show “TV Pirata”, which aired on Rede Globo in the late eighties. Regina’s relationship with Globo blossomed into the nine-

49

50

“Ademar Casé paved the way for his charismatic granddaughter.

That particular type of constant improvisation, and instinct for the new in the mood of the nation, could have only been transmitted in the genes.” ties, when she became the main presenter of cult TV shows “Programa Legal”, “Brasil Legal” and “Muvuca.” These days, she can be seen collaborating with her husband on episodes of “Fantástico”, arguably one of Brazil’s most successful – and longest running – prime time TV shows.

“I’ve done everything on Brazilian television,” she once told me, before bursting into one of her trademark superloud laughs, so it must also be noted that, in addition to television, she has starred in a wide range of Brazilian films, including “Chuvas de Verão”, a 1978 drama directed by Cacá Diegues and “Eu Tu, Eles”, Andrucha Waddington’s award-winning 2001 tragicomedy about a single woman called Darlene who returns to her provincial homeland after a three-year absence.

Earlier this year, Estevão Ciavatta released a documentary titled “Programa Casé”, a moving tribute to his wife’s grandfather, Ademar Casé. Pernambucoborn Ademar Casé, who died in 1993. He was a pioneer of Brazilian radio, pretty much shaping the tone and style of his country’s early radio days, and his influence on Brazil’s entertainment industry can still be felt today. I watched the film last August at a private screening in Rio’s Instituto Moreira Salles, right on the rua Marquês de São Vicente, in the foresty Gávea neighborhood, and all along I could not help but to notice that Ademar Casé paved the way for his charismatic granddaughter. That particular type of constant improvisation, and instinct for the new in the mood of the nation, could have only been transmitted in the genes.

For this issue, we asked Regina to send us a few of her favorite pictures from her many travels. The photos in this portfolio, which were all taken with the small digital cameras she carries with her everywhere she goes, point to a life lived in full. A life of laughter, joy, improvisation and deep, meaningful relationships.

51

The Soul of Brasil The people and places that make Salvador da Bahia text_Claude Grunitzky

52

photography_Evangelia Kranioti

In his 1961 novel “Home if the Sailor”, the modernist Bahian writer Jorge Amado wrote that “it is a very risky thing for anyone to go about proclaiming the truth simply because he finds himself in possession of concrete documentary proofs or on the evidence of his own eyes, which is always overestimated.” In the state of Bahia, especially in the capital city of Salvador, things are never quite what they seem, and all too often the truth can be invisible to the naked eye. I found out, on my first trip to Salvador in 2000, that even the most basic truths can be subject to interpretation and reinterpretation.

A land of illusion and emotion, Bahia is the cradle of black Brazilian civilization, and the daily routine there can be unsettling to those who are used to thinking only with their head. It has been estimated that more than 80% of the state’s population is of African descent, and many derivatives of African words – like “quilombo” (escaped slave community) – have morphed into the Brazilian Portuguese vocabulary. Even Bahia’s beloved “batucada” (the drumbeat) reflects the origin of the African instruments - like the tam tam - that enhanced the chants and dances of traditional Brazilian music.

53

54

55

“A land of illusion and emotion, Bahia is the cradle of black Brazilian civilization�

56

In this section of the issue, we explore the cultural and religious practices – the truth around the Candomblé houses of worship - that define the African heritage of Bahia. On this latest reporting trip to Salvador, which took place last March, the TRACE team found that these were the truths that informed the music, film, fashion and art of the region. According to the anthropologist Luis Nicolau Parés, author of an important study on the history of Candomblé, the collective identity of West African societies during the colonial period was multi-dimensional and structured on different levels: ethnic, religious, territorial, linguistic and political.

57

58

60

I found myself enchanted by Bahia’s unique brand of syncretism on my first visit there, because I felt that I had stepped into a land of giants. To me, these personalities, the Pierre Vergers, the Mestre Didis, the musical legends, the Caetano Velosos, the Gilberto Gils, the Carlinhos Browns, are towering figures because of their giant souls. A native of Togo, I immediately felt in step with the land of Bahia because I had never encountered such creativity in everyday situations. The most interesting Bahians are the everyday people you see on the streets. From the Baianas serving AcarajÊ at the Casa da Dinha (just like the street vendors I grew up around in LomÊ), to the men practicing Capoeira at Santo Antonio Fort, to the sambistas roaming around Pelorinho Square; they were all dressed in white, and they seemed to know something I had yet to learn.

61

TITLE

“Bahians are open-minded, and I found that their sense of community, their mastery of the art of reinvention, their ability to transform objects and beliefs, it all comes from the bonds that were established through rebellion and resistance.�

64

When I visited Jaques Wagner in his Salvador office earlier this year, he told me that if a white Jew from Rio, like him, could be elected governor of the black state, then indeed Bahia was the land of possibilities. Bahians are openminded, and I found that their sense of community, their mastery of the art of reinvention, their ability to transform objects and beliefs, it all comes from the bonds that were established through rebellion and resistance. Everything about the Bahia persona is related to the spirit of survival, and the photos in this portfolio demonstrate just how free and soulful they truly are.

65

66

67

text_Evangeline Kim

photography_Marc Baptiste

Grammy-award winning musician, songwriter, artist and cultural leader Carlinhos Brown gives back to his community by providing real opportunities for young hopefuls

CULTURAL RENAISSANCE MAN Carlinhos Brown: A Portrait of the Artist as Humanist

IF THE SOUL IS NOT NOURISHED, WE CEASE TO BE HUMAN. C. BROWN

69

“I prefer now to be known as an artist, not as a musician,” Carlinhos Brown asserted, during a recent TRACE interview with him in Paris. “Music,” he claimed, had become “too limited” as a sole means of artistic expression and that he has for sometime been deeply focused on his painting and other art forms. He showed us a “sketchbook” of some of his painting projects, and the pages were brimming with finely wrought, beautifully composed, rich color-flow studies. We could only imagine the visual impact of these explosions of color when cast on large canvases.

Because Afro-Brasilian art has for too long been dismissively regarded as mere “ethnographic” curiosities or worthy only in a “carnival” context in Bahia, he is wary of exhibiting his paintings there. Carlinhos is biding his time to show his pictures to viewers with a better sense of cultural knowledge and values.

Recognized world-wide as one of Brasil’s greatest megastar musicians and multiple Grammy-winner, he has composed and produced over 200 hit songs recorded not only by himself, but so many more have also been interpreted by other Brasilian stars - with even a hundred more to come in his head, he vows.

As one of Brasil’s greatest living percussionist today, a beloved singer and witty lyricist, he was a founder of one of Bahia’s most popular percussion bands,

70

Timbalada, yet few of Brasil’s musicians possess such complete mastery of the country’s hundreds of rhythms.

To experience the electrifying charisma of Carlinhos Brown live in concert is more than thrilling: his catchy melodies and percussive lyrics represent the very heart of the Bahian sound. It’s spell-binding to feel the powerful, magnetic love between the star and huge crowds, numbering from thousands to sometimes in the millions.

As bandleader, musician and showman, his shows embrace so many styles, starting with Bahian samba swirled with other Brazilian beats, along with reggae, salsa, jazz, hip-hop, funk, and rock. While such broad musicianship may be enough gratification or challenge for any accomplished musician, he continues to push beyond musical vocabularies of expression. His will-power and his drive expand his artistic instincts towards many-faceted, Brasilian Renaissance-like achievements in culture and the arts.

Indeed, he has even designed a brilliant collection of 4 lines of fine gold jewelry entitled “Miscigens” in collaboration with Brasil’s renowned H. Stern jeweler.

Each is themed upon titles of his songs - Latinha, Aruanda, Magano, and Indiado, and represents his love for Brasil’s fascinating ethnic mix of African,

Indigenous, and urban cultures. They remain H. Stern’s most popular and bestselling jewels, and are incredibly exquisite examples of the art of gold-smithing.

Yet he remains remarkably modest and down-to-earth in conversation and interview, with a keenly piercing mind, and, one senses, an uncompromising sense of personal values marked by his profound spirituality. “I am only a man,” he often notes, shunting aside any glorified pretensions.

Apart from the range of his artistry, he’s known throughout Bahia for his steadfast dedication to social responsibility through concrete community project opportunities for the impoverished, children and adults alike, under his umbrella non-profit NGO, the Pracatum Social Action Association. Since the 80’s, his creation of professional opportunities and reclamation of cultural pride have been bearing fruit through educational training and development of technical skills in a fashion school, English classes, Afro-Brasilian literature, capoeira and dance, a pre-school nursery for children ages 2-5, and of course, music and visual arts. Success in these programs continues to earn numerous international and national awards and critically-needed financial support.

To visit his 3 landmark spaces in Salvador below, is to witness the work of a Bahian rebel iconoclast who manages, almost miraculously, to rise far above

and beyond pre-conceived racial notions in Bahia’s highly racist society with its painful colonial history, as he quietly lays foundations for lasting recognition and elevation of Afro-Brasilian culture.

Museu du Ritmo: Although only inaugurated in 2007, Carlinhos Brown’s Museu du Ritmo in the heart of Bahia’s capital historic center, Salvador, has quickly become one of Bahia’s most popular open-air performing arts centers. He designed and renovated the Museu grounds in an abandoned complex of buildings (7,500 square meters) that once housed Salvador’s 19th century lower city Mercado d’Ouro, with a larger vision towards creating a major cultural center. He once remarked that his head was a “museum of rhythms,” and the self-perception has materialized into an innovative reality.

The courtyard’s arcaded interior is painted with colorful, rhythmic designs and a high-tech stage with state-of-the-art sound system looms at one end, serving as one the best stages in the city. From November through carnival season, thousands of fans and tourists fill the multi-storied Museu, to participate in the mega-concerts with all of Brasil’s major stars. These are known as the “Sarau

71

du Brown.”

Magnificent examples of afro-Brasilian spiritual art, symbolic of Bahia’s candomblé religion, appear throughout the Museu. there are Baroque statues and paintings of catholic saints syncretized with the candomblé orishá deities, and the sharp fragrance of pitanga leaves refresh the air in some of the side rooms. Full-skirted, smiling Bahiana women in white lace are often present on festive occasions, serving up the delicious bean fritter snacks known as acarajé gently simmering in huge pots of pungent dendê oil. to further the Museu’s vision, under construction now within the structural space, the first international center for Black Music, the centro da Música negra (cMn) will open in late 2011. the cMn’s projected thematic organi-

72

zation will trace the complex saga of black music, its histories, geographies, and artists, while encompassing its musical cross-fertilizations and linkages between Bahia, africa, and the african diaspora throughout europe and the americas. with interior designs by architect Pedro Mendes da Rocha, the cMn’s plans include permanent and revolving exhibitions with 100 state-ofthe-art, interactive, multi-media installations, an online research and documentary center, concert-film-lecture-workshop spaces, recording studios, a restaurant and café. it’s partnered with France’s Mondomix who will provide technical support with a committee of 20 international experts. the cMn will help pull salvador, Brazil’s emblematic city of africa, out of relative insularity and strategically connect it with the world’s centers of black mu-

sic. its objectives are noteworthy: to instill black pride in a country with a long history of repressed afro-Brazilian culture; stimulate cultural tourism by paying tribute to black music in Brazil and throughout the world; and spur recognition of salvador as south america’s cultural capital of black music. candyall Guetho square: coolness and serenity pervade this beautifully designed oasis that carlinhos opened in 1996, in the midst of the candeal neighborhood where he was born and raised. originally built as a large, popular performance venue where thousands of visitors and fans attended nighttime concerts by all of Brasil’s renowned artists as well as thunderous sunday afternoon rehearsals by timbalada’s percussionists, candyall is currently a private studio center where he re-

cords, rehearses, creates his artworks, and welcomes friends. inside the lovely painted building behind the plaza’s long balustrade, there are again rooms filled with Baroque art, a sacred altar, and an atmosphere of consecrated enchantment and profound peace. the beauty of the candyall space is symbolic of what’s achievable in what was once a barrio with typical lack of decent infrastructure - and also, historically, an area populated by liberated captive africans in the 17th century. over the years, carlinhos has helped instill a sense of dignity, pride, and hope in the poor community district by advocacy and national and international fund-raising for candeal’s clean running water, sewer lines, electricity, paved roads, the first health clinic, home building and renovation, and a better soccer field for

73

Carlinhos Brown performs in New York City at the Brazilian Day Festival

photo_Mikaela Gauer

the children.

Pracatum Music School: A few buildings down the road from Candyall Guetho Square, the multi-storied Pracatum Music School rises high above the street. Within the modern space, 1200 young students each year fill the classrooms, rehearsal spaces, a library, cafeteria, the instruments room, and a recording studio. With state and private funding, students pay no tuition. They are trained in all the technical skills of audio-visual recording, sound engineering, and scores of budding musicians are exposed to many styles of music, from Bahian samba to hip-hop and classical European. Cadres of Pracatum students are the core of next generation’s

74

A student at Pracatum Music School

“Yet he remains remarkably modest and down-to-earth in conversation and interview, with a keenly piercing mind, and, one senses, an uncompromising sense of personal values marked by his profound spirituality. ‘I am only a man,’ he often notes, shunting aside any glorified pretensions.”

self-sufficiency in Bahia’s music industry.

During our TRACE team visit to the school, the door of one the classrooms suddenly opened and a roomful of grinning children sang out in unison and perfect pitch - Bob Marley’s “Is this love - is this love - is this love – is this love that I’m feelin’…?” We were exhilarated.

To enter those spectacular 3 spaces in Salvador - the Museu du Ritmo, Candyall Guetho Square, and Pracatum Music School - is to catch a glimpse of the palace of the mind of an exceptional artist. Where art triumphs over poverty; where dreams become opportunities; and where life is a celebration of human creativity.

75

Legend – Antônio Carlos Vovô Ilê Aiyê is in the hearts of every Afro-Brasilian because it was the very first Afro Bloco. Nowadays, it’s the only group that sticks to black principles. – Billy Arquimimo, African Heritage State Coordinator text_Evangeline Kim

76

photography_Evangelia Kranioti

Early November, 2009: It’s a warm, late Saturday summer night in Bahia. I am here to visit Salvador’s key cultural sites with a small group of international journalists. We drive slowly through the winding, steep streets of Brasil’s biggest black neighborhood - the bairro popular, Liberdade, where over 600,000 people of mostly African descent live. The streets are filled with partying throngs lining the streets. Our destination is the Ilé Aiyê headquarters and cultural community center, Bahia’s beacon of black pride and consciousness.

Our van stops in front of the floodlit 8-story building. It’s a grand presence.

The building facade is covered with neatly designed mosaic work in Ilé Aiyê’s colors – a blaze of bright black, red, yellow, and white - depicting its AfroBrazilian motifs and iconographic mask. Charged rhythms from Ilê Aiyê’s live band are pouring forth from inside, filling the neighborhood’s night air.

In the cavernous concert hall with crowds of ecstatic dancers, a phalanx of percussionists below the stage pounds out a mesmerizing mix of ijexá and samba rhythms. The stage is filled with beautiful, smiling, crowned women dancers, in regal dress, swirling gracefully, undulating uplifted arms. Behind them a “Noite da Beleza Negra” backdrop banner stretches across the stage - bathed in shadowed stage lighting. The huge space with capacity for over two thousand fans is reverberating with melodies and harmonies, as stage vocalists belt out Ilê Aiyê’s songs of freedom, meshed with the thrashing drumming beats.

These popular public performance sessions, which begin in August, are known as “ensaios.” They lead up to the Salvador’s massive street carnival in February, where over one hundred of Ilê Aiyê’s musicians are joined by three thousand

singing, dancing members in procession with the band’s gigantic “trio-eléctrico” truck carrying musicians and a high-powered sound system. *** Eu tenho uma vantage sobre a maioria dos filhos de famílias negras da Bahia. Pois sempre soube ser um descendente da Família Negra de “Lá.”

Sempre fui orientado a procurer ser sempre melhor em todos os sentidos, pois negro sempre ê vilão, e eles nunca se preocupam conosco, e por isso faço minha parte e tenho tanto orgulho dessa minha formação de categoria em negritude. Obrigado Mãe, por ter formado esse produto que mudou a cara e a cabeça da Bahia. – A. C. Vovô Late March, 2010 – TRACE Visit: It’s Holy Week in Bahia, the week before Easter, and although the Ilê Aiyê Band usually doesn’t perform during this period, we want to learn more about the whole organizational history first-hand from its president, Antônio Carlos Vovô, better known as Vovô (Grandfather).

Tall, dressed in whites, long dreadlocks flowing, we are in the grave and commanding presence of a singular, world-famous personage: the man who founded Ilê Aiyê, the very first Afro Bloco in 1974, with sacred blessings and support by his late, distinguished mother, Mãe Hilda, the neighborhood’s Candomblé Mãe de Santo, when he was just 22 years old.

The evening before, the TRACE team attended the Cabaret da RRRRaça performance at the Teatro Vila Velha. Towards the ending, the drummers began

77

This policy is not, however, an outright discriminatory practice on their part, he carefully points out. It depends entirely on the self-perception of those who wish to be members and carnival participants. “It’s a matter of identifying yourself as black, with no hesitation and absolute conviction.”

“In Bahia,” he remarks, “black people are afraid of being black. Afro Brasilians have been made to believe that to be white is good and to be black is bad.”

His struggle to instill black pride and self-esteem in Liberdade’s and Bahia’s Afro-Brasilians has initiated further, greater strategies over the past 22 years to buttress his pioneering Afro Bloco.

Ilê Aiyê has now evolved as a socio-cultural development role-model through

to thrum out Maracatu rhythms, as the troupe sang about the great early antislavery leader, Zumbi dos Palmeres (after which the Northeastern Pernambuco rock-Maracatu group Nação Zumbi is named).

Suddenly, from the top of the amphitheater’s stairs, a booming voice pierced the packed theater, the drum rhythms shifted to carnival samba beats, and the dreadlocked lead singer of Ilê Aiyé, Guiguio Aguinaldo, quickly descended the stairs. The room was electrified. Dancing, audience members rushed onstage to join this finale epiphany celebration for the black race, joining Guiguio’s exuberant chants for Ilê Aiyê.

How is it that Ilé Aiyé came to hold such inspirational grip over blacks and enlightened non-blacks, including Brasil’s biggest stars – Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, Lenine, Margareth Menezes, Daniela Mercury, and countless others - all over the country? “Ilê Aiyê” is invoked many times in great Brasilian recordings and live performances throughout Bahia and Brasil. And what gave Bahian Guiguio such charismatic strength?

Before 1974, Vovô recounts, Bahia’s carnival samba blocos (informal street percussion groups) never had the participation of a black bloco. This is ironic since all popular samba forms were forged originally from Candomblé rhythms

by Afro-Brasilians. Ilê Aiyê performed for the first time in 1975 and was organized originally to be the first historical musical black bloco in Bahia. But they found themselves immediately denigrated by the media and followed around by the police, with accusations of Communism. This was the period of Brasil’s military regime.

Ile Aiyê’s hand was forced. It looked to the Black Power Movement in the U.S. for inspiration. Vovô and his directors made conscious decisions to stand up against the intense injustice and racism of the period in Bahia and Brasil. They became resolved to fight for civil rights for Afro-Brasilians through their bloco’s music. All of Ilé’s lyrics still today carry Afro Brasilian cultural, political, and social content, and the organization is strictly limited to black Brasilians as a form of cultural resistence.

78

creation of vitally important educational programs, starting with his mother’s literacy school based on art-education for young children, The Mãe Hilda School, launched in 1988. Known as the community’s “Guardian of Faith and African Tradition,” Mãe Hilda was the guiding force for Ilê Aiyê and countless thousands who still mourn her passing last September. Each annual carnival Saturday, she opened Ilê Aiyê’s parade celebration with a ceremony on her balcony.

She released white doves as blessings for Vovô and his directors.

As we spoke with Vovô in the late waning light of the afternoon, happy, eagerto-learn children filled classrooms downstairs.

The newer headquarters holds extensive training programs for thousands of teachers and students.

Social Projects: • Pedagogical Extension Project, established in 1995, covers courses about Afro-Brasilian history and culture for teachers, educational supervisors, and counselors from public schools, including in-depth studies of ethical issues and cultural pluralism.

• Ilê Aiyê Today: With 120 musicians, Band’ Aiyê leads thousands of carnival-goers each year and has inspired growth of dozens of newer Afro Blocos. It has had cameo appearances on recordings by pop stars including Bjork, Yerba Buena, Nass Marrakech, and Daniela Mercury. Since 1983, the group has performed in Angola, Benin, Martinique, Germany, Denmark, Portugal, France, Spain Holland, England, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, and the U.S.

• Ilê Aiyê Vocational School aims to enable youth from the community for the job market. This project offers free classes on subjects such as shoe, bag and accessory manufacturing, facility electricity, computers, beauty care, dressmaking, and cooking.

• Band’ Erê School of Percussion, Song, Dance, and Citizenship, established in 1992, is a full-time children’s and teen training school, aimed at developing musical skills while instilling citizenship values. They attend courses about AfroBrasilian history, interpretation and languages, musical rhythms, singing, dance, and personal health and hygiene.

Vovô’s biggest challenges today at the Ilê Aiyê 4,500 square meter headquarters, the Senzala do Barro Preto, are hefty monthly and annual maintenance and educational costs. He is currently deeply preoccupied with funding for a badlyneeded, in-house recording studio. Until then, we have to await recordings by one of Brasil’s most important musical bands.

Cultural Projects:

Billy Arquimimo, Bahia’s African Heritage Tourism Coordinator, Vovô’s longtime friend, who long ago served as an Ilê Aiyê director (1976–1984), and who went on to manage Olodum (1987-2001), confirms that Bahian elites have “no cultural respect” for Ilê Aiyê’s inestimable achievements. Well-deserved official state and city recognition rarely materializes, he notes, and increased financial support will be vitally necessary to enable Ilê Aiyê to continue its historic mission towards racial equality through cultural activism.

• Ilê Aiye’s Black Music Festival serves as the annual key event to select theme songs to be developed during the year, making carnival their target stage.

Songwriters express their self-esteem and feelings in two categories, Theme and Poetry.

• Black Beauty Night – Ebony Goddess Pageant: Ilê Aiyê focuses on black womanhood in this hugely popular evening party event, wherein an Ebony Goddess is selected who will serve as next carnival queen. The winner must be an ethical black beauty who reaffirms dignity, identity, delivers values, and represents highest ideals of black cultural expressions.

He believes that since 1976, Salvador has undergone many transformations towards racial justice, but Vovô is not completely happy. “Bahian society is racist,” he maintains.

As we leave our meeting, Vovô silently points to the words underneath the logo image of the Ilê Aiyé mask: PERFIL AZEVICHE – JET BLACK PROFILE.

79

A Divine Experience Text_Claude Grunitzky

Photography_Marc Baptiste

Renowned priest and artist Mestre Didi and his wife, Juana Elbein, share the deep spiritual contribution West African culture has made to the Brazilian way of life a contribution that makes Brazil different from any other country in the Americas.

Of all the West African cultures that helped create the special kind of AfroBrazilian syncretism that can be found at the heart of the Bahian religious experience, none is more important, or more admired, than that of the Nàgô. The Nàgô, a tribe of the Yoruba community that migrated and spread over centuries across the countries now known as Nigeria, Benin and Togo all the way to the northeastern coast of Brazil, believe in the immortality of spirits. In particular, they are known to worship their ancestors because, in their mind, no one ever really dies.

At 92, Mestre Didi is still considered a crucial spiritual link between the Nàgô cultures of West Africa and those of Brazil. For he and his Argentina-born Brazilian wife, the anthropologist Juana Elbein dos Santos, have made the study of his ancestors their life’s work. When the TRACE team arrived at their doorstep, late one morning last April, we were greeted by Elbein, who was cautious at first, sizing us up, obviously suspicious of our motives. I explained that we were

80

producing a special edition on Brazil, and that the Afro-Brazilian culture of Bahia was the main focus of our issue. A leading scholar on those issues, she sat us down and, for more than an hour, gave us a detailed lesson on the basic foundations of the culture.

Elbein told us many tales, and she was able to recount, in great detail, several of their pilgrimages to the motherland. Every few minutes, she would test her husband’s memory by asking him to recollect a specific incident, or to remember a specific person, from a specific trip to West Africa. Mestre Didi listened on, nodded in acquiescence and sat quietly in his chair. We could perceive that those African memories brought a light to his eyes, and he started smiling.

Born Deoscoredes Maximiliano dos Santos, Mestre Didi is the son of Arsenio dos Santos and Maria Bibiana do Espírito Santo, a lady also known as Mãe Senhora Oxum Muiwà. Mãe Senhora was a descendent of the Asipa family, which originated in Oyo and Ketu, two important cities in the extended Yoruba

empire, and she became one of the founders of a highly influential candomblé house called ilê axé aira intile. that house is often credited with maintaining many of the most important nàgô traditions. in another display of syncretism, Mestre didi was baptized in the catholic church, and at the same time as he was told to worship Jesus christ and given his first communion, he was simultaneously initiated into the cult of the nàgô. over time, as he became more comfortable with his status as a high priest of the candomblé, he chose to express his religious beliefs through art – particularly with an abundant usage of the symbols of the orixás nana and omulu/ soponna. and so didi began creating sculptures out of raw, organic materials – like cowrie shells – that had been traditionally used for religious ceremonies in the candomblé. Many of his finest pieces were on display in their apartment, and i remembered having seen similar ones, more than twenty years ago, at the seminal group exhibition “les Magiciens de la terre,” which was held in 1989

at the centre Georges Pompidou and the Grande halle de la Villette in Paris. as we surveyed (and photographed) the art in their living room, i realized that several of the strategically placed vintage black and white photographs of deceased high priests and priestesses were yet another reminder of the presence of our ancestors. the books on the shelves, on the other hand, seemed to speak to didi’s other life as a writer and cultural historian. in 1946, didi published a yoruba dictionary, the first of its kind, and in 1961, he published a tome titled “Black tales of Bahia” (contos negros da Bahia - nàgô - orixás - candomblé), which came with a preface by the writer Jorge amado and illustrations by the artist carybé. in elbein, didi found both a co-conspirator and an intellectual sparring partner. she was proud to tell us about her many writings in academic journals and about her books, the most famous of which, 1972’s “the nago and death” (originally titled “os nàgô e a Morte Pàde, Àsèsè e o culto Égun na Bahia”),

81

was first published in 1972 as a doctoral thesis in Paris. in 1974, didi and ebstein founded the society for the study of Black culture in Brazil (also known as secneB), and a generation of scholars have been quoting their research ever since. as my interview drew to a close, a particular mask, sitting on a far corner of the room, caught my eye: it reminded me of the masks i had seen as a child, growing up in togo. this particular mask, in the egungun tradition, must have been inspired by a very specific type of ancestor worship – this mask seemed to be a loose reinterpretation of the yoruba pantheon of divinities. if, indeed, egungun was his inspiration for that mask, then i understood why didi looked so immortal that day – he must have been dialoguing with the collective spirit of his ancestors.

82

“At 92, Mestre Didi is still considered a crucial spiritual link between the Nàgô cultures of West Africa and those of Brazil.”

83

A Light of Consciousness

A spiritually enlightening encounter with MĂŁe Carmem of Gantois, the most celebrated CandomblĂŠ house in Brazil text_Claude Grunitzky

84

photography_Marc Baptiste

As if the closed wooden window panes and the bright yellow light shining faintly out of the top of the white door at the main entrance of the “terreiro” of Gantois were not intimidating enough, we were greeted by our quiet host, Kátia Badaró, and led, through the side entrance, to the back terrace, where we were instructed to wait. The wind was blowing, and we were told that it was prayer time – early evening. So we waited patiently.

Pinned to a board on the terrace wall was a poster featuring a digitally-retouched photograph of a smiling older lady wearing spectacles and dressed in Baiana white. The lady, whose features looked West African, wore bracelets well, and I understood the extra large African beads covering part of her chest to be subtle displays of grace and elegance. The poster read “Mãe Menininha - Concha Acústica.” It seemed to be advertising a tribute concert, celebrating what would have been Mãe Menininha’s 113th birthday. The headliners were listed as Maria Bethânia, Gal Costa, Marlene de Castro, Geronimo, Marcia Short, Caetano Veloso and Daniela Mercury. Above the poster was a printed sign explaining how “hierarchy must be observed in every aspect of life.”

85

A teenage girl, dressed entirely in virginal white, came out of seemingly nowhere, and started praying on the other end of the terrace.

Close to half an hour later, we were finally led to the room leading to the room where Mãe Carmem was holding court. Mãe Carmem, born Carmem Oliveira da Silva, is the daughter of Mãe Menininha, the legendary figure who’d turned the House of Gantois – a matriarchal den of spirituality also known as “Ilé Iyá Omi Axé Iyámase do Gantois” – into the most celebrated Candomblé house in Brazil. She was deeply seated in a wooden throne; behind her throne was a wall painted with the figure of a crown-wearing mermaid. The mermaid, who seemed to be looking deep into the horizon, was holding a flag with the word “Pax” printed on it.

Mãe Carmem was wearing a white dress not unlike the one her mother wore in the photograph that had been retouched for the poster on the terrace. Her beads were almost as prominent as her mother’s, but in person she appeared slightly less imposing than the photograph indicated Mãe Menininha to have been. One of Mãe Carmem’s daughters, who welcomed us by revealing her name as Neli de Oxossi, informed us that her mother had become the head of the Gantois in 1997, after Mãe Carmem’s sister Mãe Cleusa passed away. We noticed that most everyone was sitting on the floor, so the TRACE team was allowed to sit on the floor, next to Mãe Carmem and her throne. I was able to proceed with my short interview, which really was only about gaining some sort of basic understanding of the codes of the Orishas, as adapted to the Bahian context.

86

In the Yoruba tradition, a tradition that was secretly maintained in Brazil long after the newly established slaves settled in their new land, Orishas are the individual deities that reflect one of the manifestations of God. “Oshun is the Orisha of love and marriage, of life,” she told me. “Osun, on the other hand, is more about the soul.” Mãe Carmem herself, had been initiated into the Candomblé through an Orisha named Oxalá, a divine celebration of the light of consciousness. I told her I was born in Togo, and we talked a bit about Africa, about the power of the native land. We talked about the spirits, and the Gods.

Our time was up. She then blessed us, smiled at all of us, and we were led back to the gate through the terrace and the side entrance.

“She was deeply seated in a wooden throne; behind her throne was a wall painted with the figure of a crown-wearing mermaid.”

87

88

An afternoon visit to the Pierre Verger Foundation Famous for his striking black-and-white photographs documenting various cultures around the world and his deep spiritual connection with Africa, Pierre Verger’s legacy lives on at Fundação Pierre Verger. text_Claude Grunitzky

photography_Marc Baptiste

89

“Verger went so far (and so deep) into black culture that he changed his name to Fátúmbí after an enlightened visit to Benin where he was initiated into the Ifá divination, becoming a ‘babalawo’ (high priest) of Orunmila.”

Of all the many documentarians of Bahia’s black culture, Pierre Verger, who died in Salvador in 1996 at the age of 93, remains the most influential. Some would call him the most controversial. He is certainly the most celebrated, with an international cult following rivaling that of the late writer Jorge Amado, another chronicler of everyday Bahian life.

Lula Buarque de Hollanda’s masterful 1998 documentary “Mensageiro Entre Dois Mundos” (Messenger Between Two Worlds), which was narrated by Gilberto Gil, does a wonderful job of explaining why the Parisian photographerturned-journalist-turned-ethnographer actually left the world of French bourgeois privilege behind and chose to devote his entire adult life to the study of black Brazilian lifestyle. More than that, Verger’s was an arduous, methodical, transcontinental effort – recorded in over 63,000 photographs and negatives and in countless essays – to establish the links and commonalities between Africans from the continent and those, mostly descendents of slaves, who had settled in the faraway lands of the Diaspora.

90

91

Verger went so far (and so deep) into black culture that he changed his name to Fátúmbí after an enlightened visit to Benin where he was initiated into the Ifá divination, becoming a “babalawo” (high priest) of Orunmila. The house where he died, high on the hills of Vila América, a working class neighborhood in Salvador, has been turned into a foundation, and the German-born director, a beautiful, sincere, patient woman called Angela Luhning who used to study under Verger, has done a fantastic job of preserving his archives, his legacy and his spirit.

The afternoon of our visit, Angela and two of her colleagues gave the TRACE team a tour of the house, of the gardens and of the dance studio where children from the neighborhood are able to receive free lessons given by dedicated teachers and social workers. We walked all over the house and were most impressed by the small, single bed where the master used to sleep. We saw the vintage African shirts he used to wear and spent quite a bit of time in his impressive library.

Above all, we were given an opportunity to admire Verger’s encyclopedic, almost alphabetical quest for knowledge about all things African.

At one point, seeing all this African literature, I told Angela that I was from Togo, and she asked me what my name was. When I said Grunitzky, she seemed very surprised and proceeded to lead me to one of Verger’s books, which photographer Marc Baptiste quickly encouraged me to buy. The book, “Pierre Verger - Reporter Fotografico”, contains an entire chapter about my family. Turns out Verger went to Togo as a photo-reporter in the late fifties, and ended up hanging out with my family, in Lomé, one of his many stomping grounds.

93

Bahian Beauty Forget the girl from Ipanema - the real Brazilian beauties are found on the beaches of Bahia. Marc Baptiste captures local girl Rebeca Campos at Porto da Barra text_Mikaela Gauer

photography_Marc Baptiste

fashion_Osklen

A few nights ago, I found myself at a dinner party in the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The man sitting next to me noticed the bright orange Bonfim bracelet wrapped around my wrist and asked me if I had been to Brazil recently. I nodded that I had, and his eyes lit up. “I love Brazil. I go there about five times a year. There’s something about Brazil that… I just can’t put my finger on. It’s the energy – ” he paused, a smile bursting from his lips, “—and the women! I can’t help but fall in love every time I go to Brazil. Those Brazilian women. They just do something to me…” he trailed off, clearly mesmerized by the memory of a former lover.

Not the first guy I’ve heard that from. And there’s good reason why Brazilian women seem to captivate the world. First of all, they’re beautiful. (Take one look at Gisele or Gracie Carvalho and try to argue with me.) But there is something that makes their beauty extraordinary and unique. Brazilian women are freespirited, they’re charismatic, they don’t take shit and they’re passionate.

I met the gorgeous star of this photoshoot, Rebeca Campos (“Beca” as she prefers to be called – she has her nickname tattooed in a delicate script on the outside of her left wrist) on Praia de Stella Maris, a low-key surf beach about 30

94

95

kilometers outside of central Salvador. On that lazy, sun-drenched afternoon, Marc Baptiste, myself, and a few locals found cool shade and strong caipirinhas under a large beach umbrella, where we watched a few young surfer boys chase after waves. A few feet away, leaning back against an old wooden picnic table, I noticed a girl – dark bronzed skin, shiny wet black hair, a small silver ring hanging from her navel – in a tiny light grey bikini. There was something about her, and Marc caught me staring. “Go get her!” he nudged, pushing me in her direction. She caught my eye, and I smiled. She returned the smile. It began with an awkward hello, and I asked if I could snap a photo of her. She nodded, tilted her chin slightly upwards, pursed her lips and gazed into my lens. She definitely wasn’t shy.

Except for the fact that I knew all of two words in Portuguese, and she could only muster a few words in English, body language became our native tongue.

Let’s just say that the initial snapshots became a full-fledged photo shoot, which turned the entire beach’s attention from the surfer boys to us. Natural charisma and sensuality oozed from her pores as she danced freely and spun in front of the camera, playing in the waves; rolling in the sand... she was engag-

96

ing, playful, fun, sexy – and had a killer body to boot. She was truly beautiful, inside and out – the antithesis of the manufactured beauty found in the glossy pages of a Victoria’s Secret catalogue.

Marc and I knew we had to see her again – and we did. A few days later, Beca met us just after her evening shift at the local market, and without knowing exactly what we had in store for her, jumped into our big white minivan and let us whisk her away to Porta da Barra. This time, at night, at the same location where Marc had shot Brazilian bodybuilders 10 years earlier for our TRACE 2000 Brasil issue. This time around, the photoshoot was far from glamorous.

Beca slipped into Osklen bikinis in the back of our van. She dipped into the freezing waters of the South Atlantic, teeth chattering. There was no catering table, no make-up artist or hair stylist. Just her, the beach, and a camera. And as she spun around in front of the camera, she titled her head back, laughing.

“That’s a wrap!” Marc exclaimed in excitement. We had our girl, we had our picture – a picture of strength and charisma – which is the epitome of a real Brazilian beauty.

97

98

"Natural charisma and sensuality oozed from her pores as she danced freely and spun in front of the camera, playing in the waves; rolling in the sand... she was engaging, playful, fun, sexy - and had a killer body to boot."

99

The New Pelourinho A journey through some of the most fascinating landmarks and architectures in Salvador’s Pelhourinho district stirs up memories and histories of slavery and redemption.

Text_Evangeline Kim

Photography_Marc Baptiste

Between 1558 and 1888, enslaved Africans must have gazed secretly at the brilliant sun-lit skies in the Pelourinho - perched high within the upper escarpment of Salvador’s peninsular city – and by moments, they must have also marveled at the glittering Todos os Santos Bay, swelling with the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. The sea’s waters, they believed, were the abode of their sea goddess Orishá, Yemanja. They must have found some solace in the cool ocean breezes and the lush beauty of the land despite the excruciating labor exacted from them by the Portuguese colonials. When you are in the Pelourinho today, you just might sense the presence of their pantheon of deities, the Orishás, who continue to inhabit Bahia’s skies, the land, and the ocean, and who, long ago, gave the Africans the spiritual strength to survive the most painful 330 years in Salvador’s past.

100

In 1985, UNESCO declared Salvador’s Historic Center, more frequently called the Pelourinho or “Pelô,” a World Heritage Site, and today draws hundreds of thousands of visitors each year; the Center actually revolves around and encompasses the Pelourinho Largo (square). “Pelourinho” is Portuguese for “pillory,” for the neighborhood was once the public pillory area where captive Africans were cruelly lashed and beaten. The pillories were destroyed in 1835 when the form of torture was banned. Almost hidden near a small grove down one of the side streets, one can find the memorial shrine for the unspeakable, horrific suffering that took place in the Pelô – a small fountain of trickling water continuously washes over a broken stump of blue marble. It’s rarely visited.

Over time, the Pelô slowly began to transform into one of Latin America’s great cultural centers, drawing many Brazilian and expat artists, architects, and

“To stroll through the Historic Center is a mind-boggling dream for any architectural buff where so many styles abound and reflect the city’s expansion during the 17th and 18th centuries, juxtaposed with assortments of more contemporary buildings, and with the breathtaking panoramic views of the lower city and the ocean” writers, whose fascination with the entwined cultures of Africans from different parts of the continent, bore astonishingly beautiful artistry. Jorge Amado moved from Ilhéus to Salvador, and his picaresque novels are filled with stories about Candomblé miracles and the African people in the Pelô. He and Pierre Verger, the French photographer and ethnologist, were close friends with the Argentinean Brazilian artist known as Carybé. All three were thoroughly captivated by the power of Candomblé. The wonderful Italian Brazilian Modernist architect, Lina Bo Bardi, also drew tremendous inspiration from African people and their cultures in Salvador and celebrated them in her meticulous work and collections.

Through concerted work by Bahia’s Secretariats of Culture and Tourism, the Pelourinho is focus of continual renovation and conservation, and its narrow,

sloping cobble-stoned streets are lined with the charm of pastel-hued 2 or 3 story small buildings. And some of the world’s most magnificent churches built from the Renaissance onwards loom high in the main praças (squares) and largos. Local lore claims that Salvador has 365 churches, one for each day of the year, at least 100 of which are verifiable Catholic churches. By contrast, there are an estimated 1000 Candomblé terreiros (sacred Afro-Brazilian temples) in Salvador. Of equally great interest and importance are the profusion of museums, cultural centers, foundations, and galleries all over the city and some of the best are to be discovered in the Center and Pelô environs.

To stroll through the Historic Center is a mind-boggling dream for any architectural buff where so many styles abound and reflect the city’s expansion during the 17th and 18th centuries, juxtaposed with assortments of more contem-

101

porary buildings, and with the breathtaking panoramic views of the lower city and the ocean. There are imposing, old government administration buildings and the former homes of government officials, wealthy plantation owners and businessmen from earlier eras.

In the southern part of the Center and the oldest part of Salvador, the Praça Municipal features the statue of Salvador’s founder and first general-governor, Tomé de Souza; the Paço Municipal, originally the governing council chamber built in Neo-Classical style in 1660, and now Brazil’s oldest city hall; the opulent Palaçio Rio Branco built in 1918; and the photographer’s all-time favorite landmark, the Elevador Lacerda art-deco building dating from 1873 and rebuilt in the late 1920’s. For a few centavos, one can zoom down in one of the elevator cars from the upper city to the lower city, 72 meters below.

At the entrance of the Praça da Sé, one of the loveliest spots in the city, on corner of the Rua Misericórdia, the sleek, tiny Galéria Pierre Verger, exhibits some of the powerful black and white photographs, chronicling the life of Salvador’s Africans by the late French cultural researcher. The border of the square overlooking the lower city and sea holds the Fallen Cross Monument by one of Latin America’s renowned sculptors, Mario Cravo Junior; it’s dedicated to the memory of the nearby site of what was once a beautiful cathedral, the Igreja da Sé, pulled down in 1930 for a tramway track that never materialized.

A few steps away, one enters the small Baianas Memorial building, where large statues of Bahiana women, historical photos of their life, examples of their lacework, and symbols of their spiritual culture are on display. The important historical Afro Brasilian leader and Brasilian national hero, Zumbi dos Palmares’ monument is also in the square.

About 100 meters northeast of the Praça da Sé, is the great plaza known as the Terreiro de Jesus. Rising high in the sky at one end is the Catedral Basílica built by the Jesuits between 1657 and 1672. Its ownership passed to the main body of the Catholic Church in 1759, after the Jesuits were expelled from all Portuguese territories. Its architecture is one of the earliest examples of baroque in Brasil. As if the cathedral’s lavish baroque and rococo interior were not enough religious homage for the wealthy Portuguese, facing the Terreiro at its opposite end, we walk to the Largo Cruzeiro de São Francisco, and the crowning glory of all Salvador’s churches, the São Francisco Church and Convent, one of the finest baroque churches in all of Latin America (1708-1755).

The church façade is deceptively simple, giving no hint about the tremendous

102

visual splendor inside.

The most spectacular and admirable part of the church is in the main worship hall. Carved in jacarandá wood and almost entirely gilded with gold leaf, an explosion of gleaming gold hits the eye. All the surfaces, from floor to ceiling, walls, pillars, vaults, are covered with finely sculpted angels and cherubs, gilt curvilinear arabesque foliage, flowers, birds, motifs associated with legends about the patron saint of the poor, and interspersed with paintings and statues of saints. High in the upper left and right ceiling corners, there are two gargoyle-like “masks,” possibly created by the Africans who built the church.

Here and there are strangely distorted images that some interpret as a form of protest against the Portuguese by the early African and indigenous laborers. Some believe that captive, skilled African Muslim artists were very much a part of the overall artistic design and elaboration. There seems some evidence of this plausibility when the eye focuses on the 8-pointed stars that are an integral part of the geometric framing pattern around the paintings on the ceiling: the 8-pointed star is typical symbolism found in Islamic cultures.

It would take years to study the visual glory in this church, and one of the reasons we return each time to visit the Pelourinho is to see it again, to intuit more.

The Terreiro’s Afro-Brasilian Museum in the old Faculty of Medicine building is a major exhibition space where a collection of Afro-Brasilian historical sacred implements and sculptures from the Candomblé religion are assembled with excellent examples of African art in wood, metal, ceramics, and textiles throughout 5 rooms on the ground floor. The curators were careful to position and mix pieces from West and Central Africa in the African sections, highlighting mutual pan-African cultural ties between the different ethnicities.

On the floor below, an entire hall’s walls are covered with the gorgeous 27 cedar wood carved panels by Carybé that represent the Orishás with their symbols and animals. Commissioned by the former Banco da Bahia, they were originally installed in the bank’s offices in 1968. But here they are now in this museu, silently bristling with incredible energies. Carybé understood the Candomblé sacred sense of “axé.” This homage to the Orishás is extraordinary. They are masterpieces that need to be experienced only in the context of this modest museum in Salvador’s Pelourinho. Not New York, not Paris, not London, nor anywhere else.

The basement of the same building houses the Archeology and Ethnographic

“All the surfaces, from floor to ceiling, walls, pillars, vaults, are covered with finely sculpted angels and cherubs, gilt curvilinear arabesque foliage, flowers, birds, motifs associated with legends about the patron saint of the poor, and interspersed with paintings and statues of saints. High in the upper left and right ceiling corners, there are two gargoyle-like “masks,” possibly created by the Africans who built the church.”

Museum. There are early archeological discoveries including haunting burial urns from Bahia and a fascinating exhibit of the Rio Xingu people. It only hints at the enormous reality and histories of the Amerindians, the indigenous, who are rapidly disappearing from the face of the earth; and of the beauty, mystery and power of the land.

Towards the north of the Historic Center, we finally arrive at the actual Pelourinho Largo. Sitting atop the sloping hill, the pastel blue façade of the Fundação Casa de Jorge Amado stretches across the street with the adjacent Museu da Cidade yellow building. In the Casa’s café, the walls are decorated with the colorful jackets of Brasil’s most famous novelist that were translated into so many languages. Amado’s cinematic novels are often woven with stories about the people in this neighborhood and their Candomblé beliefs and rituals. It seems fitting for the Casa to be just here – surveying the Largo at the top of the hill – if you enjoy his writings.

The famous church of Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos Pretos that Amado so vividly describes in “Tent of Miracles” sits at the foot of the square. Africans slowly built the church starting in 1704 over 100 years during the nighttime after their daily labor, with little financial means. As they were not allowed inside the white elite churches to worship, they created their own. It’s strongly associated with Candomblé and known as the Afro-Brasilian gospel church of Bahia.

Two of Salvador’s great Afro-Blocos have their headquarters in the Pelô - Olodum and Filhos de Gandhy, and if one is there at the right moment during regularly scheduled rehearsals during the week, throngs of percussionists will suddenly appear and a spontaneous street party is in session. The Casa Olodum

was renovated by the late architect Lina Bo Bardi.

To be discovered also in this neighborhood is another landmark house whose beautiful interior was modernized and renovated by Lina Bo Bardi - the Casa do Benin. Opened in 1988, it showcases a rich collection of artwork from the Gulf of Benin. Most were collected by Pierre Verger during his travels in the region over decades. Its concept aims to strengthen cultural ties between those majority Afro-Brasilians throughout the Recôncavo region who came from the Gulf of Benin and their African roots.

Bo Bardi remains one of Modernism’s brilliant, under recognized architects – apart from her structural design work for Bahia’s Museum of Modern Art here in Salvador, the monumental Sao Paulo Museum of Modern Art and her Glass House home there. In the Pelô, the Centro Cultural Solar Ferrão safeguards the State collection of her popular artifacts – toys, clothing, utensils, ceramic pottery, and instruments - from Northeast Brasil, along with the huge collection of 860 selections of 20th century African art donated to the State of Bahia in 2004 by the Italian collector, Claudio Masella, and recently curated in a stunning exhibition by Daniel Rangel, State Director of Museums. The Centro promises to be yet another reason to visit and re-visit the Pelourinho.

Bo Bardi once called Brasil “an unimaginable country, where everything is possible.” And she further noted, “I had lived in Bahia and seen the real Brasil, not the one of European.” The Pelourinho’s deep-rooted African cultural traditions became central to her creative inspiration and for so many others - with more sure to come.

103

Bando de Teatro Olodum featuring CabarÊ de RRRRRaça Chica Carelli and Marcio Meirelles, founders of the Vila Velha Theater, pave the way for a new type of avant-garde theater that brings exceptional black talent and under-told stories to their dynamic stage. text_Claude Grunitzky

104

photography_Marc Baptiste

Áfricas Sonho de uma noite de verão Auto-Retrato aos 40 O Muro Oxente, cordel de novo?

Relato de uma guerra que (não) acabou Material Fatzer Já fui!

Sonho de uma noite de verão Ópera de 3 reais Um tal de Dom Quixote Cabaré da RRRRRaça Ópera de três mirréis Erê pra toda vida * xirê Zumbi está vivo e continua lutando Zumbi Bai Bai Pelô Medeamaterial Woyzéck Ó Paí, Ó!

A Volta Por Cima O Novo Mundo Essa é nossa praia

105

On the Avenida Sete de Setembro, right across from the Palácio da Aclamação, the old Governor's Palace in the middle of Salvador’s Campo Grande, sits the Vila Velha theater, a powerhouse of an institution that seems to encapsulate many of Bahia’s deeply contentious cultural and racial politics.

The TRACE team had been invited to meet and exchange ideas with Chica Carelli, the beloved director and co-founder of the Bando de Teatro Olodum.

For our photo, Carelli chose to pose with the Teatro’s lead choreographer, a lovable, witty man called Zebrinha. Carelli is a strong-willed operative who, as the de facto gatekeeper, knows how to get her point across. We agreed to have coffee with Carelli right before the start of an electrifying – and racially charged – performance by an all-black ensemble they had nurtured, the Cabaré de RRRRRaça.

A jovial, charismatic and slightly eccentric woman who seemed to have an answer for almost every question, and a solution to almost every problem, Carelli was clearly the brains – and the logistics – behind the revamped theater’s operations. As she oversaw some pre-performance antics, checking for lastminute discrepancies and sifting through strange, karmic emotions, she accepted my invitation to sit for an informal interview in the theater’s coffee shop.

I had read that the Vila Velha theater reopened in May of 1998, and that the new operators – Carelli and her business partner Marcio Meirelles, now the state of Bahia’s Secretary of Culture – negotiated so hard with the city that they were granted full creative control of the institution on the condition that they experiment with the avant-garde. After all, the original building, which had been designed to the most cutting edge specifications by the German architect Carl von Hauenschild, had become something of a derelict landmark. It was therefore fitting that the new operators chose to do away with the central element of the theater, of any theater – the stage.

Carelli and Meirelles had a new vision for the theater, and it included an amorphous view of its disposition, meaning that the conventional stage could be reduced, or greatly enlarged at will and according to the performance. Carelli and Meirelles encouraged the audience to sit on the stage, in the same way that some members of the cast were encouraged to sit on any empty seat, next to spectators. This disruptive approach to the very notion of municipal theater – a theater which mostly depended on state and corporate funding for survival – was perceived as a bit of a revolution in the provincial Bahia of the late nineties and early 2000s.

“At the beginning, everyone thought we were going to fail, that we didn’t know what we were doing,” Carelli told me. “But Marcio and I persevered, and we pushed the envelope, because we knew we were on to something. We knew that this theater was the same venue where then emerging artists Caetano Veloso, Gal Costa, Gilberto Gil and Tom Zé found some of their first audiences.

We knew we could not disappoint, and that the expectations were very high.

So we made it our mission to discriminate between average performers and exceptional artists. We were able to get away with this new policy, right from the beginning, because everything was happening so fast, all in the name of

106

experimentation and new ideas.”

Marcio Meirelles, the previous head honcho, later agreed to an interview on the premises of his old workplace. He had accepted my request despite the obvious conflict of interests that arose with his day job as Secretary of Culture. Meirelles is the honest, straight-shooting, tear-shedding, highly emotional central character in this cast of iconoclasts. He said to me that “the idea of this theater was always very important to us, because we felt that this was the place where we could tell different kinds of stories, stories that provide a balanced viewpoint and an opposing worldview to the Jorge Amado kind of overromanticized narrative, where the black protagonist from Bahia is always poor and needy and sad, and the female lead is often over-sexualized.”

To that effect, Meirelles pointed to the theater’s track record in helping to shine a light on talented, promising new black actors from the new generation of Brazilian theater. The first name that came to mind was Lázaro Ramos, now one of Brazilian cinema’s most in-demand rising stars. (Lázaro also happens to be the husband of this issue’s cover star, the television actress Taís Araújo.)

“Lázaro started right on this stage,” he said, “and now look where he is. Stories like Lázaro’s mean a lot to me, because they confirm that those critics who told me that I should stop telling stories about black people, because I just couldn’t understand the black experience, were dead wrong. They were wrong, because the way the Vila Velha does it now, it’s all about making sure that more and more diverse, black, ethnic audiences have access to the theater. We want to take the theater away from the elites.”

" "We were able to get away with this new policy, right from the beginning, because everything was happening so fast, all in the name of experimentation and new ideas.' "

107

Natural Invasion: Carlito Carvalhosa’s Roteiro para Visitação Tree trunks, limbs and branches burst through the doors and stretch to the ceilings of an old European palace in the heart of Salvador, regaining their rightful roots in a land once dominated by bourgeoisie power. text_Claude Grunitzky

108

photography_courtesy of the artist

Of all settings, he could not have chosen a more kitsch location than the Palácio da Aclamação, the old Governor’s Palace located right in the center of old Salvador. The choice of venue says a lot about 48 year-old artist Carlito Carvalhosa and his motivations.

The Palácio is one of those eclectic Italian-style buildings that spread like wildfire around the world’s industrialized cities at the beginning of the twentieth century. Dilapidated buildings like the Palácio, which were sometimes decorated with faux-Romantic art or pastiche Delacroix paintings, are still around to be seen in cities like Chicago, New York, London, Paris, Rio, São Paulo and, of course, Salvador. They are a potent symbol of the bourgeoisie seizing power at the beginning of another age of globalization, when European culture dominated the world stage and exported the sophisticated lifestyle.

After the last Governor left the building, in the late sixties, the Palácio decayed in what Carlito calls “a most enchanting way, as all things do in Salvador.” When he first visited the Palácio, he made sure to inspect the State Guest House – the one that once hosted Queen Elisabeth II – as well as the ballroom where many a debutante had been honored. When the Palácio was eventually turned into a museum, no one knew what to do with it, and it was never used as such. The Palácio da Aclamação became one of the Salvador’s many mysteries; its upper floor full of decaying furniture, the kind one would expect to find in Lampedusa’s Donnafugata estate.

109

110

“The Palácio da Aclamação became one of the Salvador’s many mysteries; its upper floor full of decaying furniture, the kind one would expect to find in Lampedusa’s Donnafugata estate.”

“I was drawn to the Palácio’s interior,” says Carlito, who was born and raised in São Paulo but now lives in Rio de Janeiro with his wife Mari Stockler and their two daughters, Maria and Cecilia. “It is full of frescoes depicting Tuscany or the south of France, floral motifs and so on. Everything is perfectly at peace there, provided one doesn’t open the windows. Doing so brings in a powerful tropical light, and the smell of moisture tells us that everything is OK, on the outside.”

The show, called “Roteiro para Visitação,” which translates loosely as “visiting itinerary,” deliberately brings some exterior forces inside the building. In some ways, the show allows for an invasion. It seeks to display elements of what could have been there before, or what might return in the future. The trees, which were transported inside the Palácio with heavy, industrial machinery, are called “aroeiras.” Native to subtropical South America, particularly southeastern Brazil, these trees carry a different kind of symbolic (and religious) meaning. “These trees are old and used, and we brought in light poles made of discarded wood, as well as unused constructions beams. To me, these are all manifestations of the different stages in the cycle of wood, and of the names we give things that we choose to discard. I encouraged people who visited the exhibition to walk around the trees, because this wood will come and go, just like old acquaintances.” photo_Marc Baptiste 111

“Silence”, 1988, Mario Cravo Neto

The Awakened Generation Celebrating fifty years of Brazilian artwork at the Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia, Mario Cravo Neto and Christian Cravo's masterpieces lead the way for the future of Brazilian photography text_Mikaela Gauer

photography_Mario Cravo Neto and Christian Cravo

This past spring, the Modern Art Museum of Bahia (Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia, also known as MAM-BA) celebrated over 50 years of Brazilian art, featuring 86 carefully chosen works that illustrate the raw creativity and unique diversity demonstrated by the best artists from the last half-century, from painting, photography and sculpture to architecture, installation and mixed media.

MAM director, Solange Farkas, curated the show and commented on the selection process: “The idea was not to just create an inventory of the works of art acquired and conserved by the institution, but to also gain an in-depth understanding of its strongpoints and gaps, and more than anything, point out new paths for its continuance and growth.”

Several Brazilian artists have already paved the way for the expansion and recognition of Brazilian art for the rest of the world – and, whether born and raised or culturally adopted, classic or contemporary, pioneering artists like Pierre Verger, Carybé and Mestre Didi continue to ignite conversations about AfroBrazilian religion and culture through their work. In particular, no example of the depth of generational influence and artistic evolution is better told than through the images of father and son Mario Cravo Neto and Christian Cravo. Mario Cravo Neto, considered to be one of the most influential Brazilian artists of his time, received his talent and training from his father, the famous sculptor Mario Cravo Junior. Born in Salvador in 1947, Mario Cravo Neto took an interest in sculpture and photography at the age of 17. He was heavily influenced by his father’s work, and accompanied him to Berlin during an artist-in-residency. In 1968, Neto studied at the Art Students League, then returned to Brazil to create work focused on Afro-Brazilian culture. Like Pierre Verger, he took a special interest in Candomblé, and created stunning black and white photographs that emphasize mysticism and spirituality. Like the image shown here, Neto liked to depict humans as sensual and complex beings by focusing on specific parts of the body, captured under raw studio light, and juxtaposed with symbolic objects – a bird, a shell, a fish. His subjects appear sculpture-like, and yet so full of life – creating the type of tension that can capture a viewer for hours; an alluring, magnetic sensation.

Neto passed on his signature black and white style to his son, Christian Cravo.

Born in 1947 to Neto and his Danish mother, Cravo spent his childhood between Denmark and Brazil, eventually returning to his hometown of Salvador to pursue his artistic ambition. Christian, like his father, took an interest in religion and uninhibited human behavior. The two images shown here, taken from Christian’s book “Irredentos“ (literally translated as “Unredeemed”), were shot in the badlands of Brazil’s NorthEast in an area called Sertão. “My intention as a photographer is to register and focus in black and white a Christian society,

living and worshipping an archaic religion with roots going back as far as Africa," Christian explains in his book. Here, he dives deep into an exploration of human spirituality, tradition, trance and ritual – furthering the dialogue about the tension between old and new systems of belief and religious heritage in Afro-Brazilian culture. Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles admired Christian’s ability to “eliminate the distance between the photographer and object photographed”, arguing that Christian had the ability to capture a people “ethically and sympathetically without manipulation or paternalism.” And it’s true – when one observes Christian’s work, it’s obvious that he is capturing Brazilian society with insider’s eyes rather than an outsider’s “ethnographic” lens. The viewer immediately feels transported into this culture, mesmerized by the rich expressions of his subjects, captivated by this presentation of “life as it is”.

Christian continues to honestly capture the essence of humanity in countries like Haiti and India. Like his late father Mario Cravo Neto, whose work exhibited worldwide, Christian’s photography has been on display everywhere from the Netherlands to New York City. In honor of his father’s legacy and for his own love of Afro-Brazilian culture, Christian continues to document the dynamic convergence of Indigenous, Portuguese and African cultures in his hometown of Salvador.

113

“Sem Título” (“Untitled”), 1995, Christian Apueno Cravo

114

“Sertão” (“Backlands”), 2000, Christian Apueno Cravo

"My intention as a photographer is to register and focus in black and white a Christian society, living and worshipping an archaic religion with roots going back as far as Africa" - Christian Cravo

115

Conc r ete J u n gl e

Bold prints and bright colors make a statement in the streets of Salvador

116

photography_Paolo Zambaldi

fashion_Christine de Lassus

Body suit_Osklen,; Jacket_Maison Martin Margiela; Sandals_Barbara Bui; Ring_Noir; Mask_Lost Art

117

Coat_Paule Ka; Bikini_Osklen; Sandals_Barbara Bui; Bracelet_Noir.

118

Skirt and top_Paule Ka; Bikini bottom_Rosa Cha; Sandals_Barbara Bui

119

Bodysuit_Maison Martin Margiela; Sandals_Top Shop; Sunglasses_Marc Jacobs

120

Dress_Philosophy by Alberta Ferretti; Bikini_Crystal Jin; Shoes_Barbara Bui; Bracelet_Noir

Top_Osklen; Shorts_Cushnie and Ochs; Bikini_Crystal Jin; Sandals_Giuseppe Zanotti; Bracelet_Noir

Top_Y3; Brief_Top Shop; Ankle boots_Giuseppe Zanotti

122

Top and shorts_Prada; Sandals_Barbara Bui

123

Leggings_Osklen; Bikini_Crystal Jin; Sandals_Giuzeppe Zanotti; Purse_DSquared 2

124

Coat_Prada; Bikini_Crystal Jin; Mask_Lost Art

Fashion Assistant_Camille Zarsky Model_Lorrayne Vidotto @ Ford Models Brasil Producer_Andris K. Walter for AKW productions Digital retouching_digitalartwork@studiozat milano 125

126

SLEEP - Featured resort: The Gran Hotel Stella Maris From the Latin phrase meaning “Star of the Sea”, the Stella Maris is a 3.5-star hotel situated about 7 kilometers from the airport and right next to two of Salvador’s prime surfing beaches: Itapua and Jaguaribe. Take a dip in the salty Atlantic, or refresh yourself in the stunning blue outdoor pool. Additional recreational amenities include tennis courts and a games room. The Stella Maris features three restaurants, including a delicious buffet of local and international dishes, an Italian restaurant, and a Japanese-inspired dining experience, as well as a fully equipped bar with lounge area. And if you feel like really living like a local, there are many beachside bars lining the sand only a short sandy distance away from the hotel property where you can order a Sol beer or a caipirinha, which is a Brazilian drink made with a type of rum made from fermented sugarcane called Cachaça, a whole lot of sugar and a bunch of lime. The only real downside is that the historical center of Salvador is about 30 kilometers away, so if you plan on staying out late in the city, make sure you pre-arrange a taxi to take you back.

text_Mikaela Gauer photography_ Marc Baptiste and Mikaela Gauer

The Best of Bahia

flash

EAT - Featured restaurant: Axego There’s a bit of a story behind Axego, a little local restaurant tucked away on the side street Joao de Deus, in Salvador’s Pelhourino district. The name Axego, derived from the word aconchegado, is supposed to mean “cozy”, and cozy it is. Rumor has it that one day, a man on vacation from France wandered into what appeared to be a lively restaurant off the beaten path on the local island of Itaparica, just off the coast of Salvador. He ordered moqueca de aratú, a red crab dish, and the chef happily brought it to him. At the end of the meal, as the man tried to pay, the chef, who was a man named Manoel dos Santos Pereira, stated that the meal was free, as the Frenchman had actually wandered into Pereira’s summer house, which was really not a restaurant at all. The man insisted on paying, because the food was so delicious, and the next week came back with friends. Their meals were served, and Axego was born. Eventually, Manoel dos Santos Pereira and his wife moved the restaurant to the mainland of Salvador, and the people of the town began talking about his delicious recipes. Featuring typical Bahian dishes such as moqueca, which is a stew containing dendé oil, coconut milk, and usually some type of seafood; feijoada, which is a bean and beef stew; or Acarajé, which is a delicious bread-like, deepfried dish made from peas.

127

flash

\TRUE: TRANSCULTURAL SOLUTIONS

www.true212.com

Thank You. All of You.