RIO STREET TRAINING MANUAL

Rio Street Training Manual

Lottie Child

Winner of the Brazil Links 2009 British Council funded research residency award

Rio Street Training Manual

This training manual contains a wide variety of people’s techniques for being safe and joyful in the streets. It gives a new name and a collective home for the behaviours that we all do in our own ways to keep our selves sane, make ourselves laugh and find meaning as we move through and thus shape places.

A tendency towards homogenisation and conformity in western city streets, limits the potential of public spaces to be realms of contestation, antagonism, merging and engagement with a mass of different trajectories and agendas. By looking at what people do and how they do it in the streets of Rio de Janeiro, I saw the kinds of behaviours that constitute complex diverse and vibrant city streets.During a street training session with people from the community association of Morro dos Prazeres poetic moments and creative acts were strung together through the streets of Santa Teresa.

My research, in different cities, to date has centred on two considerations safety and joy, safety is considered by many people but joy is often overlooked. It slips into the cracks between consumption and production, seemly the only acceptable activities.What place is there for indolent, playful, creative, social behaviours in city streets?

Safety is a preoccupation in Rio too, there are high levels of violent crime and even higher levels of fear of it. Every one has their own ways to deal with this, the most common seemed to be moving around in an alert manner and to believe in a higher source of protection.

We are generally less conscious of joy. When I asked people on the streets of cities including London, Linz, Munich, Brussels, Berlin and Venice how they find joy in the streets, people found it a difficult question. Perhaps because it challenges people to consider  what we are doing if there is no joy and we can’t really figure our how to experience it. People relate in intimate, personal ways to the streets, places that we are conditioned to habitually ignore on the way from A to B Street Training makes these relationships more visible. In Rio the question of joy was easier, the streets are the places where people convene to dance, live, play, work, sell, socialise, make music and perform. 

A key to being safe in the streets of Rio is Malandragem a, perhaps, untranslatable word, which has been described variously as; “indolence”, “how to do less”, “getting away with doing what ever you like”, “being morally ambiguous”, “being a drug dealer”,“knowing your way around”, “charming people”, “to consistently take new and unexpected trajectories both in attack and defence”,“an attribute of Exu the orixa or god from the afro Brazilian religion Candomble”, “being socially mobile”.

The afro Brazilian martial art of capoeira is sometimes called the malandro science, and I was told that the favela is the university of malandragem. I interviewed capoeira mestres, to try to understand more and trained myself in the art of capoeira over a 5 year period. My interpretation is that if the road is laid out straight and clear form the privileged in society, malandragem is what every one else uses to get what they need and want.

Another key is gender and sexuality, my feeling is that public space in Rio is a male domain. Paloma in the favela Morro dos Prazeres teaches, in the Path of safety, how to own one’s sexuality when walking. She demonstrated how I should relax my shoulders stick out my breasts and drop my hips at each step, her lesson implied that to feel safer and more joyful in my movements around the city, I should conform to repressive macho norms thus helping me to blend in. Doing this also activated freedoms through feelings of the power and the pleasure in embodying one’s sexuality as well as sadness at the lack of freedom to move and behave as I wish.

Rio has two distinct kinds of space; favelas-where people build their own houses and drug lords rule and ‘asphalt’ where people pay taxes and have electricity and services. People pour into Rio’s bus station every day to begin a new life in the city, usually in favelas. Many of these people come from the North East and often from amore rural life. I felt a strong pressure to conform in Rio streets, people urge each other not to ‘stand out’. I think this helps avoid trouble and get on with making a living but it also adds to repressive norms and homogenisations of behaviour. In Rio, however new and unexpected behaviours occur all the time and the flow between order and chaos is constantly in flux, perhaps people feel they need to shed their country ways as soon as they can after arriving in the city so that they can integrate. In a few generations sensibilities like the ability to tell when a fruit is ripe and the ability to run outside and enjoy the rain are lost. To children and animists our surroundings are always in some ways alive. They see faces in and share the company of inanimate things, reciprocity between self and surroundings is natural. And the moon enjoys being gazed at. But perhaps it’s not childish to develop or remember more engaged ways to experience the world, a well known slogan from the arena of urbanism ‘people make places’ reflects the socially constructed nature of place. It is well documented that our environment has a profound effect on the ways we feel, act and ultimately who we become, less celebrated is the ways that WE also have an effect on our surroundings and the power to effect constantly shifting social norms which make the culture of a place. People will smile back if we walk down the street with a smile our face. If we, like Bruno Latour in Politics of Nature1consider the possibility that nature consists of entities who also participate in our society then the world is alive and we are part of it. How do we begin to recover a reciprocal relationship to our surroundings, personally feel our effects on them? Perhaps the ways we behave and relate in public places are primary engines for co-authoring them.

Lottie Child, Rio 2009

The Path of Joy

Climb figueira trees with your friends

Renata, her brother and son on Ilha Governador

On the bus with your friends, practice percussion by drumming on the seats and on your knees, there is a flap at the back of the bus where the bus number is displayed, this makes a good noise when you slam it.

Frado, Lapa

Be marginal be a hero

Hélio Oiticica

In the countryside everyone plays in the rain, in the city if people go

out in the rain they get sick.

Waldinar, Glória

Here the kids play computer games and video games, in the countryside the kids play outdoors.Luis who has been living in Rio for years, interviewed in Rio bus station where he works

You’ll feel joy when you help some one.

Luiz Claudio Lobo Taxi driver, Copacabana

Paraglide and walk up the hills in the Tijuca Forest.

Patrick, Gávea

Embody revolt.

Inspired by a conversation with Frederico Coelho, Helio Otticcica scholar 

When you are walking down the street with your mum, auntie and brothers and sisters like a big tribe, take your top off and throw it in the air, run to catch it and throw it up again and again.

Little girl, Flamengo

Steal people's ways of walking, follow them and copy their movements I live this way I smile at people as if I know them I like dancing to my music Watch children, play with them or just stick your tongue out at them.

Student from Paraná

Play marbles with your friends, make small dips in the earth and compete to get the marble in the dip.

Boys on Ilha Governador

When a little girl gets onto the bus with a barbie rucksack, sing toher and her mum, ' i'm a barbie girl in a barbie world’.

Frado, Lapa

Go to the airport where there is still a way to get inside the runway area, you can lie down and watch the planes fly over you.

Helmut Batista, Santa Teresa

If you need to play your stereo when you are out in the street, you go to the nearest lamp post open up the little door they have in them and get the wires out, then; you connect the wires from the lamp post to the ones in your stereo.

Joao, Morro dos Parazeres

When you walk think about your family, feel proud, if they have good jobs like my sons, they live in Parana.

Fernanda, who works as a toilet attendant at Copacabana beach

Particularly in Rio De Janeiro there are a lot of beautiful women walking the streets, so you have that thing... the girl is walking in your direction you just see the front, you're not seeing the other side so when she passes everybody has this habit to look back to see her bum. This is a way to have fun.

Waldinar, Gloria

For less than you pay at the gym you can get fit in the Rio de Janeiro bus network by doing pull-ups

Frado, Lapa

Go out with your family, go to the beach and play football.

Joa, Taxi driver, Copacanana

Resistance is the secret of joy

Brazilian Velvet Goldmine

Jump up and touch the branches of the trees growing in the streetsStreet kid Largo do Machado

Dance with your friend, while you dance, mime taking your friend'sface off, rolling it up lighting it and puffing the smoke in their face.Real and Eron, Morro Dos Prazeres

When you climb a tree, you go up thinking that you will do it in a specific way, but you end up modifying your thoughts with each difficulty you encounter. Each step makes you change your way of climbing. Each step you take you are thinking and changing your thinking. There isn't just one tactic, there are lots. When you go down, you have to reverse it, going backwards.

Mauritzio, Glória 

Go to the sea, there it feels good just to be alive.Luiz Claudio Lobo Taxi driver, Copacabana

If you find an umbrella in the street hold it above your head and rundown the hill, or dance with in, that’s what they do in frevo dancing.Eva, Morro Dos Prazeres, Santa Teresa

If you find a chair on the street, just sit down in it for a while.Alice, Flamengo

Do tricks on the tram, grab the handles, run along side and then jump on you can twist your body round to face the back then jump and turn to the front again, or you can wedge your body horizontally on the side of the tram.Boys from Santa Teresa

If you find some wooden boards hanging around on the street, lay them next to each other on the pavement and begin a cartwheel performance. As a group sculpt yourselves into positions, balance and support each other in doing handstands and back bends.Julia Kouneski, Santa Teresa

If you find a moth on the floor draw around it in chalk, draw a little house for it.Alex, Santa Teresa

If you find a piece of paper on the ground, make it into a paper aeroplane and let it fly

Alex, Santa Teresa

Say in a super macho voice ‘never miss an opportunity to work out’and then do pull-ups on scaffoldingLila Carlson, Centro Velho

When some one lets a paper plane fly, and the wind whips it and swoops it over someone’s garden wall, just climb over the wall to retrieve the plane. Ducha, Santa Teresa

Climb on the roof of the bus stop

Ducha, Santa Teresa

If at night when you are walking with your friends and you come across lots of little kittens in a park, pick them up and hand them to the people waiting at the bus stop.Marcella Maria and Lottie, Lapa Fling your flip flop from your foot, have a competition to see who can throw it the furthest. Omar Barquet, Gloria

If you find the remnants of a fire in the street, pick up the charcoal pieces and use them to draw on everything.Lottie, Lila, MarcellaMaria, Marcia, Centro Velho

When you find the charcoal to draw with from a fire that peoplehave made in the street do pixacao, make your tag Sao Paulo styleMarinho, Centro Velho

Take pieces of discarded cardboard, place them on the tram railsthat are laid into the street in Santa Teresa and then scoot along therailswith the cardboard under your feet.Ducha, Santa Teresa

If you find an abandoned umbrella, climb up some steps at the baseof a slope and jump off using it as a parachute.Mitchel, Santa Teresa

As a group we collectively lifted one of our friends, a little girl,aboveo ur heads and walked through crowded streets as a procession–the girl was shouting‘love and liberty in honour of Glauber Rocha’Lottie,Santa Teresa

Path of Safety Rio

Sincerely? I walk with God in my heart then things can happen but I’m protected

Luiz Claudio Lobo Taxi driver

I ignore the TV news because otherwise I would not leave the house

Marcella Ex-actress

I know people who have purchased estate cars/station wagons so that they can't be locked in the trunk of the car if they are carjacked.

Patrick, Gavea financier

'This city is dangerous, its like this, I pay attention to everything. Its not safe to talk to everyone, pay attention don't trust everyone.'

Fernanda, who works at toilette at Copacabana beach

To be safe in Rio don't wear any flashy jewellery. People are generally afraid in the streets here. 

João, Taxi driver, Copacabana

Travelling by bus is safer than taxi because on the bus there are people around.

Patrick, Gavea financier

If I have a large sum of money I put some of it in my shoe some of it in my sock. Don't walk directly around a corner walk wide around it so you can see who is coming

Waldinar, Glória

If I don't feel safe I evoke my positive thoughts and I go to where I have to go.

Marcella Maria performer, Lapa

I try to walk as if nothing is going to happen  but always alert. I walk around with my bag hanging off my shoulder, very relaxed, by doing this I'm saying, go on take it!

Eliza Brandão, Morro dos Prazeres

Relax you hips when you walk and stick your breasts out. They will think that you live in a favela, it's like that you speak Portuguese and that you're Brazilian, If you walk with your nose in the air and if you walk fast the guys will see that you are a foreigner 

Paloma, Morro dos Prazeres

If you have seen a place at all hours of the day and night, and know who is around and what might happen, it makes a big difference.

Negra Santa Teresa

Ignore the TV news because otherwise you would not leave the house.

Marcella Ex-actress, Lapa

The whole of Rio apart from Zona Sul is a slum. Petropolis is a good place to live but its dangerous travelling to and from there by car. Iknow people who have purchased estate cars/station wagons so thatthey can't be locked in the trunk of the car if they are carjacked.

Patrick, Gavea financier

When you're in a favela your pretty safe, there is very strict lawthere and no tolerance of crime. People know the rules and play bythem from a very young age.

Marcia Derriak filmmaker, Flamengo

This city is dangerous, its like this, I pay attention to everything. Itis not right to talk to everyone, pay attention don't trust everyone.

Fernanda, who works at the lavatory at Copacabana beach

To be safe in Rio don't wear any flashy jewellery, people aregenerally afraid in the streets here. Copacabana has really improved in the last few years.

JoãoTaxi driver, Copacabana

Malandragem

My many conversations across the country tell me that The Malandro is a cultural archetype in Brazil. The stereotypical malandro dwells outside respectable society, without morals, forming no lasting alliances and taking up no long term causes.  He lives emphatically in the present, and exhibits little interest in changing the institutions and inequalities he confronts in every day life. Instead he is content to carve out a small space of opportunity through deception, quick wits, and his consummate survivalist skill, revelling in the constant challenge of malandragem or sly “roguery”. The romanticised archetypal image includes the swaying vagabond hat cocked to one side, a man who drags his feet as he walks, who is armed and well dressed, friendly and dangerous, and disdainful of hard work, it is sometimes described as 'street smart'.

Malandragem is not something you can learn in an academy its something you learn in everyday life. Malandragem influences your life. It’s a rhythm a way of walking of communities on the morro (favela) when you walk up and down a ladeira you have it. A Malandro is a person who knows how to deal with situations. It helps if you live in the morro the way you walk down the hill; the way you turn into an alley helps you to have malandragem. If you don't have rhythm you won't be able to walk easily down the morro you loose your balance. The way the kids play in the morro too they are always running, stopping, moving around going here going there, climbing on the roof top, climbing coconut trees, up the hills and turns and alleyways. Its really different to the kids who are driven to school in the car. If you life is very straight you are very straight and your head is very straight. When you live in a favela its completely different to if you are rich or middle class there are different rhythms. It really helps a lot to be in a place like that because you have to learn how to walk in that space there are a lot of holes in the street, you might start by falling a lot when you get used to those kind of streets your body will be different. There's a lot of malandragem in capoeira because a lot of capoeiristas come from the Morros. One thing pulls another thing the way you live helps you to have malandragem and when you have that you have a lot of rhythms in your body. The type of music you listen to plays a part, very poor people listen to more traditional music with the drum. A lot of middle class people listen to techno its very straight music you just nod your head to that's why I think the new generation of capoeiristas are loosing a little bit they don't grow up with maracatu, samba and samba reggae. Some times your body can be educated too much, you can't improvise. Sometimes when you improvise you can look like you will turn one way but you go the other but when you don't have malandragem when you go one way I know you're gonna go there, when you come here I know you're gonna come here. Capoeiristas with a lot of rhythm and malandragem are hard to play because you never know when they go over there if its true they're really going there or not.

Mestre Barrao interviewed in Bahia, based in Canada

Look around you when you walk, look into people’s eyes, you an sense the energy of that person. There are a lot of things you can learn in the roda of capoeira that are useful in life. Malandragem in the roda for example can be when some one offers his hand to shake but then pulls his opponent towards him and gives him a cabecada (a head butt)

Mestre Zangado

Malandragem, mandinga and malicia are words that get confused. Malandragem can be dishonesty but we have a malandragem that includes malicia that allows you to survive all situations. The street teaches a lot to people about how to get out of situations, because in the street is very unpredictable you need a wide vision and you have to learn to read atmospheres and the intentions of people and know how to position your self in each street in some streets you will be accepted, in some you will not be accepted. 

Mestre suíno candeias group, interviewed in Bahia

Malandragem is the ability to make another person believe that you are a Mangingeiro 

Mestre Ponciano, London

You have to look around pay attention to the atmosphere and know how to behave in a place. The malandragem that the old capoeiristas know is about thinking beyond, the ability to think about what will come. And the old time capoeiristas knew about the rhythm of walking and while some would move like sports men others would try not to present themselves as masters of a martial art.

Mestre Onca Negra

With Thanks to Marcia Derraik, Helmut Batista, Mestre Cobra Mansa, Roberta Mahfuz