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Ipanema Streetdancing

By the time your plane lands you’ll be vibrating with possibility. This is going to be different than anything you’ve done before. This will be a challenge.

The cab ride to town takes you past some of the notorious favelas, the ones you’ve seen in the film City of God. They’re on your right, spilling like litter down the lush hillsides. As you speed into the heart of Rio you’ll see a city battened down for a squall. Scores of locals have fled for parts unknown. Shops that operate the rest of the year are closed down for the next two weeks. The city is stripped, all the valuables hidden away. And for good reason—you’ve arrived three days before carnival and you can already see people partying in the streets.

You and your friends have rented an apartment in Arpoador, a point of land between Ipanema and Copacabana that puts both famous beaches within easy walking distance. After you get situated you venture out and immediately find yourselves swept up in a street party. A flatbed trailer carries a sound system and a troupe of transvestites. People dance, sing, and drum on whatever is at hand; capoeira masters fling themselves through the air; twelve-year old kids trundle along selling beers from wheelbarrows. Pretty soon you’re drinking doublefisted.

When you encounter a street party in Rio, chances are it’s being sponsored by one of the city’s samba schools. Your Lonely Planet or Let's Go Brazil has already explained the function of these schools and the competition upcoming Sunday and Monday in the Sambadrome, but it may not have mentioned that at these street parties schools seek an early edge by unveiling the songs they’ve written for their official performance. They hope to embed the tunes in the minds of the masses, so that when the school and its bateria march in a few days the crowd has learned the words and will sing along. Crowd participation is thought to sway the judges, though the eventual winner of the competition is invariably accused of having bribed their way to victory.

Your street party finally spills onto Ipanema Beach around sunset. You’ve been in Rio for three hours and you’re already winded, sweaty and covered in beer. You need a restroom—badly. But you won’t find public restrooms in Rio. It quickly becomes clear that thousands of people in your predicament simply use the beach. Piss on a palm tree and there’ll be three more guys at compass points doing the same. You keep your eyes on the sky and try to ignore the smell. At first you sympathize with the cariocas, abstractly, as you empty your bursting bladder and befoul their paradise. But then you realize it’s the cariocas who are doing this.

Is this what you expected so far? Not really, but you’re sanguine enough to understand that municipal authorities cannot possibly accommodate a million plus tourists and the litres of Skol they’ve drunk. In Rio your ecstasy is always tempered by guilt. A brief glance over your shoulder and you see those favelas again. They are always there, reminding you that as you party people are suffering. You’ve read that tourists book slum tours. Would you do such a thing? Wouldn’t that be a bit like turning human beings into zoo animals?

You can’t think about all this now, because you’re a little drunk and you’re starting to wilt in this incredible heat you’re not used to. Rio is a little overwhelming at first—to the body, the mind, and the eyes. But what you’ve seen is nothing—it’s been three hours. You won’t believe what’s to come.

Labels: brasil, brazil, carnival, ipanema, rio

posted by Egan Ehlers @ 10:11 AM