From the Favela to Our Manor

Translating AfroReggae: the impact and implications of an international interventionin arts work with young people at risk

From the favela to our manor Translating AfroReggae: the impact and implications of an international interventionin arts work with young people at risk

Dr Richard Ings

A People's Palace Projects Publication

Pub0686 Favelav5:Layout 1 20/01/2010 09:54

Written by Richard [email protected]

Photographs by Ierê Ferreira and Richard Ings (pp12-27 only)

Published by the Publications and WebOffice, Queen Mary, University of London

For further information, contact:People’s Palace ProjectsQueen Mary, University of LondonMile End RoadLondon E1 4NS

T: +44 (0)20 7882 7823F: +44 (0)20 7882 3195E: [email protected]

People's Palace Projects (PPP) putsperformance research into action. Based in the Drama Department atQueen Mary, University of London, PPP manages a range of projectsthat find practical application for academic scholarship. For furtherinformation, visit

www.peoplespalace.org.uk

ISBN 978-0-9551179-3-0


This publication has been made possiblewith funding from:Arts Council EnglandThe Westfield TrustQueen Mary, University of LondonLondon Centre for Arts and CulturalEnterprises (LCACE)

The views expressed in this book are those ofthe author and do not necessarily representthose of People’s Palace Projects or QueenMary, University of London.

The author would like to thank:Paul Heritage and People’s Palace Projectsfor their expert advice and guidance

Grupo Cultural AfroReggae for theirkind hospitality in Rio de Janeiro

The Arcola Theatre, Shoreditch Trustand Contact Theatre for their openness

José Junior, Altair Martins & the othermembers of AfroReggae’s delegationto the UK for their inspiring example

Silvia Ramos, from the Center for Studieson Public Security and Citizenship (CESeC),at the University Candido Mendes, Rio de Janeiro,& Damian Platt, formerly Amnesty International(Brazil) and now working for AfroReggae for helpingme to understand AfroReggae's significance in theBrazilian context.


Translating AfroReggae: the impact and implications of an international

intervention in arts work with young people at risk

From the favela to our manor

Translating AfroReggae: the impact and implications of an international

intervention in arts work with young people at risk

Dr Richard Ings



From the favela to our manor 3

Keeping it local 60In praise of availability:making a 24/7 commitment

The implicationsAssessing delivery 64Evaluating the strengths andweaknesses of the workshopprogramme

Impact on participants 68Exploring the immediateimpact on young people

Developing practice 72Exploring the wider implications ofAfroReggae’s visit for practitionersand policy makers developing thisarea of work in the UK

Afterword 76

Further reading 78

Partners 79

Acknowledgements 80

The workshopsWorking with the ‘worst’ 34Identifying the principle behindAfroReggae’s work with youngpeople at risk

Three workshop programmes 38Profiling the three UK organisationsparticipating in AfroReggae’s workshopprogramme and their approaches torecruiting young people at risk

Visiting a workshop 46Analysing the workshop approach

The analysisKeeping it real 48In praise of authenticity: offering strong role models

Keeping it positive 52In praise of purposefulness:using creativity to make a positivestatement

Keeping it personal 56In praise of intimacy:embracing the troubled young person

Contents

Foreword: Raising the stakes 4Professor Paul Heritage, Director, People’s Palace Projects

From the favela to the world:A cultural invasion 8Dr Richard Ings

The rationaleAnother Rio 12Visiting the favela and learningthe origins of AfroReggae

Making it work 20Discussing AfroReggae’s strategiestowards drawing young peopleout of the drug trade; spreadingits influence; maintainingself-sufficiency; and changingperceptions about the favela

Our own favela? 28Exploring parallels between theinner city here and the favela andthe relevance of AfroReggae’s exampleto current policy towards youngpeople at risk



At the invitation of Grupo CulturalAfroReggae, I was directing a performanceof Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra onthe border between two rival communities.It was only at night that I could negotiatethe means by which this unprecedentedperformance could take place. And it wasat night that I was to understand mostprofoundly both the challenge and thepromise that is at the heart of AfroReggae.

The border where we were to evoke theviolent passions of Rome and Egypt was a200m dusty track between the communitiesof Vigário Geral and Parada de Lucas.Gunfire during the day is not common,but at night this frontier becomes a shootinggallery. When I was taken to stand therefor the first time, nervous discussions withgang leaders on both sides were myassurance that I could walk across theborder. I stood with AfroReggae bandmembers in a darkness imposed by the shot-out lampposts, the silence emphasised bythe AK-47s and AR-15s that hung looselyin the hands of the adolescents at our side.

Foreword: Raising the stakes

Paul Heritage, Director, People’s Palace Projects

And for the first time I really understoodwhat it might mean to say with AfroReggaethat culture is our weapon.

As I have written elsewhere1, what securedmy safety on that night in March 2004 wasthe respect that the rival gangs hold forthe daily work that is done by AfroReggaewith young people within the heart oftheir communities. José Junior, founder anddirector of Grupo Cultural AfroReggae, isclear about their tactics. They use the samestrategies as the drug-traffickers: talk thesame language, wear the same clothes orbetter (more logos, more up-to-date styles)and have lived the same lives as theyoung people with whom they work. Theirattitudes are tough and uncompromising.Some of the original members of the bandare ex-gang members and have no illusionsabout the choices that young people haveto make. But they also know the meansinto and out of the gangs, and can supportpeople as they start to make new choices.Although the group strictly prohibits any

From the favela to our manor 6 From the favela to our manor4

Although I had entered various favelas or shantytownsin Rio de Janeiro over 15 years of working in Brazil, itwas not until 2004 that I began to make nightly visits.

Antonio e Cleópatra, Vigário Geral

LG, singer, AfroReggae


Raising the stakes

involvement with the gangs, it is notevangelical about the process by whichpeople negotiate their lives.

AfroReggae runs over 65 projects acrossRio’s favelas, involving over 2,000 youngpeople in a daily programme of culturaland educational activities. But it is not justin numbers that AfroReggae surpassesthe average arts-based social programme. It is in the nature of the relationships thatAfroReggae re-imagines through theircultural practices. The authenticity of theirexperience and the confidence that theirvoice inspires have ensured that they arenow the principal mediators of conflictwithin their communities. Not only havethey been successful in renegotiating therelationships between adolescents and thedrug gangs, but also in establishing newdialogues between the military police andyoung people2.

Their invitation to make Shakespeare withthem within their communities followedmy invitation to them to join me workingin Rio de Janeiro’s juvenile prison systemin 2003. We worked together for two yearson Changing the Scene, a programme foryoung people in conflict with the law, runby People’s Palace Projects, an applied artsresearch centre at Queen Mary, University of

London. The partnership between London.AfroReggae and People’s Palace Projects tooka further step with our acceptance of theBarbican’s courageous invitation to createthe From the favela to the world series ofperformances and workshops in the UK in2006.

From the favela to the world is based ona few simple observations:

• Brazilian favelas/shantytowns havedeveloped sophisticated cultural strategiesto combat the extreme effects of social,political and economic exclusion.

• Culture has become an effective weaponagainst the violence that threatens theirdaily lives.

• Arts-based organisations are offeringyoung people realistic alternatives to gangand gun culture.

And it poses simple questions:

• What do we as artists and artsorganisations in the UK need to do nowin response to the perceived crisis aroundguns, knives, drugs and gang culture?

• How extreme has our situation become?

• How high do we have to raise the stakes?

Raising the stakes 75

People’s Palace Projects/PPP has beenprivileged to work with and learn fromartists on a variety of programmes andprojects based in Brazilian favelas over thelast decade. Each of the artists that PPPhas taken to Brazil has been challengedto face what the arts can achieve in suchenvironments.

From the favela to the world is anopportunity to bring these experienceto the UK. Not only to stimulate debate

and share strategies, but also to celebratethe hope and optimism generated by thecreative energies of the marginalisedcommunities of Brazil’s contemporaryurban landscape.

In order to produce the programme ofperformances and workshops describedin this report, we relied on a range ofpartnerships. It began with anotherinvitation, when Louise Jeffreys, Head ofTheatre at the Barbican Centre, came to anoutdoor show by AfroReggae in a favela thatwas subject to the threat of armed invasionby both a rival gang and the military police.The night was tense and we were underthe constant vigilance of heavily armedadolescents, yet the night’s most electrifyingmoments came from the show staged byAfroReggae. Their urgency of their drums,



the insistence of their guitars, the anger andlove of their vocals inspired thousands ofyoung people present to identify with thispositive force for resistance. And it inspiredLouise Jeffreys to invite them to theBarbican in 2006.

Louise’s vision and her belief thatAfroReggae were a phenomenon thatneeded to be seen and heard in London,gave PPP the platform to build a seriesof workshops and debates to accompanythe performances in London, Oxford andManchester. We built partnerships withother artists (Estelle, Ty and Asian DubFoundation); with arts organisations(Contact Theatre and Arcola Theatre);with Barbican Education, The LearningTrust in Hackney and the Shoreditch Trust;the Brazilian Embassy in London and theMetropolitan Black Police Association.AfroReggae worked with young people inand out of schools, from inner city Londonand Manchester to the Dragons School inOxford.

In order to reflect on the issues being raisedby the programme, we commissioned DrRichard Ings to accompany the programmeand this publication is the result of hisenquiry into AfroReggae’s work withyoung people at risk. It identifies what is

significant in the exchanges that took placebetween the UK and Brazil, asking throughits analysis what works and what shouldwe be seeking to prioritise and fund thatcan be effective in the current political andsocial crises. Through the report, we seewhat AfroReggae in particular has to offerto a range of current debates on humanrights, cultural mediation and artisticdevelopment. The report looks carefullyat the way such work is structured, thetechniques of engagement with youngpeople and the methodologies of ensuringartistic quality. But above all, it shows thatthe central question which hung in thesilence of an armed border is as relevant inthe UK as it is in Brazil: can culture reallybe an effective weapon in the fight weface today?

We are now embarking on a five-yearprogramme with AfroReggae, which willinclude a range of performances, workshops,debates, training opportunities andpublications (see www.favelatotheworld.orgfor further information). The UK AfroReggaePartnership continues to grow, as pointsof contact develop between British andBrazilian initiatives. At every stage, weare seeking to make work that maintainsan intense and particular local focus but

that also benefits from the dialogues ofinternational exchange.

Urgent issues of public security, communitysafety and social cohesion have raised thestakes about the role that artists and artsorganisations are called upon to play. Ouraim, as this programme develops, is to findways in which the arts can enable youngpeople to contribute to the debates abouthow to make our lives more secure and lessat risk. AfroReggae shows that security isboth a real and imagined state, as it bringsus work that has emerged with such highvoltage from situations of extreme risk. Wehope that this report will help us to reflecton how we might imagine security in waysthat do not exclude or threaten the lives ofthose who are most vulnerable and mostat risk.

Queen Mary, University of LondonMay 2007

1 “Parallel Power: Shakespeare, Gunfire and Silence” inLeslie Hill and Helen Paris (eds), Performance & Place(London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006)

2 See ‘Youth and the Police’ Silvia Ramos (Rio de Janeiro:Centre for Studies on Public Security and Citizenship,Research Bulletin Nº12, 2006)

From the favela to our manor86

Right: From the favela to the world, Barbican, 2006


7Raising the stakes



If we are talking numbers, the visit of AfroReggae to the UK inSpring 2006 is remembered by most people for its two spectacularshows at the Barbican Centre, as part of the venue’s ambitiouscelebration of Tropicália, the short-lived but hugely influentialflowering of the counter-culture in Brazil in the late 1960s. Around 2000 people saw AfroReggae perform and there wasa lot of coverage in the press. The Guardian had this to say:

They aim to show that hip-hop can be a positive force whilestill providing great dance music, and their opening songssucceeded on both levels. At the front of the stage werethree percussionists, bashing away at hefty drums suspendedaround their waists, while behind them were more drummers,guitar, bass and decks, along with a trio of rappers, performingin front of a large screen showing images of the policebrutality that inspired the band to offer an alternative toghetto confrontation.

Robin Denselow

Another writer, Alex Bellos, who is something of an authorityon Brazilian popular culture, wrote:

The group's name is, to musicologists, a misnomer: the style isa mix and match of rock, hip-hop, pop and reggae with heavyBrazilian percussion. With a huge graffiti screen as a backdrop,men beating huge drums hanging from their waists, and forcefulpolitical lyrics, there is nothing laid-back and Jamaican abouttheir stage shows. The performances are loud and energetic andfull of capoeira-influenced circus acrobatics.

This mix and match approach is, according to Silvia Ramos, speakingat a Barbican seminar on AfroReggae, not fusion but collage:

That is the first point of contact with Tropicália, whichdefined itself as indefinable. There is an absence of a fixedstyle or model. The second point of contact is in Afroreggae’scorporeality – their use of colours and of the body. Unlike hip-hop, where there is only limited movement on stage, Afroreggaeis an explosion of movement, just as Tropicália broke with theblack and white, the chair and guitar of bossa nova.

The favela to the world:A cultural invasion

Dr Richard Ings


I am up at the back of the main auditorium of London’s Barbican Centre, on my feetwith the rest of the audience, clapping and cheering on Banda Afroreggae as theydrive towards the show’s climax, the stage awash with musicians and rappers, vastslogans and images of police violence stuttering and flashing behind them. It feels as if they really have brought the favela to the world.


A cultural invasionA cultural invasion 119

When Paul Heritage of People’s Palace Projects was approachedin 2004 by the Barbican Centre to create a performance work thatwould fit into a celebration of Tropicália, he first considered andthen rejected the idea of reviving a theatre piece, proposing insteada contemporary cultural group that seemed to him to be infusedwith the same spirit and purpose as leading ‘Tropicalistas’ like singersCaetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil and Gal Costa and the band OsMutantes:

You’ll see in the Tropicália show that what all these artists weretrying to do was in some way to bring the periphery into thecentre of Brazilian culture so that the centre could not holdany more – so that it couldn’t remain the same. Today,AfroReggae are the torchbearers of this movement and theyare launching the series of performances at the Barbican.

Tropicália was an all-too-brief focus for cultural and politicalresistance to the military dictatorship which ran Brazil in the 1960s,before the authorities cracked down even harder, exiling Gil and Velosoand silencing other voices of protest. AfroReggae is working in a verydifferent political situation; President Luiz Inácio da Silva (‘Lula’) is thehead of the Partido dos Trablhadores – The Workers’ Party – and hasoverwhelming support from Brazil’s poorest citizens, as his re-electionin November 2006, notwithstanding numerous corruption scandalssurrounding ministers in his previous regime, demonstrates. Yet,despite a progressive regime, which includes Gilberto Gil as Minister ofCulture, there is a social crisis in Brazil of epic proportions, located inits poorest urban quarters: the shanty towns or favelas. Here, anundeclared war between rival drug factions claims more lives eachyear than were lost by the United States in Vietnam in total. Althoughit is said that only one per cent of favela residents are involved in thetrade, no one in the favela is unaffected by the mayhem.

Bellos quotes Hermano Vianna, anthropologist and advisor to Gil,who makes the link between this crisis and the music of AfroReggae:

Usually, the noise that governs favelas is the sound ofgunfire. “What you hear in AfroReggae is a sonic revolt: theregime of sounds that were suffocated by bullets returningto be heard. There are many different sounds… it's not acacophony but an aesthetic posture intimately linked to anexperience of favela life.”

That experience is perhaps best represented by the constant threatof an ‘invasion’ of the favela, where the dominance of one drugfaction is violently challenged by another.

AfroReggae’s visit to the UK might be seen as a benign version ofsuch an incursion into foreign territory: a cultural ‘invasion’. ForGrupo Cultural AfroReggae is about more than Banda Afroreggae,the recording and performing stars who had us all on our feet thatnight. The visitors from Rio de Janeiro did much more than performwhile they were here. In bringing the margins into the centre – andthus making the favela and its culture visible to the wider world –they had a message for us.

Founded as a direct response to a notorious police massacre inthe Vigário Geral favela in 1993 and now active in several othercommunities in Rio de Janeiro, AfroReggae has earned the respectof both the police and the warring drug factions as well as localpeople for its success in drawing young people away from drug-related crime into music, circus, graffiti, theatre and other creativeactivities. The organisation has now worked with an estimated10,000 children and young people.

Banda Afroreggae in action



AfroReggae's success as artists has been equally extraordinary. Themain group – Banda Afroreggae – tours extensively throughout Braziland abroad; it has even performed at Carnegie Hall in New York.

People's Palace Projects has been working with AfroReggae since2003 to create theatre projects aimed to encourage mediation andoffer alternatives to violence for young people in the favela. PPPinvited AfroReggae to the UK for Spring 2006 to undertake a majorproject, called – ambitiously enough – From the favela to the world.

Paul Heritage, the artistic director of People’s Palace Projects atQueen Mary, University of London, listed, some of the many waysin which the project’s success could be measured for its main funder,Arts Council England:

By the thrill of the young people in the Barbican Theatreaudience at seeing their workshop leaders on stage; by thefour-star reviews; by the purchase of the drums by the schoolsand community groups immediately after the project ended,so that they could carry on the work; by the immediate re-booking of Banda AfroReggae by the Barbican for 2008,2010 and 2012; by the echoing cheers that wouldn’t letthem leave the stage in Manchester; by the intense debatesin London, Oxford and Manchester about the efficacy of thearts in situations of extreme social crises; by the responseof the Black Police Association who are going out to Brazilto help their colleagues form a parallel group; by the artistswho accompanied AfroReggae on the Insight programme whoanalysed, interrogated and dialogued with AfroReggae through the seminars, workshops and internet site…

From the favela to the world was a hugely ambitious programmethat engaged at a remarkably wide strategic level with the UK artssector in the space of three short weeks: programming work in majorcultural venues; contributing to arts education provision; making artsinterventions with young people at risk or excluded from education;exploring arts in criminal justice work; engaging in artist professionaldevelopment; and collaborating creatively on campaigning forhuman rights.

I will be focusing on just one of these areas – AfroReggae’s workwith young people at risk – and raising one key question: what canwe learn from AfroReggae for our own development of effectivepractice in creative and cultural work with young people at risk?

Behind that question are many others, of course, and not just aboutthe ramifications of how we might improve our practice. What, forexample, does its success imply about our policy priorities, not just in arts and social inclusion work but in arts funding as a whole? How far does it challenge our deep-rooted notions of excellence andaccess, or of the social utility (or uselessness) of the arts? And so on.

If we compare the situation for young people in Rio’s favelas withthat of young people designated to be at risk in the UK, it appearsthat, in certain communities here, the differences may not be asgreat as some might assume – at one level, for example, there seemto be similar patterns of deprivation and disengagement leadingto the risk of involvement in crime; at another level, territoriality isimportant to both groups, whether based on drug faction boundariesin Rio or postcode or estate divisions here.


A cultural invasion 11

AfroReggae’s approach to creative workshops here was close if notidentical to the methodology its members use every day in thefavela: it was not adapted for export. That meant that AfroReggae’spresence in the midst of our cultural ecology acted, in one sense, asa litmus test showing what works well and what works less well here- or, in another, more positive sense, as a catalyst provoking newthinking about our own policy and practice.

We are in sore need of a new paradigm for our cultural work withpeople and, most urgently, with young people who are excludedfrom education or at risk of offending or reoffending. This reporthas been written as a contribution to the debate we need to makethat happen.


Copacabana. The man whoowns the beach side stallbrings his machete downwith practised violence,splitting off the top ofthe shiny green coconutand handing me the wholething. I go over to a tablewith my first perfectdrink of coconut juiceand watch all the beautifulpeople stroll by in thesunshine. This is my first visit but I know that this iswhat it is supposed to be like. Not everyoneis relaxing, though. Further along theseafront, teams of workers have cordonedoff a large section of beach and are busywith scaffolding poles and wood. I learnlater that they are building a giant stage forthe first concert in the Rolling Stones’ newworld tour. Two million turn up to see themperform a couple of weeks later but by thenI have returned to London, my notebook full

Another Rio: the favela andthe origins of AfroReggae

of notes from my visits to the other cityof Rio de Janeiro: the shanty towns orfavelas which climb up the cliffs above theglamorous resorts of Rio’s Zona Sul andwhich stretch all the way to the airportalongside the Linha Vermelha, where aminibus of English tourists was spectacularlyrelieved of its money and jewellery theweek before I arrived.

It is this other city I have come to visit,in order to learn more about AfroReggae,an extraordinary organisation whose main band will shortly be opening for the Stones and whose members will be going over to England, not just to perform but to work with young people in the inner city.

Outside our hotel in Copacabana, PaulHeritage of People’s Palace Projects and I meet up with Damian Platt, formerly of Amnesty International (Brazil) and nowworking for AfroReggae, and Tom Phillips,the Guardian’s Rio correspondent. As iforchestrated for my benefit as a fresh-facednewcomer here, the first taxi-driver refusesto take us up to Cantagalo, giving me myfirst glimpse of the level of social divisionand fear that separates the asfalto – theofficial city – from the morro – the 600 ormore favelas which rise above the city andextend beyond it into the badlands. The taxi

that does agree to take us drives a meretwo blocks inland and begins to climb anarrow, badly maintained street, lined withprecarious and often makeshift houses andkiosks selling drinks and groceries. At pointsthe journey feels almost vertical but itonly takes us about ten minutes from doorto door to reach our destination, a vast,echoing, whitewashed concrete structurewhich was originally designed as a casino.It never opened as such and today ithouses a strange menagerie: a police station(we squeeze past a squad car, which I can’thelp but notice has been pockmarked bythe impact of numerous bullets), a secondaryschool, a ballet academy and, down thestairs, the circus centre run by GrupoCultural AfroReggae, which is where weare headed.

A young man, Jonathan, shows us proudlyaround the centre. Jonathan is my firstpersonal encounter with the powerful ethosthat drives AfroReggae. As he shows us thehistory of the organisation in photographsthat are mounted in the reception area, heexplains that young people come here notto be artists per se but to value themselvesand to develop personally and socially.

The rationale 13


Later on my visit, a director of theprogramme, Patrícia, tells me:

The main goal here is not to makepeople professional. Circus here is atool to draw young people out of thedrug trade into a better life. However,once we have given them sometechniques, a few talented individualsdo emerge – and, being professionalcircus performers ourselves, we wantto develop that talent.

Jonathan himself came to the project tenyears ago, with little interest in circus; heis now studying at the Escola Nacional deCirco (national circus school) and taking theequivalent of his GCSEs there. He is also oneof the ‘youth leaders’ whom AfroReggae istraining to work in their own favela and, inan attempt to overcome the territorialitythat blights young lives here, in otherfavelas, too.

After watching students practising in theperformance area, we stroll out and ontothe balcony. Jonathan is pleased when I askif I can take his photograph. Looking at itnow, I am reminded of the spectacularview that loomed behind him: the beachat Ipanema down to my left, the Pedra daGavea mountains ahead, a lake – Lagoa

Rodrigo das Freitas – down to my right. In other circumstances, this would be anideal spot for locals from the city below –the asfalto – and tourists alike to come andtake their pictures. As it is, I am somewherethat most such people have never set foot –99.9 per cent of them, I am told later, onlyhalf-jokingly, by an academic who works inthe city.

Cantagalo is one of the older favelas – the first emerged around the end of the nineteenth century. More recentlyestablished communities are to be found out on the outskirts of the city, far fromamenities and often built over swampland.Tomorrow I am invited to one such favela,one that long had the reputation of beingthe most dangerous of all: Vigário Geral.


Jonathan at AfroReggae’s circus centre in Cantagalo


In Vigário GeralWaiting with Damian for Vitor to take usout for another stroll around, I look out ofthe window and scan the courtyard below.To my left there’s a small, closed shop thatrents out DVDs and a long bright piece ofgraffiti covering the wall. Directly oppositeare the steps up to the bridge over therailway tracks – from Vigário Geral, it isover ten kilometres up the line to the centralstation in Rio. To my right is a small drinkskiosk with a couple of tables out in the sunand further over is a basketball court,its low wall decorated with more graffitifigures. A general store is busy on thecorner; members of AfroSamba mill around,shooting the breeze.

It was here, in this confined praça and alongthe narrow lanes leading into it, that adisguised convoy of military police droveone August evening in 1993 and shot 21innocent residents dead – in the bar, wherepeople stood drinking; in a house where awhole family were at prayer; whoever theycould find in a fury of revenge for themurder of a corrupt police captain and histhree colleagues by the local drug baronthe previous day. The massacre sent shockwaves through the city and the wholecountry; it was a turning point.

To understand Grupo Cultural AfroReggae,you have go back to that moment and tothe decision of José Junior and his friends -including Anderson Sá, whose uncle wasamongst the murdered – to turn the charnelhouse where the bodies were laid out intoa community centre where they heldimpromptu music, capoeira and recyclingclasses as a response of resistance to theatmosphere of violence that had suffusedVigário for a decade or more but whichthis latest atrocity had raised to anunprecedented pitch.

Up to this moment, AfroReggae had beenlargely a consciousness-raising organisation,publishing a newspaper that celebrated blackhistory and culture and that extolled theachievements of such iconic figures asMalcolm X and Bob Marley. Now itshistorical moment had arrived and theoryturned to practice, as Junior brought hisbrand of musical entrepreneurship to bearon the problem of violence in the favela andon its root cause: o tráfico – the drug trade.

In Favela Rising, a powerful documentarymade by New Yorkers Jeff Zimbalist andMatt Mochary in 2005 which tracesAfroReggae’s history through Anderson Sá’spersonal experience, Anderson discoveredhe had a choice at this moment. The most

obvious reaction to the massacre wouldhave been finally to throw in his lot withthe Comando Vermelho (Red Command),the drug faction that dominated VigárioGeral then, as now, and join the endlessdialectic of revenge. Instead, he electedto reject violence altogether; he joinedAfroReggae’s capoeira classes, eventuallygraduating to lead vocalist for BandaAfroreggae and close deputy to Junior.

None of this was planned.

We didn’t know that AfroReggae wasgoing to be what it is today – when itstarted, some of us couldn’t even affordthe bus fare. We had no experience ofsocial work; all we had was goodwill andmany barriers in front of us: not just lackof money or experience, but the simpledifficulties of getting from A to B duringthe daily war. In the early days, we couldbe rehearsing in the very entrance tothe favela when shooting might begin atthe drug-selling point. Eventually, we gotto a point when the dealers would notrespond to police fire, knowing we werethere, and the police would not enterthe community, knowing we were there.

Thirteen years later, AfroReggae is a shanty-town phenomenon, with 65 AfroReggaeprojects and ten sub-groups in Vigário Geral.

The rationale 15


Sociologist Silvia Ramos, from the Centre forStudies on Public Security and Citizenship at Candido Mendes University, has looked in detail at the homicide figures in Brazil and has identified what might be called thedemographics of death. There are twice asmany homicides among 14-25 year olds(over 100 per 100,000 people) than otherage groups. “This,” she says, “…is the age ofdeath.” The rate of homicides among youngblack Brazilians is 20 per cent higher thanamong white. “This is the colour of death.”While resorts like Copacabana have a similarhomicide rate to that of Europe (4-10 per100,000 people), the rate in the favelas isvastly higher (84 per 100,000 people). “This is the geography of death.”

In Rio de Janeiro, the police are responsiblefor more than 10 per cent of killings. Mostof these deaths occur in ‘confrontations’in the favelas, which are registered as‘resistance followed by death’ – they usuallybear the hallmarks of executions. Silviapoints out that the bulk of the victims areyoung people, mainly black, and that thepolice forces of the State of Rio de Janeirokill, in one year, more people than all thepolice forces of the United States together.

What has turned a disaster into a crisis overthe last thirty years has been the drug war.

There are four permanent favela nuclei andAfroReggae is working in another favela ona semi-permanent basis. It works directlywith around 2,000 people, offering a rangeof activities to draw people, particularlyyoung people, away from the drug trade,most of them creative – music, theatre,circus, graffiti, digital technology – andsome geared to business training andwhat Brazilians call ‘professional formation’. Yet, thirteen years later, the violence is stillpresent.

My hosts at the AfroReggae office in Vigáriohad hoped, right up until they heard thewarning shots, that I would also be able tovisit the neighbouring favela, Parada deLucas, to see their centre there. This favelais controlled by the second of the three maindrug factions in Rio – Terceiro Comando orThird Command – and it has a longstandinggrudge with Vigário that actually predatesthe drug war. The shots we heard were infact fireworks set off to alert the drugtraffickers of Parada de Lucas that the civilpolice had been spotted on their way intothe favela. Their task was to pursue aninvestigation into the torture and killing ofeight young men from Vigário by rival drugfaction members that had occurred just amonth earlier. Bones from dismembered

bodies had just been discovered and, laterthat day in Vigário, I met Patrícia, froma network of Rio NGOs working for therelatives of victims; she had been with themothers when the bones were taken awayfor DNA testing to see if these were, indeed,the remains of their murdered sons. It wasa shock to learn that this admirable womanwas the sister of one of the very fewsurvivors of another infamous massacre,this time in the heart of the cidademarvilhosa in 1993 when eight streetchildren were gunned down in cold bloodby military police on the steps of theCandelaria cathedral.

Brazil is not at war, but the indicatorsof violent death in the main urbancentres are similar to those in countriesthat are involved in armed conflicts. In2002, 49,695 citizens were murdered.This national rate of 28.5 killings per100,000 inhabitants places Brazil amongthe most violent countries in the world,bearing in mind that rates in Europeancountries are below three homicides per 100,000 inhabitants and theUnited States is below six homicidesper 100,000 people. In Brazil, when westudy specific poor urban areas andfocus on youth, we find rates of 230 killings per 100,000 inhabitants.



Trafficking and consumption of drugs isresponsible for a very high proportion ofviolence (from the police as well as the drugfactions), particularly since the appearanceof cocaine in the 1980s and its highprofitability.

The favelas are outside civil society. Thereare few if any schools; few if any healthcentres. Administration, such as it exists,is provided by residents’ committees, mostof them run by whichever drug factioncontrols the territory. Silvia writes of theimpact this has on young people growingup in the favela:

Given these conditions, drug traffickinghas an extremely powerful attractionfor children and adolescents who findfew opportunities for employment orfor income generation, and whoseprospects for the future are fragile.The quick profits and the ‘glamorous’lifestyle provided by the power andvisible presence of firearms make many young people see drug trafficking as anattractive way out of their predicament,however lethally dangerous it maybe. This feeds a culture dominatedby despotism, machismo, arms andviolence, which contaminates a highproportion of the young people in these areas.

The rationale 17

A view from AfroReggae’s base in Vigário Geral


As we walk around Vigário, Paul Heritageexplains to me how pernicious this influenceis on life in the favela, even among thosenot directly involved in drug traffickingor in crime:

The economy here revolves arounddrugs: when the price goes down,there’s less money for everything here.Junior says we cannot be simplisticabout what the narco-culturarepresents, as so much depends on it.So, how can you talk about ‘dirty’ or‘clean’ in this situation? We all havelinks with the drug trade, even the oldwoman over there, selling marmelitas[bean stew] to the lookout boys; she’spart of the market.

Vitor walks ahead of us, keeping his eyesopen, looking out for us. He has been astalwart member of AfroReggae since thebeginning, apart from doing the odd jobshere and there to support his family. A fewyears ago, his brother had been on the edgeof the drug traffickers – no one knew howinvolved he was until the day he fell outwith them and they killed him.

Ironically, given its reputation and the factthat its population has fallen from 35,000 to9,000 in a decade as residents flee the drug


Vitor (second from left) showing guests aroundVigário Geral


Although in a handful of cases theauthorities have paved main streets orsupplied mains water and sewage, thefavelas have largely had to fend forthemselves; in Vigário I saw how residentshad siphoned off electricity from thenational grid with a tangle of connectorscalled gatos (‘cats’). Until very recently,official maps of Rio simply ignored thefavelas, rendering them invisible, eventhough 20 per cent of the city’s populationlives in them, most of whom (and we aretalking of over two million people) comedown to the asfalto each day to work ascleaners, waiters or other kinds of servants.When I was there, at the beginning of 2006,the Rio papers were reporting on the latestpolitical campaign to rid the city of thefavelas – to enforce, as it were, theinvisibility of the underclass.

My visit to Vigário ends with a visit tosee the foundations of the new centrethat AfroReggae is constructing, a shortdistance from the building where it ranits first classes and which it will eventuallyreplace. Tomorrow I am to meet Juniorand his colleagues to learn more aboutthe organisation that manages to provide24/7 support for young people in Vigárioand eight other communities here.

The rationale 19

war, Vigário Geral is, in many ways,stunningly beautiful, its walls painted insaturated pastel shades of mauve and blueand its streets an unruly, picturesque tangle.Its architecture is improvised – if a familyneeds more space, it builds another room –and the use of found materials (for example,an old lettered sign incorporated seamlesslyinto a door) produces what Paul Heritage,who has been visiting Vigário for manyyears, refers to as an ‘aesthetic of theperiphery’:

Recently, the head of Mangueira, theManchester United of samba schools,said to me that, if all the houses inthe favela were painted white withblue window-frames, you would thinkthey were as beautiful as those on the hillsides of Greece.

As we walk round this place – is it urban orrural? – there are inscriptions on the wallsthat indicate that this is not tourist territory.There is the ubiquitous ‘CV’ (for ComandoVermelho) on the walls; when Parada deLucas invades, it paints these out andsubstitutes ‘TC’. After the last incursion,those marks were erased in turn, but thistime someone has written up large textsfrom the Psalms. We stop to look at one,

a careful transcription of Psalm 91, whosesentiments are popular in times of trouble.Part of it reads (in translation):

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High

will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

I will say of the Lord, ‘He is my refugeand my fortress,

my God, in whom I trust.’

Surely he will save you from the fowler's snare

and from the deadly pestilence.

He will cover you with his feathers,and under his wings you will find refuge;

his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.

You will not fear the terror of night,nor the arrow that flies by day,

nor the pestilence that stalks in thedarkness,

nor the plague that destroys at midday.

Apparently, one of mothers was discoveredhere reciting this psalm, after men fromParada de Lucas had seized her son.


The rationale 21

Jorge, who prefers to be called, simply, JB,described to me his former life as the right-hand man of the local drug faction boss.Born and raised in Vigário Geral, JB becameinvolved in the drug trade in 1995:

My life was spent on the beach, goingto baile funk parties. As the driver forthe local Red Command boss, I took part in various actions – invasions –as a drug soldier. There were around70 to 90 people in my gang and wecreated a big power base outside

Making it work:talking strategy with AfroReggae

Vigário. I’d met Junior at the timeof the massacre and not got involvedin AfroReggae then, but he invitedme now to help organise their eventsand concerts, as I was able to go intoany of the communities controlled bythe Red Command. Junior could seeI had talent and ability but that itwas difficult for me to leave. In theend, my boss gave me the chanceto abandon that life – he was beingpursued and he thought it best I got out.

“AfroReggae is changing – symbolically – ideas andimages that were frozen before. Rather than trying tochange each and every person directly, an impossibility,it concentrates on creating new ideas, new images,new models. Every day it has to turn down an invitationto open a new centre in another favela, because itthinks it is better for someone in that favela to hearabout what AfroReggae does or read about it in thenewspapers or see it on TV and think to themselves: I could be that person – he used to be a drug dealerand yet he’s managed to turn his life around…”

Silvia Ramos

AFROREGGAE’S MISSIONTO PROMOTE SOCIAL INCLUSION ANDSOCIAL JUSTICE USING ART, AFRO-BRAZILIAN CULTURE AND EDUCATIONTO BRIDGE DIFFERENCES AND CREATETHE FOUNDATIONS WITH WHICH TO BUILDSUSTAINABILITY AND EXERCISE CITIZENSHIP

Left: Workshop in AfroReggae’s base in Vigário Geral


However, JB’s old life pursued him evenafter he had joined AfroReggae as aproducer. In 2002 he was kidnapped bymilitary policemen who had recognised himand who demanded a ransom. Junior movedquickly and found him before anything hadhappened; the authorities apologised.

That taught me the value ofAfroReggae’s work. Now I’m helpingothers to get out of the drug trade –we’ve got six out in the last six months.It’s a lot of work but it helps youreadjust to normal society. Whenyou are brought up in the favelas,drug trafficking is one of the onlyopportunities open to you, so you’vegot to occupy young people here withother kinds of activities. The greatestchallenge? Every day is the greatestchallenge; every day there’s more wecould be doing.

José Junior, Director of Grupo CulturalAfroReggae, defies the canard that no mancan multi-task gracefully. He takes urgentcalls, amends what is flashing at him onthe computer screen, responds to colleaguespoking their head round the door and isstill a perfect interviewee. He takes time toconsider my questions and his replies aredelivered at a comfortable enough pace for

Damian to translate back to me. His multi-tasking occurs, of course, on a much granderscale if one steps back to view just howcomplex a web AfroReggae weaves here inRio and beyond: with government officials,drug faction bosses, international charitablefoundations, local NGOs, record companies,rock venues - but always coming back tothe favelas and AfroReggae’s main raisond’être: to remove young people from drugtrafficking and to keep them out throughoffering them a range of creative andprofessional opportunities.

The main point, as Junior explains, is notto produce artists.

Not everyone in AfroReggae willbecome an artist but we want them touse the methodology they learn in theworkshops, be it capoeira or percussion,in their own lives, whether they becomea business owner or a doctor or lawyer.

It provides them with a secure andstructured environment, which in someimportant ways is similar to that of thedrug factions. Paul Heritage expands uponthis last point:

It is interesting how much they take onthe language and the methods of the

narco-cultura. You can see that to acertain extent in the way that theydress, in the attitude they bring totheir work, in the music and lyricsthey create. They have also taken onthe ways in which the drug traffickersinteract with the young people in theircommunity. They’ve learned strategies;they also work at 3.00 in the morningbecause the early hours are when thedrug business is active.


José Junior in his Rio office


Junior emphasises that the process ofchange can take a long time before theseyoung people can stand up to thetemptations of the narco-cultura andachieve true self-esteem and independence.One of the challenges of working withyoung people in the favela is theirdisinclination to invest time in theirdevelopment as Junior’s colleague, Patrícia,told me:

They have to hurry to survive, so theydon’t spend several years, four hours aday, five days a week doing somethinglike this without being very sure thatthere’ll be a return at the end of it. We try to make them believe everyminute of the day that the futurewill come if they invest in the present.

Even in the more cushioned culture of theUK, many arts and social organisationsworking with young people at risk face asimilar challenge. What makes AfroReggae’sapproach so effective lies partly in itsunusual emphasis on the individual’sdevelopment, according to Silvia Ramos:

In the world of NGOs and human rightsorganisations in Brazil, it is usually allabout the collective, but AfroReggae isalso about individual success and even

personal fame believing that this is theway they can draw young people awayfrom the drug dealers. In terms of thesesectors and, indeed, the traditional Left,this is totally new.

As a result of all this, AfroReggae has earnednot only the respect of young people in thefavela but of the two armed forces thatdominate their lives: the police and thedrug dealers. It seems that wearing theAfroReggae tee shirt – literally ormetaphorically – is to wear a bulletproofvest. In the case of the drug factions, asAnderson Sá commented to me, both theyand AfroReggae are “the same type ofpeople and from the same community” soperhaps it is not as odd as it might seemthat joining AfroReggae is seen by somedrug chiefs as a rather better option fortheir younger brothers and their sons thanbecoming a traficante. Junior smiles whenhe tells me:

Most of the leaders of the drugtraffic are in gaol so, when they seeAfroReggae on television doing concertsor dealing with conflict resolution, eventhey feel they would like to be part ofour group. “If I’d had this opportunityback then,” they think, “I’d be part ofAfroReggae”.

As we speak, secret negotiations are indeedunderway with the leadership of the RedCommand on behalf of its man in VigárioGeral. He is weary of the armed struggle forexistence and he wants out. It looks hopefulthat AfroReggae will make it happen.

Spreading the wordGiven AfroReggae’s stature within andbeyond the favelas and its hotlines to thetop echelons of both government and thedrug factions, it comes as a surprise to learnthat Junior and his team have no interestin setting up an AfroReggae franchise inorder to strengthen its influence; as Juniorwryly puts it, “We are not in the business ofsetting up branches like McDonalds”. There isno impulse towards empire building, at leastnot in any conventional business terms.

This reflects AfroReggae’s belief that thereis no formulaic solution to problems in thefavelas; on this basis, it does not take a one-size-fits-all approach in setting up centres indifferent favelas but allows the communitiesto shape what it needs from an organisationlike AfroReggae:

AfroReggae hasn’t got a ready-mademethodology. We adapt it to each placewe’re working in. We will see what thereal situation is and start from there.

The rationale 23


AfroReggae prefers to encourage and inspireothers to create their own ventures, theirown approaches. As another staff memberput it to me, rather than hand out fish,which would satisfy hunger temporarily,AfroReggae teaches fishing.

Self-sufficiencyThere is, nevertheless, a strongentrepreneurial streak in Junior, goingback to his days organising baile funkparties, and this has helped to strengthenAfroReggae’s presence in the youth ‘market’.The organisation is also more than willing tocourt big business, including internationalcorporations, in order to disseminate itsinfluence. Silvia Ramos points out that thisis linked to an unashamed desire to turn aprofit:

They value their local territory butat the same time they mix with thenational and the international, fromworking with Globo [the Braziliantelevision and media empire] tocorporations like Nike. They singabout Vigário Geral but they talkglobally. They talk to the markets.

Junior and his staff proudly boast thatalready a third of AfroReggae’s income isearned, largely through the activities of



it is at its most creative. For example,not having instruments, you can stilluse the same energy on an oilcan.

Changing perceptions of the favelaLooking outwards, AfroReggae is determinedto make the favela and its people visible(and audible) to the wider society and tochange mainstream attitudes towards peoplewho live there. Silvia is admiring of the wayit has now transformed the image of VigárioGeral and successfully conveyed the messagethat: “If you want to know what is in thehearts and heads of young people in thefavela, you have to listen to AfroReggae”:

This began when Caetano Veloso cameto Vigário Geral, then the most violentfavela in the country and, for the firsttime, the newspapers ran a story aboutthe community in the cultural pages,rather than in the crime section. In theeleven years since then, it hasn’t beenout of the cultural news.

This shift in media perceptions is verywelcome as AfroReggae, unsurprisingly,wants to spread its philosophy oftransformation and hope as widelyas possible – and now to the UK. Thisimminent visit to our shores is clearly themain thing on Junior’s mind when we meet.

This has come at a special moment forus - Banda Afroreggae has just launchedits new CD, Nenhum Motivo Explica aGuerra [Nothing Justifies War], and isappearing with the Rolling Stones; adocumentary about us, Favela Rising,may be on the shortlist for an Oscar.All this along with our visit to Englandwill create resources that will go backinto our work, here in the favelas.

He has been over to England a couple oftimes before and the main band did a coupleof gigs in Leeds and Manchester in 1999, butthis is a much bigger deal, in every sense.

This is one of our most strategic visitsoutside Brazil – we have been workingtowards it since 2004. It will be ameeting of cultures and it will includea huge mixture of activities: workshops,debates, films, performances…

One important element of it, he tells me,will be meeting the police.

Cultural mediationAfroReggae is one of the mostimportant groups among what I callthe ‘new mediators’. It provides a bridgebetween the favelas and the city, abridge across the divided city, the

The rationale 25

Banda Afroreggae. This does not mean, ofcourse, that they are conventional capitalists– perhaps, as Junior suggested to DamianPlatt, they are the vanguard of ‘the socialcapitalist movement’. Nor does it mean thatAfroReggae would accept sponsorship fromtobacco or drinks companies, for example,as Junior sees those as equally destructivedrugs to those decimating the favelas.AfroReggae is still an NGO but it is one that,thanks to recent legislation allowing NGOsto generate profit, is no longer so relianton handouts to survive. Its mission remainsthe same, as Junior explains to me:

It’s no good us playing at the Barbicanand losing our base. In 2004 we playedCarnegie Hall and had huge coveragein the New York Times – if we’re notcareful, we could become bourgeois!One way we have of not letting moneyor fame take over is by constantlyfocusing on getting more and morepeople out of the drug trade and onmediating conflict – that’s what givesus our energy and strength.

In any case, the main thing is never themoney, as percussionist Altair Martins says:

The funny thing its that whenAfroReggae has no money, that’s when


fractured city. They not only presentthe favela to the city, but the city tothe favela.

Silvia Ramos

It is intriguing to discover that one of JoseJunior’s obsessions is Shiva, the destructivemember of the Hindu trinity that alsoincludes Brahma the creator and Vishnuthe preserver. Shiva’s destructiveness is,however, fundamentally creative in itsrenewal of the world. As Lord of theDance, Shiva destroys ignorance and oldhabits and arouses energies that have laindormant. It is this idea of transformationthrough destruction that, one colleaguetells me, fascinates Junior:

Just as he likes working with the‘worst of the worst’, he likes going intosituations that don’t work and makingthem work.

One obvious example of a situation thatdidn’t work occurred in Vigário Geral inAugust 1993, in the days following themassacre. It takes a certain kind of lateralthinking to respond to such an outragewith music classes. Almost a decade later,when both the drug factions and the policeseemed to have accepted the value ofAfroReggae’s activities, a rogue policeman

shot and wounded an AfroReggae musicianas he entered the favela on business. Again,Junior acted in a totally unexpected – andequally strategic – way, approaching SilviaRamos with a proposal to work with themilitary police on a drumming and graffitiproject.

At first, Silvia thought she had misheardand that Junior must mean working ‘contra’,meaning ‘against’, the police, not ‘con’,meaning ‘with’. She had spent years helpingto document police abuses and struggling toteach police squadrons about human rightsand now she was about to discover a wholenew way of changing hearts and minds.

When the drums start, something magichappens that has nothing to do withgoing to human rights classes. I havegiven those classes to policemen andwomen for ten years, talking on behalfof social groups, but here they weretalking to each other through themediation of the drum.

As an academic, she has come up with apleasing thesis title for this phenomenon:the pedagogy of the drum. The drum standsfor all the creative arts and what can belearned through involvement in them. It also stands for the sheer physicality of


AfroReggae’s approach to artistic expression,the way in which their presence is felt. Itseemed fitting that of the two professoresleading the successful programme that tookplace with military police in Minas Gerais,one was Altair Martins, who as a teenagerhad been temporarily deafened in anunprovoked assault by a policeman. Theother was the musician whose shootinghad triggered the whole initiative.

The transformation of such projects was, inthis instance, made plainly visible, in the way

AfroReggae’s base in Vigário Geral


that the police learned to match rhythmswith the visitors, and even in the way theycarried themselves – adopting the streetswagger and attitude that anyone who hasencountered AfroReggae can only describeas cool. In achieving such trompe-l’oeuileffects – which is the slum kid, which thecop? – AfroReggae manages to break up thelogjam of stereotypes that bedevil bothgroups and reveals the fundamental truthof the situation, which Silvia describes thus:

Both groups – the police and the favelayouth – are marginalized in Braziliansociety. They may be at opposite polesbut they are both objects of prejudice.

On my own visit to Vigário Geral Iwitnessed something that would havebeen unthinkable even a year earlier –police officers strolling up to the musiciansfrom AfroReggae to discuss the fine detailsof a forthcoming joint concert, whereAfroReggae would be playing alongsidethe 911 police band. Getting to this pointwas remarkable in the heart of what hasbeen called a ‘pre-modern’ culture of tribalhonour and revenge.

Poking a flower into the barrel of apoliceman’s cocked rifle is a recurringsignifier of peaceful Sixties protest in the

West. AfroReggae draws on that spirit –embodied in that same period in Brazilby the hedonistic and anarchic playfulnessof Tropicália – but manages to go apractical step further. Its facilitation of PaulHeritage’s 2004 extraordinary production ofShakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra on the‘Gaza Strip’ – the shooting gallery betweenVigário and Parada de Lucas – showed howits appreciation of the potency of symboland metaphor is matched by its courage innegotiation, in this case persuading policeto stay away and rival drug factions to ceasehostilities, so that residents from the twofavelas were able to enjoy an unprecedented

18 days of peace as well as a uniquetheatrical and social experience.

It is as if, having been bloodily birthed inthe massacre in Vigário, AfroReggae mustkeep focusing on the wound which thatemblematic event uncovered in Rio’s socialfabric. They are drawn again and again tothe shifting frontlines and fault lines of thefractured city, seeking to meet the crisishead on and to bring transformation aboutat the points where it seems most unlikely.It’s a philosophy that applies as much toindividuals as to the community.

The rationale 27

Johayne Ildefonso, artistic director, at the office in Vigário Geral


Too much fightingToo many gunsNot enough loveIn the fast-growing slumsCapa de revista,folho do jornalSomos Afroreggaede Vigário GeralListen to your heartListen to your heartFeel the beatPeace and respectPeace and respectCapa de revista,folho do jornalSomos Afroreggaede Vigário Geral

Our own favela?

I cry when myfather criesI cry when mymother criesI cry when my sister criesI cry when mybrother criesI cry, cry, cryI can’t stop crying –Only way I’ll stopIs if people stop dyingCapa de revista,folho do jornalSomos Afroreggaede Vigário GeralThese lines were produced by individualyoung people working with AfroReggae DJMagic Julio and rapper Dinho at the newBlue Hut youth centre in Shoreditch in EastLondon. The chorus, of course, is in Brazilianand comes from an early song by Banda

The rationale 29

Afroreggae; it means ‘On the magazinecover/In the newspaper/We areAfroreggae/From Vigário Geral.’ The Blue Hutversion thus intertwines, in a kind of mutualtranslation, the experience of being youngin Shoreditch with the rallying cry of favelapride that is AfroReggae.

But is the situation in the UK reallycomparable to that in Brazil? To be morespecific, is the situation in Dalston, Hackneyor Moss Side in Manchester similar to thatin Vigário Geral or any of the other favelasdominated by the drug factions?

It puzzles some of those I spoke to fromthe West who are now working in Brazilthat we have here so many ‘disaffected’young people in the midst of one of thewealthiest societies in the world. Theirenvironment might not be ideal but it wasfar more comfortable and protected thanthe lawless and impoverished favela: whyweren’t they counting their blessings andpicking themselves up off the floor? UKsinger Estelle implied as much in a briefspeech to the young people after watchingtheir performance at the Blue Hut:

It’s up to you guys to take this and runwith it, because there are people worseoff in the world who are doing waybetter than us right now.

Left: Section of final graffiti piece created at the Arcola workshops


Nevertheless, as Dwight Bond, about to takeover as Chair of the new facility, remarked to me:

To be young at this precise moment inthe inner city is dangerous, for no otherreason than your age.

In the English inner city, the level oforganised violence is considerably lowerthan in the favelas but there are disquietingparallels between the growth of gun anddrug-dealing cultures in many of ourcommunities and the situation in the slumsof Rio. Politicians and sociologists, rappersand writers, teachers and youth workers, allkinds of pundits and observers agree thatwe are facing a major challenge in engagingwith many of our young people – and notjust those at immediate risk of offending orof victimisation. The increase in exclusionsof young people from mainstream educationis a worrying trend, particularly when thereis a similar surge in custodial sentences foryoung offenders. The Respect agenda isonly the Government’s latest attempt tocurb what it – and many voters – sees asan epidemic of yobbishness.

At fairly regular intervals since the SecondWorld War, the inner city has erupted,making visible the poverty and social

divisions that make so many lives thereintolerable. The disparities of wealth in Rio –the older favelas a mere block away fromthe hotels of Copacabana and Ipanema –may not appear so stark in the East Endof London or on the estates of Manchesterbut they are there, nonetheless, along withthe social costs. An area like Shoreditch, forexample, with its increasing culture of guncrime and drug abuse, is a stone’s throwfrom the heart of the City – a literallycapitalised city on the doorstep.

As a teacher of Applied Theatre at QueenMary College and an active member ofPeople’s Palace Projects, Ali Campbell oftenworks in the thick of such disadvantagedcommunities. Talking to youth arts workers,he admitted:

I don’t have to cross Mile End Road,where I am based, to have more workthan I or my students can possibly copewith, from the elders on the local estateto the local youth offending team.

There is a multiplicity of pressures on suchneighbourhoods, from poverty to racism todrug abuse. Nicole Bayes from ContactTheatre in Manchester told me about someof the young people who had participatedin AfroReggae’s percussion workshop there:



These young Somali people are on ourlist of ‘hard to reach’ groups. They aredisempowered – they don’t care aboutanything, including themselves a lot ofthe time. There is a cycle of repressionand domination that lies behind theseattitudes; our work is about breakingthat cycle.

The territoriality that is so lethal in Rio,where a favela like the Complexo do Mareis bloodily fought over by the three maindrug cartels, is, if in a less extreme way,reproduced in the postcode rivalries betweenyoung gangs in London, Manchester andother cities here.

Ekua Bayunu, who lives in Moss Side and works at Contact Theatre, confirmsshootings are rife in some parts ofManchester as, indeed, they have beenin Dalston, with its infamous ‘Murder Mile’even hitting the US press a few years ago.She has been present at a drive-by shooting,having to make a hasty exit from a mainstreet close to her home, when she saw andheard automatic weapons being used by andagainst local young men. A member of theblack community, she has also seen theforces of law and order overstep the mark:her daughter, whilst still a teenager, was lefthandcuffed on the floor of a police van for

over two hours before processing in a citycentre police station and her son, over sixfoot tall and 16, continues to be stoppedand searched regularly as he passes to andfrom college, work and his many sportingactivities.

I personally know teenaged young men inLondon’s inner boroughs who have to plantheir route to school very carefully, whohave been mugged several times, who havehad a relative stabbed to death in a skirmishon the streets, who have been shot. Ayouth arts worker involved in the Shoreditchprogramme told me that only recentlytwelve local young men had been releasedfrom Feltham (HMP Youth OffendersInstitution) after one of them stabbedand murdered a young person from aneighbouring area.

They were all sent down because theywouldn’t give him away, which wasawful for the community that were leftwith so many questions. It’s all aboutlow education, limited hope, the feelingof marginalisation.

So, the scale may be very different but thecause and effect – dramatic socio-economicinequities – are similar, as Patrícia fromAfroReggae, commented to me:

The fundamental problem is much thesame everywhere: the lack of money.People who are excluded from the goodthings that the city can offer don’talways understand why they areexcluded, but they feel it. Angerdevelops inside them but they don’t -can’t - rationalise it.

John Goodenough, a detached youth workerin Shoreditch, agreed that money was thekey issue:

Young people here are no different fromyoung people anywhere else: they wantmoney in their pocket. There is a streetculture of how you get that money,which I don’t judge them for. This typeof music culture – MC’ing, rapping –often runs hand-in-hand with the drugscene. The young people we work withwould love to make it in the musicbusiness – and there is a lot of talenthere – and then they’d leave this lifebehind. Until then, they keep bothactivities going.

One difference over here is that the statein its various forms – the police, the socialservices, the education authorities – canintervene and impose a measure of disciplineon the situation. In Rio, thanks again to

The rationale 31


their shackles when they appear in public(the tag making a telltale lump at theirankle).

One youth arts worker, speaking at theInsight review meeting at the end ofAfroReggae’s visit, identified what mightmark our situation out here, amidst ourrelative privilege, from that in the favela:

We don’t live in a favela but we haveserious problems. There is chaos inour schools and in our culture - wedon’t know where we are within ourown culture. We live in a heightenedstate of materialism, while the faveladosare living where there is still a sense ofcommunity and an understanding ofwhat human nature is about.

This might help to explain the evidentconfusion at the heart of a New Labourgovernment that has, on the one hand,supported and developed the holistic EveryChild Matters agenda to protect the childand, on the other, locked up more youngpeople and at a younger age than any otherG8 country bar the United States. Youngpeople suffering poverty and social exclusionmake up the overwhelming proportion ofthose in custody or under supervision; recentlegislation has effectively lowered the age

of criminal responsibility (age 10) to wellunder EU standards and instituted a systemof ASBOs to check and punish anti-socialbehaviour - both have resulted in thecriminalisation of new cohorts of troubledyoung people, who are, in the words ofthe Youth Justice Board, mostly victimsthemselves.

Imprisonment is, to put it mildly, ablunt response to this social tragedy butgovernment is not the only villain here. A recent report, Freedom’s Orphans: RaisingYouth in a Changing World (IPPR, 2006),shows that teenaged young people in theUK are both more likely to be socialisedamongst peer groups than within theirfamily and more likely to behave in ananti-social manner or to commit crime.Something must have decayed withinour social fabric to have allowed this tohappen on such a scale and we all havea responsibility for it – and for repairingthese communal bonds.

So, allowing for the difference in the scaleand intensity of the social problems in Rio,there is still, many believe, an urgent needfor intervention here of the kind providedby AfroReggae in the favela, not just sothat young people can be drawn awayfrom criminal and anti-social activity but


larger socio-economic injustice, the policeon the ground are more likely to be part ofthe violence and corruption than protectorsor defenders of the rule of law.

Nevertheless, as the Stephen Lawrence casedemonstrated, we share some of the samepolitical and social challenges. Althoughstreet crime may not be as rife as some ofour media and political leaders claim, theready use of knives and guns is on theincrease. Racism is not simply residual inpockets of the white working class estatesthat produced Stephen’s killers but, we havelearned, is institutionalised in our policeforce (which hasn’t yet brought those killersto justice) and, almost certainly, within otherbranches of government; even, some wouldclaim, in our classrooms.

There is also increasing concern over theerosion of sociability – most commonlypersonified in the media by sullen youngmen in hoodies. Government responds withever more draconian impulses towardsdisciplining ‘disaffected youth’. Unruly anddisturbed pupils are removed from schooland housed together in separate institutions.Young people who have been a nuisanceare awarded ASBOs – anti-social behaviourorders – and shamed in the local press, whilethose who have offended are forced to wear


in order to demonstrate to government thatthere are more imaginative and sustainableways of achieving this than increasingpunishment and extending custody. That is why the inclusion of a participatoryprogramme of workshops for young peopleat risk during AfroReggae’s visit to theUK in the early spring of 2006 was – andremains – so important. Not because theworkshops, which after all ranged over justa few days in each location, could transformthe young people who attended them, butbecause – in the symbolic fashion favouredby AfroReggae – they demonstrated thepotential for transformation.

The rationale 33


When Junior was asked at a presentation ofhis organisation at the Barbican Centre howAfroReggae selected the young people itworked with in the favela, he replied:

Those who are considered the mostviolent and feared.

He was echoed by Altair Martins, leadpercussionist, in the course of an eloquentoff-the-cuff speech he made to artists andyouth workers at the end of AfroReggae’svisit to the UK:

Always work with the ‘worst’ kid.Always go for the young personthat nobody wants to work with.

Working with the ‘worst’

Watching the various groups under theAfroReggae banner perform – from AfroLata, a percussion group that uses tincans, to the Cantagalo circus group – it iseasy to overlook the fact that theprofessionalism and energy on show are notthe product of a Fame-style academy forhighly motivated and often well supportedstudents but have been carved out of themost unlikely material. AfroReggae’sapproach is to try to redirect the vastamount of energy that the more challengingyoung people have into more creative andpositive channels. Their belief is that, if thiskind of young person is given responsibility,he or she will – as Altair puts it – “use theirleadership in a good way”.

The workshops 35

“The first thing we saw in Hackney Free was a fight,so we knew we had a lot of work to do. It remindedme of what we had done with young people in prisonin Brazil and it made me even more keen to workwith you. By the end of the second day, some of theboys were having fun, pretending to fight over aninstrument, and that showed us that we were alreadyhaving some effect.”

Left: Graffitti workshop at the Blue Hut, Shoreditch

Silva, circus tutor, in a Shoreditch workshop

Altair Martins, addressing Hackney school students


This principle of working with the ‘worst’ isa methodology that our own most effectiveand inspirational teachers and workshopleaders would recognise and pursue, buttoo often the arts sector as a whole failsto engage as strategically or as deeply asit could with those ‘worst’ young peoplewho are at the greatest risk of involvementin crime as perpetrators or victims. Oneof the most important ambitions forAfroReggae’s first major project in the UKwas to contribute to the growing expertisein this area of work and to give it a higherand professional profile.

People’s Palace Projects secured theinvolvement of cultural organisations inDalston, Shoreditch, the City of London,Manchester and Oxford in the hope that aprogramme of workshops run by AfroReggaein these places would help to encourage,develop and challenge approaches to thisvital area of work, perhaps inspiring newways of engaging with young people wefind hard to engage with.

In terms of those programmes run outsidethe formal education system, Dwight Bondand his colleagues in Shoreditch, SarahSansom in Dalston and Ekua Bayunu inManchester were natural partners forAfroReggae, for they all made a point of

targeting those young people who are oftenconsidered the ‘worst’ in our classrooms andon our streets, who are in the most troubleand who could, of course, cause the mosttrouble to the rest of us. When I talked toDwight, he summed up the crucial issue:

It’s the type of people you reach that’simportant. We could have filled theseworkshops easily, but I don’t want aworkshop full of people who are alwaysgoing to volunteer - as I used to whenI was younger. I want the ones whohardly stick their hands up, not theones who do the school play or alwaysgo to workshops… We’ve young peopleparticipating here, especially in thecircus session, who have attentiondeficit disorder or learning difficultiesand there’s no greater reward thanseeing them arrive at the beginningof the workshop, stay till the end andturn up the next day for more.

The next chapter examines the threeworkshop programmes in more detail,setting them in their local context, beforegoing on in later chapters to exploreAfroReggae’s own practice and itsimplications for our work in this country.That exploration was aided by the decisionof People’s Palace Projects to set up the

Insight programme to run alongside theworkshops and performances in order to“give people working in the areas of arts,education, human rights and policy-makinga unique opportunity to see how AfroReggaeengaged with young people at risk of gangculture, drugs and gun crime through thearts”. Their reflections inform my analysisof what made this international interventionso valuable.



The workshops 37


Three workshop programmes

Arcola Theatre, DalstonAfroReggae workshops 21-25 February 2006

Since it was opened in 1999, the ArcolaTheatre has helped to regenerate itsimmediate area in Dalston; this usedto be a red-light district. The artisticprogramme is intended to relate to whatis going on around it; Crime and Punishmentin Dalston, a dramatisation of Dosteyevsky’sclassic novel, was one of the Arcola’s firstcritical and popular successes. More recentlyit has presented a musical, Release the Beat,aimed at the ‘ecstasy generation’. Accordingto Ben Todd, the General Manager, thisartistic policy is based on the belief that itis more effective to reach and develop newaudiences through programming rather thanputting already slim resources into outreachschemes, with all the bureaucracy those canentail. This comes in part from the success,pre-funding days, of its on-site communitytheatre work with local Turkish and Kurdishpeople.

When I spoke to Ben, he thought that oneway of avoiding a split between mainstreamtheatre and community programming wouldbe to appoint a resident professional writeralready committed to working with youngpeople; since then, the Arcola has been

promoting director-led youth workcollaborating with writers from the NationalTheatre Connections programme. This iscomparable to bringing in AfroReggae torun workshops, he feels: “Young peoplerespond better to artists with a highprofessional reputation.”

The proposal was for AfroReggae to runa week-long residency for local youngpeople aged 15-25 who would not normallyaccess arts activities or mix with each other.The two programmes, one on Braziliangraffiti skills and the other on drumming,would lead up to a ‘free and informal’performance of the work for family andfriends on the Saturday. Apart fromempowering and inspiring young peoplethrough these workshops and raisingawareness of the risks involved in drugs,guns and gang culture, it was hoped thatthis project would support the growth ofArcola Theatre’s youth provision anddiversify their young people-focusedactivities.

To that end, Arcola had been in touch withContact Theatre from Manchester. Duringthe run up to this event, Contact sharedits model of how to run a theatre centredaround young people and both venues eachappointed two ‘young ambassadors’ who

would visit each other's cities as a wayof sharing practice and building bridgesfor the future. Crucially, Contact alsoindirectly provided Sarah Sansom, whohad worked in Manchester and who wasnow commissioned by People’s PalaceProjects to produce the Arcola workshops.

The amount of groundwork that has to bedone to make the most of an interventionlike this is considerable, which mightexplain why it is so seldom attempted. In herdetailed evaluation of the workshops at theArcola Theatre and in an interview with me,Sarah Sansom gave a thorough account ofhow she set about recruiting participants.

It’s really rare that young peoplecome on their own – not to comewith at least a couple of friends is toventure outside their safety zone. That,of course, relates to the notion of gangsamong young people. I would have likedto bring young people from differentareas, from different gangs togetherfor this project but that would haverequired a lot more interventionfrom the local community. WithoutAfroReggae coming here ahead of theworkshops, there was just me and KathVeith – a voluntary trainee producer –and the two young ambassadors from

The workshops 39


groups were contacted, mainly in theimmediate area of Dalston, Stoke Newingtonand Clapton. The response was mixed buta few – Springfield Boys Club, ClaudiaJones Organisation, Balik Arts, Hoxton Hall,Immediate Theatre and the QueensbridgeTrust – agreed to a visit from Sarah andthe ambassadors. Young people wereencouraged to attend taster sessions atthe Arcola in January.

By the end of January other partnershipshad emerged. Although schools and collegeswere not prioritised, Hackney Learning Trust,the education provider for the borough,became a key partner; as well as offeringalternative provision to mainstreameducation for young people on the vergeof exclusion, it also offers support servicesto those who cannot access schoolsprovision. Centrepoint, Tower HamletsEmployment Action Zone, Clapton GirlsSchool and Connexions (Westminster andLewisham) all got in touch when theyreceived Sarah’s flyer, as they already hadyoung people they knew would benefitfrom participating in the project.

All this was not enough, though, forrecruiting specifically for young peopleto participate in the graffiti workshops. As Sarah wrote in her report, having

the Arcola. Although I did recruit a lotof young people who are at risk in thisarea, as a white woman it was difficultfor me and occasionally I did feelunwelcome.

The project aim was to reach as many youngpeople as possible to attend the introductorysessions at the Arcola Theatre and out ofthese to engage at least 45 of them toparticipate in the workshop week -ideally 15 in graffiti and 30 in drumming. By sustaining their involvement over thecourse of the project, Sarah hoped toencourage both individual and groupdevelopment.

First, she undertook a research anddevelopment mapping exercise to build aclear picture of existing youth provision foryoung people at risk aged 15-25 in Hackney.

Two priority areas were identified. Thefirst was organisations working directlywith young people at risk of drugs,guns and gang culture. The second wasorganisations engaging with young peoplethrough innovative arts and culturalactivities, especially those bringing togetherthe diverse communities of Hackney.

Youth service provision within Hackneyturned out to be not immediatelycomprehensible, so Sarah met with anumber of departments to find out whowas best placed to support this project. At Hackney Youth Services, this includedthe gun and knife crime prevention team,the anti-social behaviour team and the drugaction team, as well as the Head of YouthServices. Sarah also saw Hackney YouthOffending Team, Hackney Crime PreventionScheme and Daniel House Pupil ReferralUnit. Each department and agency waspositive about the aims and objectives ofthe AfroReggae project but preferred todelegate recruitment to staff who workeddirectly with young people: youth workers,community safety officers, teachers and soon. This made it hard for Sarah to monitorwhat was being achieved in termsof contacting young people.

Having recruited two young ambassadors –Zoe and Conrad – from Arcola Youth Theatreto promote the theatre and the AfroReggaeproject back in December, Sarah decided towork with them to come up with strategiesthat would be effective in engaging theirpeers in less formal settings. Alternativeprovision for young people in Hackney isbewilderingly complex, too, and nearly 20



consulted the Anti-Social Behaviour Team,the street was the next place to look.

Through the research and developmentphase I had identified that many of theconflicts that exist between gangs inHackney were being symbolised throughgraffiti tagging around the borough,with gang names and postcodereferences defining areas that arecontrolled by particular groups,feeding the idea that opposing gangsor unknown individuals deemed unsafeto enter such areas. Examples of thistagging are seen around KingsmeadEstate, Lower Clapton and Springfield.

Research into the London undergroundgraffiti scene uncovered that manyyoung people were not keen to takepart in ‘public’ projects due to the riskof their identity and therefore illegalactivities being revealed. Trust withthese individuals had to be built inanother way, by talking with knowledgeabout the scene, referencing artiststhey would know about and relatingAfroReggae to them in the context ofgraffiti styles and language they wouldrecognise.

The workshops 41

Sarah visited open mic hip hop nights andfound a shop where those in the know couldbuy paint and materials for graffiti work.She sourced hip hop culture networksinformation on the Internet, visited people’shouses and asked around areas wheregraffiti was visible. She succeeded in findinga diverse range of individuals who were allwary at first, but who became interestedin taking part once they learned that other‘writers’ they respected were gettinginvolved.

In the final phase of recruitment, two tastersessions were held at the Arcola Theatre atthe end of January, informal drop-in sessionslasting three hours, where young peoplecould come in to see the Arcola, meetproject staff and the Arcola ambassadors, see the AfroReggae music videos and findout more about the project to see if theywanted to sign up. A week or so before theproject was due to start, the documentaryon AfroReggae, Favela Rising, was screenedat the Arcola – everyone who attendeddecided to get involved.

Over the week of workshops, it became clearto Sarah that the young people participating“represented in many different ways thevarious outreach routes that had been triedand tested in order to engage young people

at risk”. And, seemingly by chance, the size ofthe group that took shape over the courseof that week matched what had been aimedfor at the beginning; the workshopswere full.

*Just under 60 people expressed a directinterest in the project and put their nameon the text mailing list. There were 16AfroReggae workshops with an average of18 people at each session. The final publicperformance was watched by over 140people. Perhaps reflecting the diversity ofthe area, roughly 60 per cent of participantsdescribed themselves as Black (or BritishBlack) and 25 per cent as White; the restwere ‘mixed’ or ‘other’. The gender splitbetween those interested and those whoactually took part was the same: 36per cent female, 64 per cent male.


days, culminating in a gala performance,featuring graffiti, carnival, rap and spokenword contributions, to celebrate the openingof the Blue Hut, a newly built multi-activityyouth centre.

Chris Westwood – ‘West’ to her colleaguesand friends – is Director of the Citizenshipand Respect Agenda for the ShoreditchTrust. Her work, she says, is 50 per centarts, 50 per cent youth and (she smiles)two per cent sport. A hugely experiencedtheatre and festival director both here andin her native Australia, West came to theShoreditch Trust in 2002. She is clear aboutthe nature of the challenge that faces it:

Shoreditch Trust/The Blue HutAfroReggae workshops7-9 March 2006The Shoreditch Trust is one of 39 New Dealfor Communities programmes in the country,a scheme targeted at the most deprivedareas that was funded to the tune of£60 million in total. Voted the best suchprogramme because of its pioneering workin tackling regeneration, it was in Year Sixof its ten-year life at the time of this project.

Most arts, sport and leisure activity in theShoreditch Trust area of East London isprovided by the voluntary or not-for-profitsector. Local people can rarely afford topay for their participation, kit or fees, so toovercome barriers to participation it requiresconsiderable subsidy and an innovativeapproach. Roxie Curry, whose main job isrunning Shoreditch Audiences, a three-yearaudience development programme,explained to me that the Trust had boughtproperty for community use which wouldalso generate income to continue its work:

In one case, we have bought an oldschool building in Hoxton Square,which has a Jamie Oliver-styletraining restaurant run by local people,affordable business space, again forlocal people, and two flats on the top

floor, the rent from which goes backinto the Trust.

Another bright idea, The Digital Bridge, isan attempt to create the largest broadbandcommunity in Europe. Around 23,000 peoplelive in the area and the intention is totackle ‘digital exclusion’ by hooking theresidents up to the Internet via a set-topbox that has turned their televisions intocomputers. As this might suggest, theShoreditch Trust may be community ledbut it is commercially aware.

The proposal was for AfroReggae to run artsworkshops for local young people over three


DJ workshop


The number one problem in the area ispoverty – out of poverty comes single-parent families, teenage pregnancies,drug abuse, low educational attainment,not to mention boredom and no moneyto do anything. It’s not so bad herein terms of gangs, but that’s partlybecause there is no obvious place forthem to form – there’s no secondaryschool, for example. But we havehad kids here used as runners fordrug dealers.

West told me that the local council providesonly one youth worker (with an office-basedmanager) for the entire area, which is afrankly untenable situation, given the socialproblems. The only money that comes infor work with young people is PAYP(Positive Activities for Young People)funding, which is channelled through fromcentral government to the voluntary sector,and that which is raised by voluntary sectorgroups. Furthermore, from what Dwighttold me, it appears that most of the facilitiesthat were around for young people whenthe first Blue Hut opened (in a portakabinin Hoxton 30 years ago) have long sincebeen closed down or redeveloped.

I’m a local resident. I used to go tothe Blue Hut, which was exactly whatit sounds like. There was a lot moreprovision for young people then – therewas a centre here, one round the corner,the Lions Club, and two leisure centres.All but the Lions Club have been shutdown and flats have been built wherethey were. I’ve no idea why; it justseemed to fall apart. Compared tomy generation, young people are moremarginalised. The media doesn’t help – if you are young and wear a hoodie,you’re automatically bad. Thingsare tougher for them. Even thoughthere are opportunities, they’re notencouraged to take advantage of them.A facility like this is just what they need.

It has taken six years for the developers,Peabody Trust, in partnership with theShoreditch Trust and local families, to createthe new centre, which - after consultationwith young people in the area - includes amusic studio, an IT suite, an outdoor multi-sports pitch and a children’s play area, aswell as provision of a range of services,from young parent counselling to homeworksupport and music business development.

43

*I seized on this opportunity whenPaul told me about it. I knewAfroReggae would be somethingcompletely outside the experience ofyoung people here, so they couldn’t sayit was ‘boring’. I wouldn’t have had justanybody opening the Blue Hut for us.

‘West’

AfroReggae were engaged to run workshopsin circus, DJing and mixing, theatre andgraffiti; some sessions were held in the newcentre itself, others at Hoxton Hall, a youtharts venue, and at the Lion Club. The hopewas to attract up to 60 local young people.Recruitment began in January 2006 and itincluded daily outreach (by the YMCA andBlue Hut Committee) in the Wenlock Barnand Murray Grove area to target some ofthe hardest to reach young men. A £25music voucher was offered to anyone whoattended the whole programme. Even then,according to Roxie, only in the ten daysleading up to the project did young peoplestart to put their names down.

From what youth workers and youngpeople tell us, some young people arereluctant to commit in case “somethingbetter comes along”.

The workshops


of settings, including the streets. In termsof gun and drug culture and gangs, Ekuabelieves that young people are doublyat risk – of victimisation as much asinvolvement – and the theatre works withyoung people who have been served ASBOsand who are tagged or excluded fromeducation.

The point of this work, Ekua explained tome, was not about ‘rescuing’ young peopleso much as empowering them to handle therisks they face. Although some of the workhas to happen where the young peopleare, getting them into the theatre itselfis important for at least two reasons. Itprovides a neutral space in what Ekuacalls “a ghettoised city”, so it is not partof fought-over territory. Secondly, with itslively programme of events and its studioand screening facilities, it represents thewider creative world which young peoplehave a right to enjoy and be part of.

The proposal was for AfroReggae to runpercussion, capoeira, graffiti and physicaltheatre workshops at the theatre for fourdays; on the evening of the last day and onSaturday evening, the band would performa public concert for an audience of localyoung people, including the workshopparticipants.

A further incentive was offered for theyoung person in each workshop who showedthe most commitment and development:

We’re giving iPods to the four youngpeople who show the best citizenship – as well as certificates proving to theirfamilies or whoever that they didn’tnick them.

*45 local young people signed up to theprogramme, half of whom (23) saw itthrough to completion. The rest eitherdropped out completely or attendedonly one or two workshops. Most (18)participants were from black and minorityethnic backgrounds; three of them camefrom ‘border’ areas of Shoreditch.

Contact Theatre, ManchesterAfroReggae workshops 7-10 March 2006

Contact Theatre has a nationally recognisedreputation for delivering innovative artsactivities, performances and continuingprofessional development for young peopleaged 13-30, who come from a range ofbackgrounds and cultures. It is located inthe city centre, adjacent to but not withindistinct districts within Manchester: MossSide, Hulme, Russholme and Ardwick.

Contact’s Creative Development Departmentis the hub of the company’s participatory,outreach and education work. Its work isaimed at helping the widest possible rangeof young people to participate in and enjoytheatre-based arts. Having a backgroundherself in visual arts, Ekua Bayunu, Head ofCreative Development, believes that dramaand theatre-based skills can support thedelivery of all artforms: “Even a DJ is aperformer.”

Contact uses a variety of outreachapproaches to to engage with people atrisk, including collaboration with youngoffender agencies and community groups,and, periodically, off-site teams of artiststo work with young people in a variety

44 From the favela to our manor


45The workshops

AfroReggae performs at Contact Theatre


When theory turns to practice and the tableis covered in pens and paper, various sourcematerials and photographs of other pieces,torn out of Brazilian graffiti magazines,Chico and his colleagues encourage theparticipants to experiment and to be boldin drawing and sketching out ideas thatmight be used to create a large piece forthe performance at the end of the week. While addressing the group as a whole fromtime to time, explaining, for example, theimportance of ‘cleanness’ in the final piece,Chico and the others work closely withindividuals. One self-critical beginner isadvised “not to be ashamed of anything youdo here”. Another’s drawing is held up withthe warm comment that, “This is not reallygraffiti-like, but the idea behind it isextraordinary.”

As the session draws to a close an houror so later, with everyone having achievedsomething on paper, Chico turns to thequestion of what they all, as a group, willbe aiming for by the end of the week. Hepins up on the wall three or four picturesthat might provide the basis of the piecethat they will spray-paint on a vast foldingframe, which has been specially constructed.This will form a backdrop for theperformance by percussionists who arebeing trained in the other workshop here.

The space they are working in this afternoonis, Chico declares, very like the rooms thatthey themselves started life in. It is thestudio at the Arcola, reached down a narrowset of steps in the alley alongside the maintheatre building. It is a cross between atheatrical ‘black box’, a large storeroomand a basement club. Around 15 youngpeople have arrived and after everyone hassettled down around a trestle table, weexplain in turn who we are and why we arehere. A few of the older ones seem to beexperienced writers, who are keen to learnmore about Brazilian styles, the rest amixture of complete beginners and thosewho have not gone much further thantagging (scrawling signatures or slogansrather than drawing ‘pieces’ or murals).Several refer to the film they have seenof AfroReggae – Favela Rising, one saying:

I can relate to where AfroReggae arecoming from – they have gone througha struggle.

Visiting a workshop

Another says that she is interested inlearning about capoeira; she herselfpractises Japanese ju-jitsu. Although notan especially lively group – this is the firsttime many have met each other – there isa sense of anticipation in the air. Chicolaunches into an introduction, with FábioSantos supplying the translation (he and ahandful of other excellent UK-basedBrazilian speakers hired by People’s PalaceProjects proved crucial to this project). To its quiet amazement, Chico tells thegroup that graffiti is legal where he works,that it is now widely accepted as an art formin Brazil and that police officers are amongstthose that AfroReggae has taught to creategraffiti. He also makes a careful distinctionbetween taggers and artists, explaining thatthe latter not only express themselvesthrough graffiti but can make money outof it as well. Unlike taggers, AfroReggae’sgraffiti artists are not isolated from societybut able to draw public attention to theirtalents and to their political and social views.

46

AfroReggae’s team hits the ground running. Withintwenty-fours hours of arrival, the artists are beginningto appear at the Arcola – among them Chico and Aira,the graffiti tutors.



We have to put our egos asidesometimes and now we have to decidewhich of these images is going to workbest as a group painting. We alsohave to consider what is practicallyachievable in the time we have left.

A choice is made and over the next fewdays the piece takes shape, not withoutdebate and dissension but which, in the end,provides a colourful and positive Hackneybackdrop for the drummers.

The other workshop, led by Altair, feels – and sounds - very different. Concentrationon the rhythms that Altair and his twocolleagues demonstrate results not in quietexperimentation but on a pounding responsethat is practically deafening in this confinedspace. Percussion has been a difficult sellhere – a DJing or MC’ing workshop wouldhave been much easier to recruit for – butthe group that has come, largely youngerand with more young women than thegraffiti workshop, proves a spectacularsuccess right from the start. Altair and theothers exude a discipline that is easier andmore pleasurable to respond to than resist,as I can personally verify from my owninvolvement in several AfroReggaepercussion workshops. There may be a finetheoretical line between barking orders

47

military-style and shouting out commandsAfroReggae-style, but in practice it could notfeel more empowering to be drumming tothe same beat as Altair.

These workshops and those that followedin Shoreditch, Manchester and elsewheredemonstrated the speed with whichAfroReggae succeeded in engaging youngpeople at all levels of experience and ofmaturity. In the following chapters, thistalent is explored from a variety of anglesin an attempt to draw out which aspectsof AfroReggae’s approach might be mostuseful to practitioners and policy makershere. I suggest that there are four mainingredients: authenticity (AfroReggae asrole models); purposefulness (arts as ameans of making a real difference, bothto oneself and to society at large); intimacy(embracing the whole person); andavailability (a 24/7 commitment). Eachof these themes is explored in more detailin the following four sections.

This is by no means the whole story,of course; there is a range of factorsthat contributed to the success of theprogramme that could each take up achapter here: the artists’ self-possession and generosity; the nature of the chosenactivity and its relation (or not) to youth

culture; the approach of showing ratherthan telling, and modelling rather thanteaching; the creation of personal andgroup space through creative activity;the encouragement of ideas from theyoung people and the subtle disciplinethat structured their creative work; theirrelevance of the ‘process vs. product’debate; the role played by host organisationsand youth workers.

Above all, in terms of the efficacy ofartist interventions in non-arts settings,the project confirmed that artists canearner greater respect and have moreimpact through an equal engagementwith young people – through sharing ratherthan making a fetish of their expertise.

The workshops


So, when we think about making money,we are trying to balance the attentionbetween the drug dealers and us. Now,we get even more attention than thedealers. We are role models because weinvest in 600 reais trainers. We have twocostumes – the one we wear in concertsand the one we wear when we go to thedrug-selling points to recruit youngpeople. The first thing they’ll notice aremy trainers. Now, you can make asmuch money as you like but you’ll neverhave these trainers because we travelabroad and by the time we get back toBrazil, they still haven’t appeared here.This is the kind of impact we want tomake. Then, we’ll work backwards fromthere. Tell them it’s better to buy 100reais trainers and spend the rest on

Keeping it real

better food and housing. It’s slow work.”

As Altair’s analysis suggests, AfroReggae is,truly, ‘keeping it real’, and this might go along way in trying to account for the waythat AfroReggae artists gain the attentionand trust of troubled young people inthe workshops they run in the inner cityeverywhere from Hackney to Harlem. Theyare authentic role models – “… We lead, or have led lives like yours.” One teacherwrote this about AfroReggae’s impact on her students:

Beyond the use of arts and creativity inschools, the very presence of talentedperformers who have also fought hardto make their way in the arts world canhave a powerful effect on students.

The analysis 49

“Trainers like those we are wearing today are all that itwould take for a young person to become a drug dealer.Young people need role models – role models that lookand act like them. In the small world of the favela,the role model is the drug dealer because he’s got themoney, the respect, the power over who lives and whodies – and a pair of trainers that cost 600 reais [£125].

Left: Chico and Aira, graffiti tutors

Above: DJ workshop in Shoreditch


in care. It is a tremendous challenge for anyadult or any artist to gain their trust andtheir commitment to change. Once thathas happened, then the potential for thatchange to be sustained is enormous.An obvious comparison is the commonexperience most of us have of learningto love a subject at school purely becauseone particular teacher has inspired us, notthrough facts, but with we might call theircharisma.

From Junior on down, AfroReggae is fullyaware of how important to the success ofits work is its members setting their ownexamples of how to live.

We are the role models for the youngpeople we are looking after andwhatever we do, they’ll copy us.

In the favela, there are too many negativemodels for behaviour, as LG, AfroReggae’ssinger, vividly recalled:

Today we are examples in ourcommunity but when I was a child,growing up in Vigário Geral, my idolswere the drug barons. My friends and I would find bits of wood for guns andpretend talcum powder was cocaine.Now, when we play music, children findtins in the street to bang on.

As much as the students benefited fromthe actual activities, I had the sense thatthey were particularly engaged with theindividual tutors, as role-models andas people with whom they could sharesimilarities (disenfranchised upbringing,gun crime, racially stratified societies)as well as learn about differences(cultural background, a foreign country,musical and artistic traditions etc).

In using the arts to engage with troubled

young people in the UK, the professionalfocus is most often placed on the processesinvolved, on creating the right conditionsand on developing the most effectiveworkshop techniques. The workshopsthemselves must have clear aims andobjectives and, wherever possible,measurable outputs and outcomes thatcan be measured and evaluated.

Artists are increasingly choosing to getinvolved in this work, as part of their ownprofessional development and very oftenout of a heartfelt commitment to socialregeneration. Their personal origins andexperience and their current circumstancesmay be very different from those of theyoung people they will be working with.Most likely, they will not live in the sameneighbourhood. None of this is consideredparticularly relevant, as it is generallyassumed that the right political and socialattitudes and the right kind of training canprepare them for a successful workshopencounter.

Yet, arguably, the success of this workdepends ultimately on the strength of thepersonal relationship between the workshopleader and the individual young person,especially when that young person has beenfailed by adult after adult, at home, in class,



Many people who met AfroReggae on theirvisit here commented on how ‘cool’ they allwere - another way, perhaps, of describingtheir charisma – but it is important to notethat this kind of cool is no urban affectation.Members of AfroReggae have a robust senseof self, grounded in a self-discipline that isforeign to most young people in the ghetto.As Silvia Ramos points out, AfroReggae is“a group full of rules”:

The ‘fundamentalists’ of AfroReggaedon’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t do drugs.The biggest challenge they face is takingyoung people from a world where theycan do everything to one where theycan do nothing – but where they havethe most important thing: their liberty.

Several people noticed, like Sarah Sansom,that the peculiar ability of AfroReggae toengage with young people at risk comesfrom their authenticity. They are not fakingit; they come from the favela, they haveovercome the odds and freed themselves.Little wonder, then, that so many youngpeople long to join them, who define andidentify themselves through having thesame kind of experiences.

It was definitely worth bringingAfroReggae over, people who’ve come

51The analysis

from an even more impossible situationand doing something amazing withtheir lives. Their philosophy is about not taking drugs, not smoking andso on but it is also about being reallystrong, talented and cool. We don’toften get those sorts of role models inthis country.

This is not just an arts project but alifestyle choice.


Chico made this announcement at thelaunch of a new facility for local youngpeople in Shoreditch, the Blue Hut. Readingit cold, it could be the windy, unhelpfulrhetoric beloved of stars who have madeit from rags to riches - look at howsuccessful I am - you, too, could be likeme – but everything that had happenedover the last few days of workshops haddemonstrated how genuine the appealmight be to the young people who hadgathered now to perform carnival, rap anddance and show their artwork to around150 people from their community.

At the Amnesty International presentationa week or so earlier, Altair had similarlyencouraged young people in Hackney withthis remark:

Keeping it positive

The message is that, if you believe inyourselves and in each other, you’ll gofar. We are living proof of that. Fightfor this freedom, don’t fight each other.

AfroReggae seeks in its work not to directyoung people or, even less, to turn them intoprofessional artists but to show them what‘empowerment’ might actually look like inthe face of overwhelming odds. By theircontinuing commitment to struggle intheir own communities, the membersof AfroReggae embody an alternativeto despair in a way that an outsider todeprivation could never achieve. This hadbeen articulated very clearly two weeksearlier, when Chico was leading the graffitiworkshop at the Arcola Studios in Dalston:

Two years ago, I was living in povertywith a dressmaker mother and a fatherwho was a builder. My reality was the

53

“We are bringing a message from the favela to thewhole of humanity. For 21 years Vigário Geral wasknown as the most violent place in Brazil. If we can turnour world around and do what we do, all these youngpeople can do anything they want in life.”

The analysis

John Goodenough, youth worker in Shoreditch


drug traffic and gun culture. I steppedout of it but I have friends who arestill connected. When my mother died,I had to learn how to look after myself. I had no home, no money – not evenenough for a bus fare – so, if anyonewas going to become pessimistic orbitter, it would have been me. So don’ttell me you’re not able to think ofsomething positive, something youdream about for your community.

This impassioned appeal came at what Chicocalled “the most important moment so far inthis project”:

We could be here now, painting themost beautiful art, but that wouldn’tbe of any use if we weren’t consciouslythinking and talking about our lives.

The interruption of the process – in thiscase, designing individual contributions to agroup ‘piece’ (or mural), sketching out ideasand images – was necessary to clear the airof a simmering disagreement. A number ofthe participants had questioned the brief,which was to produce a ‘positive’ depictionof life in Hackney. For them, the reality ofbeing in this part of London was not a causefor celebration; furthermore, the wholetradition and philosophy of graffiti here,

they argued, was adversarial – to challengeand provoke the authorities.

Behind what was, on the face of it, areasonable position, Chico and the otherAfroReggae artists seemed to have senseda deep-seated pessimism, both personal andpolitical; at one point, one of the young menreferred to the way that one of the biggestprotests ever staged in this country hadfailed to dissuade the government fromentering the war against Iraq; if somethingas momentous as this gesture could notchange things, then how powerless peoplehere, especially young people, must be.

In relating this national event to a similarsense of helplessness over the culture ofdrugs and guns that was closer to home,a culture which, he argued, “controls us”as much as the government does, theyoung man articulated a profound senseof disempowerment – which is morewidespread than those outside the UKmight expect, and not just amongst thepoorer classes. Paradoxically, it may bethat what Richard Reeves has called the“nationalisation of responsibility” in thiscountry is partly to blame. In relying moreand more on the state and its agents totake on the functions of the traditionalcommunity and the private citizen, in



and we became celebrated in theneighbourhood and well beyond. That doesn’t mean that we’re the‘goodies’ or that we work within thesystem, but it does mean that we cannow engage society with our workinstead of simply rejecting it.

We think we are the excluded buteveryone’s watching us. We can beeither the solution or the problem. I understand that different communitieshave different problems; that you havedifferent problems from us. But, comingfrom outside, we can see somethingpositive about your community – andyou are that community. In this muralwe are making, people should seesomething they are not expecting fromyou – something positive. You willtake your work further if you think ofyourselves as leaders in your community.

It is an attitude – doing the unexpected -that is carried through all of AfroReggae’swork. Silvia Ramos, for example, is struck bythe way in which the group tackles thecomplex and emotive issue of racism inBrazil – speaking of it “with a smile on itsface”, by celebrating black culture ratherthan playing helpless victim.

The debate in the graffiti workshop thenturned to the artform itself and to a further– fruitful – misunderstanding. What someparticipants heard Chico say was thatmaking graffiti gave him joy in his bleakexistence in the favela; that, one participantexclaimed, was exactly what he felt. But hewas swiftly corrected. Producer SarahSansom, facilitating the session, explainedwhat Chico had actually meant:

He is trying to find joy in everythingthrough graffiti and what he’s sayingwith it, not just in making it.

Altair Martin’s assessment of the participantsin his percussion workshop at Contact

everything from supporting our elders totackling anti-social behaviour, we may havelearned, in effect, to be individually helplessin the face of social challenge and risk.

Coming from a society that could not befurther from a ‘nanny state’, AfroReggae hasa different and, ironically, a more optimisticperspective on the possibility of turning the‘worst’ people and situations around – andof the possibility of political change itself.For Chico and his colleagues, you canrecognise just how much the odds arestacked against you but still, he says, havethe possibility of changing things: “Wehave the power to say no.”

Instead of a disconnection between theexcluded individual and a controllingculture ‘out there’, Chico sees somethingmore integrated and hopeful:

Where we come from, taggers areconsidered vandals, the police arrestthem and nothing comes of theirwork. We ourselves are from a taggingbackground but, in order to carry onpainting in the streets, we had to workwith our community. Because of thatshift of attitude, we had great supportfrom them – materials, space to paint –

55The analysis


you can’t touch that person until theyare 16? If these people have beenworking successfully in this area ofwork and there are enough of us withthem in the room, we have to trustthat this is coming from the right place. I believe it’s actually more beneficialfor young people to have this kind ofhuman relationship with adults.

In watching AfroReggae artists break downthe distance between themselves and theyoung people they are teaching with afriendly hand resting on a shoulder or evena hug, it is hard to ignore the possibility thattouch may have a pedagogy of its own.

Theatre in Manchester pulled me up short.It made me think again about all thoseworkshops during other projects I have satin on, where the disaffection had beenpalpable in the body language and facialexpression (or lack of it) of young peoplewho had been written off by schools orlabelled inadequate in some other way. How to reach such people?

I also recalled an earlier conversation withAfroReggae artists in the café at the ArcolaTheatre, before workshops had started.They had joked about the contrast betweenthe way Brazilians and English handledgreeting each other – on the one hand awarm embrace, on the other – well, just ahand to shake. So, to some extent, it is acultural difference but it is one that hasbeen made even more distinct, at least asfar as children and young people here areconcerned, thanks to a growing concernabout child safety and the dangers posedby paedophiles. One acquaintance of mineteaches ballet to young people; newguidelines in schools now stipulate exactlyhow and where he may touch pupils, seeking

Keeping it personal

explicit permission before he can place ahand on an arm to guide the pupil into thecorrect position, and so forth. More broadly,we all hesitate, especially if we are male, torespond to the enthusiasm of a toddler whocharges into us at the playground with evena pat on the head.

One of the facilitators of workshops withyoung people spoke of her admiration forAfroReggae’s sheer physicality and whatbenefits that had for young people likethese:

The main thing I love about AfroReggaeis that they put themselves on a levelwith the young people – a lot of peoplehere don’t do that. Just the way theywalk into a workshop and greet people,throwing their arms around you. Theyare a lot more tactile and friendly.

It’s very human and emotional and it’sa challenge for us, with all our rulesaround child protection. Who decideshow you communicate with youngpeople? Someone outside saying that

57

“These young people are quite cold.They lack emotion and they are very distant.”

The analysis


and look out for each other, somethingwe may have lost in our own fracturedcommunities. Like touch, we may need toregain this sense of ‘holding’ if we are tohelp young people recover from a sense ofisolation and detachment. Immediately afterthe project, Paul Heritage picked out onemoment as perhaps the most telling of theproject:

I keep thinking of the young boy at aworkshop in Hackney who had been theworst and most disruptive at the outsetof the programme in his school and whostood in tears as AfroReggae said theirgoodbyes after the school’s performanceat Amnesty International’s centre inShoreditch. A refugee from an Africanwar-zone, in which a brother had beenkilled and a sister lost a leg, he seemedinconsolable. The band members fromAfroReggae wrapped him in a collectiveembrace, which spoke from the depthsof the authenticity that marked everyact, every move, every word of theirvisit.

Dwight, too, was struck by how effectivelyartists from AfroReggae were able to reachacross the distances:

I saw one workshop leader (althoughthis seemed to be consistentthroughout) from AfroReggae sharingwith one young man how handsome hewas going to look when he performed.This young man had been disruptive,aggressive, low concentration; histeachers were clearly challengedwith disciplining him. The way hewas embraced and spoken to withabsolute respect literally grew himon the spot; there was no frustration,disappointment, or putting him intoa box of labels, just pure and simplebelief.

Insight member

Witnessing their work at Hackney FreeSchool, theatre worker Sylvan Baker hadnoticed how the artists from AfroReggaewere able to turn around a very difficultstudent.

This sounds so ‘let’s hug over a Coke’,but AfroReggae were in a position toesteem him – “You are good at this,have a go. And if you fall over, I willcatch you”.

The notion of holding or catching peoplewho fall comes from the way in whichpeople living in the favela tend to support



It was hard for me to see howAfroReggae would connect withyoung people here, in such a differentenvironment, but that’s been my biggestsurprise. They have a way of engagingwith young people, treating them withrespect and you can see the differenceit makes. Some of the people here arequite shy and they’re being encourageddo things where you really can’t be shy– and yet they’re doing them. To me,that’s amazing. Not everyone can dothat.

That respect for young people is central toAfroReggae’s methodology – and, indeed,to the best examples of youth arts workhere. As one arts worker noticed, AfroReggae“stayed focused on seeing and talking to theyoung people's potential, allowing them tobe the solution”. Altair summed it up:

You need to sit down with young peopleand see what they want, not come withsomething readymade and deliver it.You have to make something based onwho and what they are.

And, for that matter, where they are.

59The analysis

Left and above: Theatre workshop in Hoxton Hall, Shoreditch


Sarah Sansom, who had suggested thevenue to People’s Palace Projects, wasbrought in to manage the process. One ofthe things that surprised her was how hardeven the statutory and voluntary agenciesworking for young people found it to reachout beyond their own networks.

In the end, Sarah and the ambassadors tookan AfroReggae-style risk and walked aroundthe streets and estates nearest the theatre,approaching likely-looking young peopledirectly, dropping flyers and carrying outwhat Sarah calls “guerrilla marketing”. She found that the usual ways ofcommunicating with people were not asuseful in this case as a personal encounteror a home visit or, at a pinch, a quick texton the mobile, hoping that credit hadn’trun out at the other end. In the end, it isall about relationships and building trust.That is much easier when the activity islocal.

Keeping it local

What is striking about AfroReggae isthat, unlike many bands and artists whohave emerged from a poor and violentenvironment, its members and leaders arestill genuinely committed to the favela, interms of working and often still living thereand in continuing to draw their creativeinspiration from its challenging realities.Without this attachment to the local, itwould be much harder for AfroReggae tobe role models to favela youth or topersuade them that creativity is a toolfor personal and socio-political change.Working from outside would also removeAfroReggae and its artists physically fromthe community that, despite all the ravagesof the drug war, ‘holds’ and protects itsown members.

In practical terms, too, the social conditionsthat shape people’s lives in the favela – orin our own versions of the ghetto – do notdisappear once the workshop is finished.

61

Although it has a youth theatre and is in the heartof Dalston’s youth culture, the Arcola had too fewresources to do the kind of digging around that wasnecessary to recruit young people who would benefitmost from this project.

A cultural organisation that is, in effect, oncall 24/7 is able to carry out all the functionsthat the participatory or community artssector in the UK is constantly arguing for:follow-up, sustainability, matching artisticinput with pastoral aftercare and so on.

Being and staying local is crucial particularlyamongst poorer and ghettoised communitiesand their young populations. Sociologicalresearch has demonstrated over and overagain that such people are trapped in spatialterms; for example, asked to draw a map oftheir city, ghetto residents will usuallyinclude a clear idea of the streets aroundtheir immediate area but their notion ofwhat lies even a little way beyond them ishazy. Middle-class citizens are much morelikely to show their own neighbourhood inrelation to the city as a whole, as part ofa wider network that they feel part of.

If anything – and against the assumptionthat they are eager to escape to a widerworld – poorer young people are often evenmore limited in their movements around thecity. As one ex-gang member told me, hecould get everything he needed from withinhis small estate – food from the shop, drugsfrom the local dealer and relationships fromhis mates that lived there. The postcode andestate wars of the inner city can be traced

The analysisLeft: A local audience watches the performance at the launch of the Blue Hut


back to this narrowness of options that areas much physical and emotional as socialor educational.

Some projects, like Shoreditch Audiences,attempt – in its case, with increasing success– to enable local people to take advantageof some of the rich cultural resources thata city can offer, but in general so-called‘outreach’ programmes run by culturalorganisations based elsewhere (unlike theShoreditch Trust) struggle to bring peopleto centres outside their immediateenvironment. Again, this is even more trueof young people. As John remarked to meduring the workshops at the Blue Hut, thismeans that provision for them has to beas local as possible:

They are very territorial. There is nothing on their doorstep and theyneed something close to home.

Although a cultural organisation basedin Rio de Janeiro could hardly claim tobe ‘local’ to places like Shoreditch orManchester thousands of miles away, thefact that it did go to those places, ratherthan remaining marooned in flagship venueslike many touring companies from abroad,was a declaration of its core commitmentto going to where the need is most acute.

Its skill and that of People’s Palace Projectsand its partners was to draw convincingparallels between the favela and the innercity that many young participantsthemselves were ultimately able to recogniseand articulate. The art forms the Brazilianartists chose to work through were not alienor exotic and in some cases, especially in thegraffiti and DJing workshops, AfroReggaeachieved its desire for a genuine exchangeof skills between fellow practitioners ratherthan a simple tutor-pupil dynamic.

Stepping back to see the bigger picture, itis easy to see that this intense and dramaticintervention by AfroReggae into the heartof the local poses a challenge to the culturalsector here: how are we to pursue anddevelop such a model for ourselves andour own favelas?

Reflecting on the logistical challenges thathad faced the workshops in Manchester,Ekua is passionate about the implicationsof this visit:

AfroReggae is a project that has comeout of the need for local role modelsand artists from the communitiesthemselves. Here, there is a realseparation between those who comefrom the estates, and those from the

middle-class who want to come in todo this kind of work. Local artists andgroups have been exhausted by gettingno external support whilst having tofight the tendency among some peopleto see the arts simply as a way ofgetting out of their communities ratherthan empowering them. One of myremits is to train such artists so thatlocal people can have access to the arts,which is their right.

Interestingly, this tallies with Paul Heritage’sown musings on the changing nature ofartist interventions back in Rio.

In the future, the cultural landscapehere will be about people comingout of the community, rather thananimateurs going in.

The Brazilian theatre practitioner AugustoBoal is, to many within the field ofparticipatory or applied arts here in the UK,a virtual saint, on account of his dynamicmodel of empowering disenfranchisedcommunities through his codification offorum and legislative theatre practice, mostnotably in his seminal treatise, The Theatreof the Oppressed. Theatre students here areoften shocked to discover that Boal is stillalive and well (and living in Rio), such is



his iconic status. However, it is clear that,in basing themselves in their place of origin,groups like Afroreggae do not need outsiderscoming in to do their cultural work.Although actively supportive of Afroreggaeand similar projects, like Nós do Morro, Boalmay, ironically, have become something ofan outsider himself.

Our own dominant model for interveningin the local is equally challenged. Fewcultural organisations are embedded inthe community 24/7, as AfroReggae is. The implications are fascinating.

63The analysis

Paul Heritage and Johayne Ildefonso

Estelle at the Blue Hut


Dealing with the complexity and ambitionof From the favela to the world, coupledwith practical issues around artists’availability and travel arrangements, notto mention the language barrier, demandeda high level of initiative and commitmentfrom those on the ground, as well as fromthe modest complement of dedicated corestaff at People’s Palace Projects. There wasalso very little time between the plane fromRio landing and the beginning of practicalactivity, which was hard both for the artistsof AfroReggae and for those on the ground,who would have benefited from moreopportunity to discuss and prepare forthe workshops.

In terms of numbers of young peopleparticipating, the least successfulprogramme of workshops was at theContact Theatre in Manchester, whichwas, on the face of it, surprising given thedeserved reputation this organisation has inreaching out to young people across the cityand engaging those in trouble or at risk onthe streets in creative activities. There were

Assessing delivery

many reasons for this, some of themorganisational, as director John McGrathexplained to me later.

Ekua returned from sabbatical just a fewmonths before the visit, and Sarah, whohad been filling her role, left Contact towork on the Arcola end of the project.While it was hoped that this wouldprovide useful continuity, in effect itled to a lot of confusions, and to somedegree Ekua felt that she was startingthe outreach on the project afresh – and belatedly.

In one sense, however, the central problemmay have been related directly to the strongemphasis that Contact puts on developinglong-term strategy. For the AfroReggae visitto have had a direct impact on gang culturein Manchester, there would have to havebeen a longer-term comprehensive outreachstrategy specifically aimed at young peopleinvolved in gangs. This proved impossible inthe timeframe, given the handover problems.

65

Talking to the local co-ordinators, it is clear that thisproject was a significant challenge in terms of timing,preparation and delivery.

The implicationsLeft: In performance at the Blue Hut


Sarah’s research into other, less obviouschannels has now been passed over to theArcola and it remains to be seen whetherthe venue or its funders are willing or ableto exploit it in future. Certainly, the theatrewas delighted with the project and with thepopular success of the two performances byyoung people. The theatre had little directparticipation, beyond supplying the spacefor it all to happen and offering moralsupport to Sarah. Ben traced this directlyback to the theatre’s modest share of theproject budget, which he felt did not allowfor hard-pressed staff to do more thanoccasionally observe progress. The pressureon a small organisation like the Arcola,which at this stage had not yet receivedcore funding from the Arts Council, is fargreater than on an established venue like theBarbican, which has more leeway to exploreareas outside its main priorities. The questionof how those young people who benefitedfrom AfroReggae’s visit can be served infuture remains, as Sarah concludes in herevaluation:

In terms of organisational developmentof venues such as the Arcola Theatre,much has been achieved in terms ofidentifying and recruiting hard to reachyoung people and this knowledge

Although many young people from localneighbourhoods were interested in the visit,judging from the diverse audiences -including many regular Contact participants– who attended the shows, the focus onreaching the most excluded groups for theworkshops meant that those sessions werenot open to all, resulting in disappointingnumbers.

Nevertheless, a small group of young peopleat risk did attend percussion and otherworkshops, which were as lively andinspiring as any others during the tourand, more significantly for the longer term,Ekua told me that Contact was alreadybeginning to have conversations withpotential partners in Manchester aboutdeveloping this kind of work together infuture. This dialogue began with a seminarheld during AfroReggae’s residency, whichwas attended by the Manchester Multi-Agency Gang Strategy team, MothersAgainst Violence and Connexions amongstothers, as well as former employee SarahSansom and the two young ambassadorsfrom the Arcola. For director John McGrath,the future possibilities for crossover betweenContact and AfroReggae are “huge”:

I am particularly interested in the waythat both organisations develop young

leaders from the pool of theirparticipants. Direct connection atthis level could be very fruitful.

Although she had succeeded in recruitinga full complement of suitable young peoplefor the Arcola programme, Sarah wouldagree that, for this kind of project to havea long-term impact, it would need to takeplace within a more strategic context.This was even truer for the Dalston venuethan for Manchester, where Contact is anestablished centre known to support thesemethods of reaching out to and workingwith young people.

The Arcola is now identified as a ‘West End’theatre in listings, despite its location inHackney, and its central role, as Ben madeclear to me, is programming performancework that is relevant to the communitiesin the area but that also draws intheatregoers from out of the borough.It has a commitment to young people, as itsyouth theatre project clearly demonstrates,but as yet it has neither the resources nor,perhaps, the desire to develop a Contact-style approach to engage with ‘hard-to-reach’ young people. Its current contactswith young people are largely via schoolsand other institutions with easy and directaccess to teenagers.



If the visit to Manchester demonstrated theneed for greater strategic preparation andthe Arcola workshops the need for greaterresources, the experience in Shoreditchshowed how a short-term creative input can not just complement existing activitiesbut point to new and innovative ways ofdelivering and popularising them in thelonger term.

There’s a lot of local talent. WhatAfroReggae does – very well – is todevelop young people’s self-esteem andconfidence. The coolest thing would beif that self-confidence developed, sothat young people themselves coulddo something like AfroReggae. It’s beenvery difficult to engage a lot of localyoung people. They all observe froma distance and won’t participate butif you got a core group from the areato develop some of the skills AfroReggaehas and the enthusiasm and thecommitment that AfroReggae shows, ifit’s nurtured carefully it could carry on.It’s been sweet to see how AfroReggaebrings the best out of these youngpeople. If we could get young peoplehere to do the same - that would reallybe a positive direction to go in.

John Goodenough

67

should not be lost but developedand shared, quite apart from theneed to sustain those young people’sinvolvement in creative activity.

Sarah’s more off-the-cuff comment to methat “AfroReggae can’t develop this work onthe ground – they are in Brazil, after all” isa frank reminder that structures need to bein place or be put in place here to supportsuch work with young people at risk and toembed it. These structures are both virtual,in terms of building partnerships, andmaterial, in terms of actual buildings andfacilities.

In this respect, perhaps the most hopefulpotential for taking the impetus ofAfroReggae’s visit forward is the Blue Hutinitiative in Shoreditch, which is both aphysical resource for creative work withyoung people and a manifestation of acoherent strategy for such work based onpartnerships, not just with the communitybut with other agencies and even thebusiness sector.

*

The implications

Circus workshop in Shoreditch


It is, of course, not at all easy to be definitiveabout this, certainly if we are looking forlong-term impacts of some kind. Althoughshe felt that the participants showedincreasing commitment and enthusiasmthrough the week’s workshops, SarahSansom is sceptical of how much progresssuch a short project could make intransforming young people:

We have only scratched the surface.What did we achieve in five days [at the Arcola workshops]? Are we talkingabout people making big changes intheir lives? Frankly, I doubt it.

Even less sanguine was Ekua at Contact,who felt that there had been – for all sortsof reasons – too little time to generateinterest in the workshops among harder toreach groups. Putting on a garage nightafter the concerts had helped to bring ayoung audience to the show but, as thistook place after the workshops, it had had

The impact on participants

no impact on recruitment of participants.Finding ways to build up an understandingof AfroReggae among potential participantswould be crucial in future:

If Afroreggae had been able to hang outwith us for a couple of months, it wouldhave been completely different.

Patrícia, talking to me in a break during herlast circus workshop here, agreed that theproject had been too fleeting to expectsubstantial results:

It isn’t possible to develop somethingsubstantial or lasting in three days. These young people are suffering fromyears of problems. It’s frustrating if wesee someone with talent and cannotcontinue to work with them or if wecan’t develop those with less ability.They’ll be frustrated, too, if they areenjoying it and then they find thatthere’s nobody there to help them oncewe’ve gone. All we can do is inspire

69The implications

Having identified some of the most important themesand issues that emerged from the workshops, I turn nowto decipher what was actually achieved for theindividual young people involved.

Left: Circus skills at the Blue Hut performance


impressed them in concert and in theworkshop – several felt that had got toknow them and a bit about their culture.

On the downside, some felt they had nothad enough time to get to know each other,revealing perhaps some of their sense ofisolation. On the other hand, there was somefriction between participants and, for one,“too much talking and not enough work”.The language difference got in the way for afew; AfroReggae did not have the languageskills to deal with personal issues directly.

One or two echoed the project managers’feeling that the time had been too shortand that more input was needed:

I felt that this project did not recognisemy true abilities – one week isn’tenough for more than a first impression.But I did learn a lot of good things andmet a lot of new people. I would like todo AfroReggae in the future. I will missthe people from this project greatly.

Others were more unequivocally positive:

I enjoyed the project and the vibesduring the workshops – a lovelyeuphoria and atmosphere of love andkindness. It was a great experience and

it brought about creativity in me that Inever knew I had. I would love them tocome back.

AfroReggae are passionate about whatthey do. The experience was trulywonderful. So many emotions wereinvolved in the project. I was a fearlesswarrior. I had no doubts whatsoever.

It may well be that the goals set for projectslike these are often too ambitious, notleast to reassure funding bodies that theirinvestment will pay dividends. This affectsprojects with young people at risk more than most. Given that there is no shortageof young people around who would leapat the chance of a graffiti workshop or aDJing session, there is a tendency for ‘at risk’projects not to dig deep enough to findthose who could benefit most; the researchprocess takes a lot longer and there is, atthe other end, a much greater risk of lowattendance, which all that implies in termsof measuring success and reportingnumerical outputs to funding bodies.

Certainly, most attempts to measureprecisely how far these targets have beenmet are doomed to failure. Trying tocalibrate the impact of an arts project is liketrying to pin down the wind – who knows


them, help them find strength to goon to the next step by themselves.

Patrícia felt that this was not just a matterof providing opportunities to go, in this case,to Circus Space, a national centre for circusskills based nearby.

Going straight there would be sucha waste, because of their behaviouralproblems. More than getting ascholarship or a government grant,they need to be educated out of badhabits grown over years of socialdeprivation. There’s some connectionbetween social class, behaviour andthe ability to improve; kids here neednot only support for workshops butprofessional support to teach themhow to use their gifts.

In the case of the Arcola programme, theyoung people themselves had a chance toevaluate their experience; ten came to asession that Sarah held a fortnight after theproject had ended. They had clearly had funand made friends, learned new skills andhad their confidence boosted; one wantedto carry on drumming because of theproject while another had benefited from“professional opinions about my art andways to strengthen it”. AfroReggae had


71

what effect the positive experience some ofthese young people have had may havefurther down the line? If nothing else, theevent – like that staging of Shakespeare thathalted the drug war for 18 days – remainsas a symbol of what might be.

Even if AfroReggae is running theworkshops, it is very ambitious to think thata few days or even a week may be enoughto turn even one cramped or curdled lifearound. For Dwight, as for many actuallyworking face to face with troubled youngpeople, it is in the detail that you find theepiphany:

I am not expecting big changes – ifI can change someone’s point of vieweven slightly, that’s a success. Whenyou write up reports, you want lotsof statistics for government planningpurposes, but when you’re on theground level it’s the smallest changesthat are important. Just to know thatthat person listened to you for tenminutes, when last week they’d neverlistened to you at all – that is massiveprogress.

The implications

Above: Young performer at the Blue Hut


At the end of AfroReggae’s stay in the UK,a group of professionals working with youngpeople at risk from around the countrygathered to drum and talk at Queen Mary,University of London, where People’s PalaceProjects (PPP) is based. They had all joinedthe Insight programme, directed for PPP byJoão André da Rocha and Sarah Sansom,which had run alongside the three weeks ofworkshops and performances by AfroReggae.

The drumming came first that Saturday. We adopted various sizes of drum andawaited instruction from the by nowfamiliar and jaunty figure of Altair Martins.Smiling broadly, he demonstrated a long andcomplex rhythm that he wanted us to repeatafter him. When his sticks finally ceasedbeating, there was a disconcerted silence.

Developing practice

He smiled again and started us off withsomething a bit more manageable. Asthe morning passed we lost all sense ofconventional time as we sought to keepthe sticks beating our own measure. Ourrhythms jostled and interwove with eachother’s – we were divided into subgroupsaccording to the size of our drum – andoccasionally we caught each other’s glanceand smiled. By the end we discoveredourselves playing what Altair had asked usto, back at the start. We had been kindlytricked into confidence. Altair grinned again.

We retired for lunch to the meeting room,hands and ears buzzing – there is nothingas loud as an AfroReggae percussion class.When we began the afternoon’s discussions,it was clear that the drumming had done its

73

Hearing AfroReggae speak about their own insights,their understanding and valuing of young people,their engagement. Experiencing the incredible energyof a group of like-minded individuals determined toallow the purpose of young people’s lives to flourishand create the solution to their own challenges.

work. Almost immediately came a series ofcontributions from around the large circlewe had formed, one observation triggeringanother in a kind of collective argument. It went like this:

This project had been all too short, likeall too many arts projects in this country.

We work in a context that isn’t aboutthings taking time. It’s not “see whatdevelops”; it’s “what are you going toachieve and how soon?” For AfroReggae,there is no imposition of a timescale.

The way we structure funding in thiscountry does not give continuity to thiswork.

It’s a struggle to get three year funding.

Perhaps too much is routinely expectedfrom such modest interventions.

There is no mention in what AfroReggaedoes in terms of a ‘cause and effect’change in behaviour. Why do wehave to say what we expect to learn?

However, as a result of this intervention,some young people might now be on thebrink of transformation.

I was profoundly moved by this week’swork but it’s not going to changeyoung people’s lives – what will is some

The implications

Extract from an evaluation of the Insight programme,assessing the benefits of participation


continuity in the work. It’s as if – “nowI’ve got your attention, what happensnext?”

It has to be an experience of the kindprovided by AfroReggae.

To follow this project, it’s not just acase of sending them down the road tosomeone or something local if it is notof similar quality.

We need to look outside our ownorganisations and find people in thecommunity and resource them, becausethey are too busy doing the work to goout and raise funding.

It’s good to have artist interventions butbetter to have teachers and workshopleaders skilled up to do the follow-up,including embedding it in the systemthey know and have some influence in.

The conversation broke off there, as it wastime to go round the circle and reflect onwhat the project had meant to each of uspersonally and professionally. Two hours orso later, the last person to speak – Ali Campbell – had one simple observationto make:

It’s so clear to me how much this groupneeds to talk - twice as much as theyneed to drum.

There is as yet no obvious forum orprofessional body that might continue theconversation about AfroReggae or thatcould harvest more of the kind of storiesand experiences and (yes) insights that weshared that afternoon. As one veteranpointed out, there once had been aninformal network of community-based artsand cultural organisations but this, ratherlike the youth facilities in Shoreditch andperhaps for the same reason, had beenswept away long ago by the authorities.Thus, people like us, from all kinds oforganisations and none, find they have acommon passion yet are, more or less,working in isolation. This needs to beaddressed as a matter of some urgency.

We agreed that it was vital to disseminatethe larger implications of AfroReggae’s visitand the much needed paradigm shift itmight provide for us in determining howthis area of work might be better supported,sustained and developed. The stakes arehigh, as theatre worker Sylvan Baker pointedout during our roundtable:

AfroReggae came out of a policemassacre. The Every Child Matters agendacame out of the Victoria Climbiémurder. The Ousley report on race anddiversity came out of the Bradford riots.

Does something really bad have tohappen before we get something good?We have a person who is haemorrhagingand we are putting plasters on him, theblood pressure is going down and he’sgoing into shock and – shit - he’s dead,if only… I’m just hoping it doesn’t takesomething cataclysmic to make thedifference.

Like the Insight conversation, this reportcan only go so far in coming to conclusionsbut it can, I hope, contribute to informingand widening the debate about how centralcultural work could be to our social,economic and political health.

There are enormous differences betweenBrazil and the UK, between the favelas ofRio and the inner cities here, and betweena cultural NGO that is operating to fillan appalling civic vacuum and our ownparticipatory arts sector which has tonegotiate for space to survive, let alonefor support to intervene as effectively andflexibly as it might in our own social crisis.

Even allowing for such difference,AfroReggae’s visit highlighted some keyweaknesses in our structures and ourpractices: the lack of sustainable orsustained cultural or creative interventionsin the lives of young people at risk; the



lack of significant commitment to suchinterventions by much of the criminal justicesystem; the virtual absence of culturalorganisations or NGOs generated in or bymarginalized communities; the relativeunder-investment in social programmes byarts funders; the weakness of networkingamongst service providers for young people;the failure (deliberate or not) of many artsorganisations to engage effectively in themoney economy; and so on.

AfroReggae’s remarkable success in Rio’sfavelas lies partly in the fact that it drawsstrength from its roots in the community,where it is still based, and in the fact thatit operates 24/7. It is hard to think of anequivalent cultural organisation in thiscountry with as high a profile, yet in ourcommunity and youth workers we do havededicated people working 24/7 for youngpeople and, in terms of creative resources,we have a wealth of artistic talent andartists and organisations with a great dealof collective experience in education andoutreach work. We need to move to asituation where these resources are broughttogether effectively, so that local authorities,for example, will naturally think of turningto their creative sector to help them addresscrime or engage disaffected young people;

so that artists and arts organisations willnaturally think of social benefit as an artisticachievement; and – best of all outcomesperhaps - so that arts organisations willemerge from the communities that theythen continue to serve and with whomthey continue to create art.

What is missing in this country is thepolitical will to recognise, as Brazil seemsto, that culture is central to the health anddevelopment of the country, not simplya middle-class pastime and that artistscan provide lasting social benefits whilstcontinuing to pursue excellence. AsAfroReggae has shown, the two goals arenot mutually exclusive. We can learn fromthe favela, too.

*AfroReggae are a paradigm. Why?Because they evolved at a very difficulttime in Rio’s history, in the aftermathof a police-sponsored massacre.Because they don’t limit themselvesto complaining. Because they areconcerned not just about fighting thepolice but about bringing real changeto the lives of people. Because they arenot just a movement of volunteers but a permanent presence. Because they arenot part of the academic or culturalelite. Because… they create spaces whichgenerate self-esteem for favela peoplewho can then demand respect, both ashuman beings and as citizens.

75The implications

Paulo Baia, Under-secretary forHuman Rights, Rio state government.


That film depicted the raw nature of life in afavela in richly coloured and visceral detail,revealing the violent dominance of the drugfactions over all aspects of residents’ lives.For the students at Nós do Morro, there wasno real need for research – they had livedthat reality their whole lives.

In the administration offices of Nós doMorro hangs a poster that declares “Acultura faz o Brasil” – “Culture makes Brazil”.Most of the NGOs active in Rio use arts andcreative approaches in their work and, likeAfroReggae, make no distinction betweentheir ‘art’ and their social purpose. Most alsohave emerged from the communities theycontinue to serve. This is very differentfrom the situation in England, where artsorganisations might go into communitiesto do their work but rarely come from thosecommunities. It is very different from the

Afterword

tired debate we keep having about‘excellence’ versus ‘access’ in the arts, andfrom the way we tend to separate goodart from anything that get its hands dirtyamong the ‘excluded’. It is hard to imaginea poster up in the offices of any Englishtheatre company making a simpledeclaration that England is made byits culture.

Nós do Morro’s name means ‘We from thehills’ – Vidigal is one of the older favelasthat climb vertiginously above the richresorts of the Zona Sul – and there is a pridein choosing that name and that location.The margins are, after all, the source ofmuch of what is considered Brazilianculture, from samba to football genius, andperhaps we should begin to think of ourown marginalized communities – ‘the street’,if you like – in the same way, in their impacton our mainstream culture, from fashion tomusic to language and beyond.


AfroReggae was not the only cultural organisationbased in the favelas that I visited. Nós do Morro is aremarkable drama school based within Vidigal, one ofRio’s oldest favelas, and perhaps most celebrated forits role in providing most of the youthful cast for themulti-award-winning film Cidade de Deus (City of God).

Despite the very real tragedy endemic inRio’s favela communities, there are projectsthere that can teach us a new way oflooking at our own cultural failings: oursnobberies and our assumptions writtenup as arts policy, our failure to put realflesh on the bones of social inclusionpolicy, our lack of flair in developingcultural organisations that wholeheartedlyembrace their social role – or in supportingthem when they do emerge.

AfroReggae has set us a dramatic challenge,which I have tried, in this report, to dojustice to. I hope that those who read it hearand pass on this message from the favelato the world.

To reach a hundred young people, youstart by working with two and they willcarry on the work for you. I didn’t knowany of you before I got here but I triedto bring you the energy that I have. Andthe energy I gave you, you multiplied itand passed it back to me. Each of us canpass these ideas on to two other people;those two people to four others; thosefour to eight more – and it will neverstop. This energy has to be multiplied.

Altair Martins

Left: Altair on drums


Leslie Hill and Helen Paris (eds), Performance& Place (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006)This includes a chapter by Paul Heritage onAfroReggae and People's Palace Projects'production of Antony and Cleopatra inVigário Geral.

José Júnior, Da favela para o mundo: ahistória do Grupo Cultural Afro Reggae(Rio de Janeiro: Aeroplano, 2003)The founder and director of AfroReggaerecounts the organisation’s history ‘fromthe favela to the world’.

Luke Dowdney, Children of the Drug Trade: A Case Study of Children in OrganisedArmed Violence in Rio de Janeiro(Rio de Janeiro: 7Letras, 2003)

Patrick Neate and Damian Platt, Cultureis Our Weapon: AfroReggae in the Favelasof Rio (Latin American Bureau, 2006)As well as covering the history and activitiesof the organisation, the authors setAfroReggae within the wider political, socialand economic context of modern Brazil.

Further reading

The following articles and books provide a wider context for understanding the workof AfroReggae:

Silvia Ramos, ‘Youth and the Police’(Rio de Janeiro: Centre for Studies on PublicSecurity and Citizenship, Research BulletinNº12, 2006) Available in English fromPeople’s Palace Projects.

Silvia Ramos and Julita Lemgruber,‘Urban Violence, Public Safety Policies andResponses from Civil Society’, Social WatchReport, 2004 (Montevideo: Instituto delTercer Mundo, 2004)

George Yúdice, The Expediency of Culture:Uses of Culture in the Global Era(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003)This includes a chapter on the significanceof AfroReggae.



Afroreggaewww.afroreggae.org.br

Amnesty Internationalwww.amnesty.org

Amnesty UKwww.amnesty.org.uk

Arcola Theatre www.arcolatheatre.com

Arts Council Englandwww.artscouncil.org.uk

Barbican: bite www.barbican.org.uk

Black Police Associationwww.nationalbpa.com

Contact Theatre, Manchesterwww.contact-theatre.org

Dragon School, Oxfordwww.dragonschool.org

Ogilvy & Mather, Londonwww.ogilvy.co.uk

People’s Palace Projectswww.peoplespalace.org.uk

Queen Mary, University of Londonwww.qmul.ac.uk

The Learning Trust, Hackneywww.learningtrust.co.uk

The Shoreditch Trustwww.shoreditchtrust.org.uk

The Westfield Trustwww.qmul.ac.uk/alumni/qmandw/westfield/

The AfroReggae UK Partnershipcurrently includes:AfroReggaeAsian Dub Foundation EducationBarbican: biteBarbican EducationMetropolitan Black Police AssociationContact TheatreThe Learning Trust, HackneyPeople's Palace ProjectsQueen Mary, University of LondonRich MixThe Shoreditch Trust

For further information, visit:www.favelatotheworld.org


Partners

This project was made possible by the generous support and partnership between thefollowing organisations:


Production teamPaul Heritage - Artistic DirectorLyndsey Housden - ProducerPaula D’Arienzo - Associate ProducerJoão André da Rocha - Associate ProducerYassmin Foster - AdministratorSarah Sansom - Young People's ProducerSylvan Baker – Workshop Consultant

TranslatorsFranko FiguereidoChristina FonaciariLeo KaySteve Moffat Eduardo PadilhaKatia PreteFábio Santos

PPP would like to thank the following fortheir constant advice and guidance duringthe production:Raj BhariNikki CraneJen HarvieCatrin JohnCaoimhe McAvincheyNigel RelphKaren TaylorGreg TurbyneLois WeaverPublications and Web Teamat Queen Mary, University of London

Acknowledgements

From the favela to the worldPeople's Palace Projects

FundersPPP would also like to thank the followingfor funding From the favela to the world:Arts Council England Barbican:BiteBrazilian EmbassyAmnesty International and Amnesty UKShoreditch TrustOgilvy & MatherLondon Centre for Arts and CulturalEnterprisesQueen Mary, University of London

PPP would also like to thank theBrazilian Embassy for their supportand encouragement as the projectdeveloped over two years.

Special thanks to all the staff at VARIGairlines for their dedicated service and manykindnesses during the journeys that madethis production possible. In particular, wewould like to thank Tetê Andrade for herconstant good humour, her endless patienceand her infectious enthusiasm, which gotus through so many trials and tribulationsat airports in Rio and London.

AfroReggae in the UKAltair Martins Da Silva (Altair) – Percussionist

Anderson Elias Dos Santos (Dada) –Percussionist

Anderson Francisco Dos Santos Sa (Ando) –Vocalist

Cosme Augusto De Anchieta (Cosme) –Drummer

Edson Luiz Vicente Da Silva (Dinho) –Vocalist

Eduardo Junior Santos De Souza (Juninho) –Percussionist

Jairo Ferreira De Oliveira (Jairo) – Bass Guitar

Joel Dias Ribeiro (Joel) – Guitarist

Júlio César Pereira Junior (DJ Magic Julio) –DJ

Luiz Gustavo Ferreira (LG) – Vocalist

Mailson Teixeira (Mailson) – Keyboard Player

Mariana De Souza Rangel (Mariana) –Backing Vocals

Wallace Rocha Da Conceição (Wallace) –Percussionist

Alex Machado Da Silva (Alex) – Roadie

André Alves Da Costa (André) – Producer

André Nascimento (André) – Sound Technician




AfroReggae in the UKAntônio Carlos Dos Santos (Carlão) – Roadie

Eve Bélanger (Eve) – Assistant Producer

Christophe Croysez (Christophe (Frenchie)) –Monitor Operator/ Stage Mix

José Celso Rocha (Celso) – Lighting Technician

Eduardo Rosa Olegário (Hermano) –Percussionist

Luciano Da Silva Dos Santos (Luciano) –Percussion Instructor

Airá-Ilu-Aiê Ferraz D'Almeida (Airá-Ilu-Aiê) –Graffiti Instructor

Edson Pereira Da Silva (Silva) – Circus Instructor

Francisco Sérgio Da Silva (Chico) – Graffiti Instructor

Johayne De Oliveira Ildefonso (Johayne) –Theatre Instructor

Patrícia Pereira Martins (Patricia) – Circus Instructor

Renata Carmo Alves (Renata) – Theatre Instructor

Roberto Monteiro Guimarães (Bebel) –Circus Instructor

Jose Roberto Pacheco (Roberto) – Theatre

Ierê Ferreira (Ierê) – Photographer


“We are bringing a message from the favela to the whole of humanity. For 21 years Vigário Geral wasknown as the most violent place in Brazil. If we can turn our world around and do what we do, all theseyoung people can do anything they want in life.”

Chico, Grupo Cultural Afroreggae

“We are bringing a message from the favela to the whole of humanity. For 21 years Vigário Geral wasknown as the most violent place in Brazil. If we can turn our world around and do what we do, all theseyoung people can do anything they want in life.”

Chico, Grupo Cultural Afroreggae

We are in urgent need of a new paradigm for our cultural work with people and, mostimportantly, with young people who are excluded from education or at risk of offendingor reoffending. This report is a contribution to the debate we need to make that happen. It explores the impact and implications of a visit by the artists of AfroReggae, who travelledfrom the favelas of Rio de Janeiro to the UK inner city – to our manor.

£5.00

ISBN 978-0-9551179-3-0


From the Favela to Our Manor

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Transcript of From the Favela to Our Manor