Jacare dos Patins, (literally, “the Skate Alligator”), blowing your mind at the Batalha do Passinho in the City of God.

You read that right.

Passinho is a new wave dance battle culture coming out of Rio de Janeiro. Like funk (and samba long before that) passinho comes out of Rio’s favelas, but it’s very much a post-funk paradigm.

The dancer replaces the DJ or MC at center stage. It’s battle format, but high camaraderie. It’s dominated by male dancers, but the vibe is decidedly pro-homo, flowing across gender borders with the same ease Joao Xavi argues passinho dancers move between battlegrounds in a pacifying patchwork of favelas.

I filmed this video during an interlude at the Batalha do Passinho on St. George’s Day in the City of God, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but props to Coca-Cola for sponsoring this madness.  The movie by the same name is now over a decade old, and it’s also time to retire some of our City of God-era images of favela as a bad, bad word.

This is a RioChromatic original production, filmed on São Jorge’s Day, 2013,  in Rio de Janeiro. Você é Show, Jacare dos Patins!

Like what you hear? You’re listening to this year’s Passinho do Volante, now at 33 million views:

For more on passinho culture, read Jez Smadja‘s excellent breakdown on the passinho movement in DuttyArtz and Joao Xavi’s read on genderfucking flow (in Portuguese) in Overmundo.

This featured video in this post was filmed on a GoPro Hero3, God’s gift to filmmakers.

It rained all night but I woke up bright. Let’s go to Piscinão.

Take Avenida Brasil to Pasarela #13.

Welcome to the Piscinão.

2 acres of artificial beach on the edge of Guanabara Bay.

If the South Zone is far away.

It’s Saturday, and nobody’s here.

Take a dip.

Take a dive.

Get some fried corvina and a cold Antartica.

This is what it feels like here.

This is for my day with Franz and Ronnie at Hurricane Harbor. Rest in peace Ronnie.

Stills and video shot on my GoPro Hero3′s maiden voyage on 4/20/13 in Rio de Janeiro. Obrigadaaaa Lee

Meet the tween queens behind Brazil’s butt training meme. 

I first heard about the Bonde Das Maravilhas (literally “Train of Wonders”) last year from a lady giving me a bikini wax in Copacabana Beach. When she found out I like funk music, she told me I had to check out this group of girls on YouTube her daughter wouldn’t stop talking about, called the Bonde Das Maravilhas.

This was January, 2012, and MC Boom’s Treinamento do BumBum (literally “Butt Training”) music video was starting to making the rounds on YouTube. But his view count paled in comparison to the butt-training meme it inspired. Search for “treinamento do bumbum” and you’ll find thousands of videos of girls doing the butt training dance.

One video stands above the rest. Thaysa, Thalia, Rafaela and Karol of the Bonde Das Maravilhas have an extra couple of zeros behind their view count. Why have almost five million people watched it? Is it the apathetic-chill dance vibe? The surreal effect of pixelated video resolution on concrete? The charm of the Maravilhas?

I had to meet these girls. So I found the Maravilhas on Facebook, and since they’re all still in high school, I got permission from their manager (and Rafaela’s mom) to interview them. On a rainy day last January, I took a ferry across Guanabara Bay to meet them in their home town of Niteroi, a city best known for being across the bay from Rio.

The Maravilhas in Niteroi, January 2012

Thaysa, Thalia, Rafaela and Karol were 13, 14, 15 and 16 when I interviewed them. A year later, they’ve seen half a dozen videos top the million view count on YouTube, they’ve started making music videos, they’re still crushing it dancing at local funk parties, and they’re all still underage.

If you feel uncomfortable watching girls this young shake it like that, that’s precisely the point. Hugo Schwyzer calls out our anxiety about premature sexualization in Jezebel:

Rather than listen to young women themselves, too many adults fixate on one of the great worries of our era: that girls are the victims of premature sexualization. The anxiety about sexualization ends up becoming the only lens through which well-meaning adults see teen girls and their clothes. That’s a huge mistake.

So let’s look at the Maravilhas through a second lens too: as they see themselves.

Watch my interview with the Bonde Das Maravilhas, from their rise to internet fandom to what grandma thinks, mixed up with samples of their hottest YouTube videos. This is a RioChromatic original production.

Want to kill the next half hour watching Bonde das Maravilhas videos? Here’s your playlist:

Quebra

Quebra means “break it down.” This is the Bonde’s newest, Carnaval-themed music video featuring MC Nego, and it’s their best production quality by a landslide.

Brincadeiras das Maravilhas

This video also features MC Nego. According to the Bonde Das Maravilhas documentary, MC Nego met the girls at the first show they ever danced, started inviting them out and helped their rise to internet fandom.

Treinamento do BumBum

The first BDM video I watched, at the recommendation of my waxing lady.

Treinamento do BumBum

The original, and awesome, music video by MC Boom that spawned the butt training meme.

Senta Senta Vai Senta

Literally, “Sit, sit, sit down on it.” My personal favorite.

The first video in this post includes samples of the following YouTube videos:

Montagem – Bonde Das Maravilhas Eo Mundo Se Acabando [K1Absoluto] – thalia almeida

MC Boom – Treinamento do bum bum [ 1080p - HD ] – funkneurotico

MONTAGEM – TREINAMENTO DO BUMBUM ♪ (BONDE DAS MARAVILHA) FOODA – CarlosFelipe8B

Bonde Das Maravilhas Ensaiando -  Germano Costa

Mc Nego do Borel e Bonde das Maravilhas – Ao Vivo no Olimpo – 17/08/12 – MedleyAoVivo (Originally taken from a video called “4 videos de bonde maravilhas” that has since been removed from YouTube. This video is of the same show with MC Nego at Olimpo.)

Bonde Das Maravilhas – Senta Senta Vai Senta – TraKinasPem

Bonde das Maravilhas – Brincadeiras das Maravilhas (CLIPE OFICIAL) – DJ KLEBER’IGOR – Kleber igor

BONDE DAS MARAVILHAS E MC NEGO NA FESTA DE 4 ANOS DA BEAT 98.  – Julio Cesar

Bonde das Maravilhas – Documentário ( TOM PRODUÇÕES ) 2013 -  Tom Produções

Image montage in this post by Duda Knust, taken from of the BDM Facebook page.

“Brazil knows how to party, but are they serious enough?”

In my second photo-essay for The Atlantic‘s city-specific edition, Scenes From Carnaval, the ‘Largest Street Fair on the Planet’, I go inside the colonial view that Carnaval is evidence Brazil is not serious enough:

Six million people have taken to the streets of Rio de Janeiro this week for a non-stop schedule of seven hundred parades, widely considered the biggest street party on the planet.

But as the city descends into Carnaval revelry just a few weeks after a nightclub fire left 238 people dead in Santa Maria, the national mood is decidedly more somber than celebratory.

The governor of the Federal District canceled a celebration marking 500 days until the World Cup “out of mourning,” The Atlantic reported. “The country has been beating back assertions that the fire indicates a systemic lack of preparedness on its part for the competition, which will be held there in 2014.”

News outlets pieced together evidence of an avoidable tragedy: There were no proper permits, there were no emergency exits, there were reports bouncers locked the doors to keep people from leaving without paying. Most victims died from a highly flammable sound insulation foam that filled the club with toxic smoke, not from the actual flames.

As all eyes turn to Rio for World Cup next year and the 2016 Olympics, the tragedy in Santa Maria is a chilling dramatization of the absolute worst that could happen when the tourists pour into town; Carnaval is the dress rehearsal; and every exploding manhole and collapsed building is evidence Brazil needs more time to practice. The question seems to be: Brazil knows how to party, but are they serious enough to host the first world?

Read on and check out Scenes From Carnaval, the ‘Largest Street Fair on the Planet’ in  TheAtlanticCities.com.

The hangover in Ipanema Beach after the Banda de Ipanema parade.

More RioChromatic in the press:

  Rio’s Big Brother - in The Daily Beast

The biggest surveillance screen in Latin America spans 860 square feet in a new building called the Ops Center that most residents of Rio de Janeiro don’t even know exists. (link)

Sayonara Centaurus - in Atlantic Cities

Luxury brothel smackdown in Rio de Janeiro. The Olympic City takes aim at a pricey brothel popular with tourists in its latest effort to clean up Rio’s image abroad. (link)

Flamengo Beach is about to get crazy. It’s time for the Flying Orchestra!

The Orquestra Voadora (“Flying Orchestra”) is a band of musicians that met in 2008 playing in different Carnaval street parades and decided they wanted to bring the funk year round. Their Carnaval party kicks off at 3pm on Carnaval Tuesday.

The crowd gathers.

The band rolls through.

This is called the concentration.

We watch the parade go by.

We pause for a smoke break.

And a pee break.

And we make our way home.

Or take a nap.

Or head across the street…

And hit the beach.

Original photography by Julie Ruvolo, shot in Flamengo Beach at Orquestra Voadora 2012.

More Rio Carnaval:

 Another Copa Bloco

It’s pre-Carnaval in Rio, and Rio is already a hundred-something deep into a superpartyschedule of over 500 street parties. Most of them are nothing like the mega-spectacle you’re imagining. They’re chill out, neighborhood affairs, like this bloco in Copacabana. (link)

 Operation Carnaval

“Operation Dry Law” ticketed drunk drivers. Operation “No Peeing in the Streets” ticketed people peeing in the streets. And the “Shock of Order” seized 3,700 cans of beer, 1,100 bottles of water, 71 coolers, costumes, spray foam and cigarettes from unlicensed street vendors.

We haven’t even gotten to the hot air balloon ride. (link)

It’s pre-Carnaval in Rio, and Rio is already a hundred-something deep into a superpartyschedule of over 500 street parties.

Most of them are nothing like the mega-spectacle you’re imagining. They’re chill out, neighborhood affairs, like this bloco in Copacabana.

Above: The Skate Gang holds court to Ja Rule in a Petrobras parking lot in Copacabana Beach.

Below: Last Carnaval, police gave out as many drunk driving tickets as hot air balloon rides.

This hot air balloon is part the city’s massive anti-drunk driving campaign. Operação Lei Seca is literally “Operation Dry Law”.

Street vendors.

Pictures with mummies.

Drum circle with mummies.

Meow!

Dress code: rainbow.

Trash trucks join the party.

Rio’s urban cleaning workers are called garis. They wear iconic raver orange jumpsuits. Last Carnaval they collected about 860 pounds of trash per gari.

Nuns with guns, a similar look.

And then it was over.

Original photography by Julie Ruvolo.

More Carnaval on RioChromatic:

Operation Carnaval

“Operation Dry Law” ticketed drunk drivers. Operation “No Peeing in the Streets” ticketed people peeing in the streets. And the “Shock of Order” seized 3,700 cans of beer, 1,100 bottles of water, 71 coolers, costumes, spray foam and cigarettes from unlicensed street vendors. We haven’t even gotten to the hot air balloon ride.

This is Operation Carnaval. (link)

Sundays in Ipanema, the Feira Hippie goes down at the General Osório plaza. As it has every Sunday, without exception, since 1968.

The Feira Hippie website claims it’s the largest open-air art gallery and artisanal fair in the world, which is obviously not the case.  It occupies a single square block. It isn’t even the largest such art fair in Rio. But the hyperbole makes it no less lovely.

Above: Owl man.

Below: Birds on stones.

This is part of a leather tapestry by Glauco Brasil, “Pyrography in Leather – Antique Maps and Nautical Charts.” (I had to look it up too, pyrography means writing with fire.)

Glauco the pyrographer is next door to A&A Sandals, where Aladir and his son Alan make hands down the best leather sandals in Rio.

Purse party.

Rainbow necklaces.

Head to the middle of the plaza by the big fountain for the artwork.

The photos that follow are close-ups I took with permission from the artists, so visit. They take Visa!

This scene is by Rio artist Andre Costa. Costa says he is living “an inexplicable innocence” and his art is about “happiness, innocence and a new way of showing the city in its day to day life.” Check out his website to see more of beautiful his work.

More Ipanema Sundays on RioChromatic:

SundayBoardwalkChill

Sundays in Ipanema, the city turns the southbound lanes into a pedestrian playground. (link)

Arpoador Freestyle:

Summer afternoon freestyle in Arpoador, the magical east end of Ipanema Beach. (link)

Ipanema Frames:

Sunset over Dois Irmãos, shot in time lapse mode with a GoPro Hero2. (link)

Original photography by Julie Ruvolo. Featured image of artwork by Andre Costa.

Pacified, gentrified, superbly located Vidigal. The “UPP” pacification branding in Vidigal plaza means it’s safe for tourists.

Drive a mile down the coast from swanky Leblon Beach, just past a strip of sex motels and the Sheraton Hotel, and you’re standing at the entrance to Vidigal.

Locals line up to catch a ride up the hill on a moto-taxi.

Moto-taxis zoom through the plaza that used to host Vidigal’s famous funk parties, till the pacification police laid some bureaucracy down with a new party permit policy.

Some people opt for walking and some take the stairs.

Local açai for sale.

And local ladies in retail.

This is Ana Paula’s shop. She’s 19. Next to Ana Paula’s shop is the auto shop.

Next to the auto shop is the barber shop, where the guy on the right is dying his hair red.

Family portrait.

A moto-taxi meet-up near the top of Vidigal, known as Alto Vidigal.

Killer views in Alto Vidigal. This is a moment between sunshine and a rainstorm.

Local girls pause for a pose-off in the sports plaza in Alto Vidigal.  The pink building to the left houses a municipal daycare in one half. The other half hosts an NGO called GASCO. The girls on the right post up in front of police SUVs, where the Order Shock Batallion has a station overlooking the plaza.

GASCO offers English, Spanish, Portuguese classes, dance and judo classes, sports programs and psychological counseling to about 200 local kids per day.

They’ve served 7,000 kids since they opened their doors in 2007.

Local girls call Bernadete Tia, for Auntie. Bernadete used to work for an NGO at the bottom of Vidigal and noticing that the kids on the top had less access to resources. So she started GASCO. Bernadete also works as a counselor for the Rio’s Conselho Titular, Child Protective Services.

Most of GASCO’s volunteer staff are foreigners, Bernadete says, because “we don’t have that culture here.” Marcio, a Vidigal resident walking on the left, is an exception. He teaches judo classes to ninety enrolled students.

Vidigal was pacified in November 2011. After pacification, the UPP Social program brings social services to the community. Bernadette thought her NGO would be a natural ally supporting incoming social programs. Instead she was served eviction papers.

Classes are canceled for the summer while GASCO fights removal.

Local NGO CatComm runs a community news site called RioOnWatch.org that has been tracking GASCO’s fight to resist eviction. Bernadete also counts on the support of four public defenders and a lieutenant coronel from the local Military Police. When trash trucks showed up to clear out her space last year, he held them at bay and asked them to return with official paperwork.

Bernadette catches up with Theresa Williamson, founder of CatComm, on the fight to stay open.

Sunblock and camouflage SUV’s.

Vidigal residents have been fighting eviction battles since the 1960′s.  When Pope John Paul II visited in 1980, he presented the community with his ring in solidarity. Local papers called Vidigal “the Pope’s favela.”

Since pacification, politicians, boutique hoteliers and sons of billionaires have also been trying to get in on the real estate action. A rainbow sign at the tip top of Vidigal points the way to Alto Vidigal, a hostel popular with hipsters and backpackers that opened in 2010.

The door to the hostel reads, “Vidigal is leisure.”  You’ll see why when you check out the view.

Original photography by Julie Ruvolo. Shot on a LUMIX LX3 in January, 2012.

More Vidigal:

November, 2012: Rio artist Andrea Brandani snaps a girl river surfing in Munich.

Photography courtesy of Andrea Brandani.

More RioChromatic:

From Andrea to Munich

Ipanema artist Andrea Brandani is going to Munich at the city’s request to paint the town any color he feels like. Let’s see what (or who) he’s packing in his bag.

Sunday afternoon in Copacabana Beach and I’m out at sea.

The sound of Rihanna blasting from a thousand speakers draws me in to shore.

Let’s take a closer look!

I have just paddleboarded into the 17th Annual Gay Pride Parade.

IT’S A CELEBRATION BITCHES!!

Thirteen semis with sound systems brought to you by Grupo Arco-Iris.

Arco-íris is rainbow in Portuguese.

This year’s theme: “The heart has no prejudice. It’s got love.”

Arco-Iris president Julio Moreira: “Gay Pride goes beyond the party, beyond the alegria.”

“It bring society a moment of reflection, that behind the chest or silicone of every human being, beats a human heart.”

One of 300,000 condoms distributed at Gay Pride 2012.

Garis in iconic raver orange jumpsuits bring up the rear with brooms.

Chillest urban cleaning crew on the planet.

Peace out!

More RioChromatic:

Gay (Money) is Good

I asked Gregory Mitchell, Assistant Professor of Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies at Williams College and resident expert on gay sex tourism in Brazil, to confirm or deny media claims that Rio is the hottest gay travel destination on the planet.  Here’s what he had to say.

>> Original photography by Julie Ruvolo.