vimeo.com/.../1039225260

Maracautu is a royal court.

The coronation of the king and queen of the Congo.

We have the king and the queen,
the prince and the princess.

The Dama do Passo,
who carries the calunga,

which symbolizes all the
spirit of our nation.

It protects the nation.

Then there are the Catarinas
who protect the court,

Then there are the agbés.

Then the drums: the snare,
the gonguê, the alfaia.

Maracatu is a court
and a procession.

The drums of freedom

In elementary school,
I spent every recess

either locked in the classroom
or the bathroom.

People pulled my hair.

My mom would put my hair
into a bun on the side,

and I hated it because
kids would pull it so much.

They cursed me:
burnt banana...

ape...

ugly, stuff like that.

I thought I was stupid.

Incapable.

That's all I heard.

The teachers said, "she can't learn."

"She's stupid. You're stupid."

You start to see yourself that way.

When I was six, in first grade,

The teacher talked about cultures.

So there was a German boy,

and she said his culture was German.

And a girl whose grandparents
came from Europe,

and that was her culture.

I didn't think I had a culture.

When you live in the favela,
they look at you strange.

The police can only see
the bad side.

We're black, in favelas,
we practice African religions.

When I was a kid, I would
dance at home.

But black bodies are so sexualized,

that I spent half of my teenager years

closing myself off so I
wouldn't be attacked.

Some days, I'm just so bummed out.

I walk on the street and say to myself,
"Wow, am I sad!"

And then I get to the maracatu
or to the escola de samba,

And people are so happy.

The shine.

The beautiful clothes.

It animates me.

I get happy again.

We do some dances where we
play, spin, jump.

Sometime we throw the agbé
in the air and then catch it.

And then we spin and spin...

I just feel... freedom.

So, what's cool about playing and instrument
in the maracatu,

is to be connected to the
ancestral spirits.

And with the orixás of
the African diaspora.

It's like I'm saying "hi",

From here.

"Here I am, representing you."

I had been taught to demonize
afro-Brazilian religions.

"That's witchcraft!"

Maracatu helped me to presignify
that relationship

with African religion and the orixás.

Maracatu brought me that negritude,

that love...

I don't even know the word.

To be able to recognize myself as black.

To recognize the cultural practices
of my ancestors.

Maracatu breaks those prejudices!

We can mold these kids through culture.

Their minds and their spirits.

Maracatu brings that:

That you free yourself.

Hey everyone from Tamboritá!

Time to get here to the Barra to play!

I started to play drums when I was five.

The maracatu was based out of my house.

Estrela Brilhante rehearsed in my backyard.

Our play was in that world.

I was playing drums in the rituals
by the time I was eight.

It's a community.

Everyone grows up together.

We look after the kids together.

A mom can't make it to pick
up the kids at school?

Someone else does it.

Everyone helps with homework...

It's because of the sense of family.

If I think about my support network here,

It's who I met in the Maracatu.

I don't have a problem with being a mother.

I have a problem with the way
we're forced to live maternity.

Maracatu gives me to chance to
live another kind of motherhood.

To think motherhood in a way that
isn't based only on solitude.

Being a mother is hard.

Mothering a teenager
is even more complicated.

And if you don't have culture,
music, other people, other voices...

it's even harder.

Andressa doesn't always find answers with me.

But she will find it in music,
instruments, dance.

It literally changed my life.

I'm now coordinating the agbés
in the Nação Guarani samba school,

here in the city of Palhoça.

First I went to talk to the president
of the samba school.

Then the artistic director.

They said I could try to introduce the
abgé into the samba.

So then I researched the instrument.

How to make it. It's history.

I called everyone I could think of,
brought them to rehearsals.

And the day the whole thing came together,

here I show up with a huge crowd.

We took it on the avenue.

It was judged the best part of the procession.

I felt so satisfied!

I'd always been interested in directing,

but I never wanted to direct this group.

So when I started to direct,
without the strict hierarchy,

without imposing myself.

The result is I'm often questioned.

That doesn't happen with men.

I ask other women musicians
and they say the same thing.

Men feel comfortable to challenge everything.

Sometime in the moment you're playing!

One time I was playing
on a big stage downtown,

when some due shows up and says,

"Hey, I play that drum!"

"You need to use the second
drumstick more!"

I think about my niece Andressa.

She's very shy.

I used to see her shoulders curved in.

I'm still shy, but it used to be much more.

I wasn't able to meet new people, make friends.

But Maracatu is a collective.

It allows me to let go.

You get together with people you know

but you also meet new people
from new places.

They come from far away,
and you meet them.

My mother is a maid.
Her whole life.

And when I would come home empowered

and explain how I would set limits,
say "no",

and refuse to accept that everyday oppression,

she started to see herself in me.

And she changed her behavior.

My niece is the same.

The gonguê is the only instrument
that circulated through the percussion.

I sing and dance to show
"This is Maracatu"

"We're her to show who we are!"

"We're smiles, we are joy!"

I think about my nephew.

When he was elected prince of the maracatu,

he showed up at school and told everyone.

"I'm a prince!"