|
 "We had a dream of bringing music here,
having a Carnaval. But lots of things got lost
on a personal level. It is more joyous now.
The idea of life, living, is a very playful idea.
We need a lot of Brazilian joy." Vinito
By Dawn Tyler
VANCOUVER, B.C.— If you are a certain kind of traveler and you ever find yourself
here in this paradise-by-the sea with nothing to do and you are looking for a certain kind
of magic, you might ask, Where are the Brazilians? For the cognoscenti, it means saudade,
samba, alegria, fantasia e felicidade com música. It's esoteric.
In this beautiful city that is fast becoming the film-location capital of the world they
are celebrating life and loving it and making cultural contributions despite occasional
yearning for the familiar rhythms and beauty of places like Bahia and Rio because
Vancouver, Van—as the locals call it—which is located in the province of British
Columbia, a rainforest, is a special place as is Brazil. And like Brazil, Canada (with a
population of some 28.5 million) represents a kind of landscape for the future because it
is changing fast and absorbing the best that other cultures have to offer.
Brazilians are here with their drum: Despite their small numbers, their presence
is echoing in Vancouver's social and cultural milieu. According to the 1996 census
published by Statistics Canada, there are 6520 Brazilians in Canada, who live mostly in
Toronto, a city of some 3.9 million. With 1065 in the province of British Columbia and 740
in the city of Vancouver, out of a total population of 1,813,935, they are a tiny minority
but, already, capoeira and samba are in the air (perhaps everywhere soon) and, if
you are a regular reader of The Georgia Straight, a widely read city weekly, you
will now see listings for capoeira instruction and Brazilian cultural events.
SAUDADE E MÚSICA
Sometime in the 1980s I first saw musician-composer-guitarist Celso Machado
perform somewhere on Fourth Avenue in Vancouver. He reminded me of the year and place: It
was in 1989 at the Rattlesnake Grill, where he was featured regularly. It was a treat
because, at the time, there were no Brazilian performers of any kind here, and it was
great to hear those gentle, hypnotic, poetic sounds distinctive of the Brazilian
soul—shades of Antônio Carlos Jobim, Luiz Bonfá, Vinicius de Moraes, João
Gilberto, Caetano Veloso and other great Brazilian composers.
"Now, I don't feel totally alone," reminisced the 47-year-old musician, a
humble, self-effacing, gentle man, who hails from São Paulo and is one of Canada's most
respected musicians. Celso never met any musicians from Brazil when he came to Vancouver
from Europe twelve years ago. I talked with Celso this summer after he participated in the
Dragon Boat Festival at the Plaza of Nations in Vancouver. Nominated in 1997 for the Juno
Award for Best CD in the Latin American/World Music category, he was awarded the prize in
1998.
And again in 1999 he was nominated for the prize for his CD Jongo Le in the same
category, and he received it in March 2000 in Toronto in the presence of all of the
best-known names in Canadian music at this two-day award fest. He also won a Leo Award in
2000 for best music score for "In the Company of Fear," written for a
documentary about Columbia. He also completed music for three documentaries for Readers
Digest in the United States: a piece called "Amazônia"; another, untitled,
about the mountains in South America; and another about the South American coast.
Brazil…
Where hearts were entertaining June
We stood beneath an amber moon
And softly murmured "someday soon"
We'd kiss, and clung together
Then, tomorrow was another day
The morning found me miles away
With still a million things to say
Now when twilight dims the sky above
Recalling thrills of our love
There's one thing I'm certain of
Return I will to old Brazil
Brazil…
The Brazil that I knew
Where I wandered with you
Lives in my imagination
Where the songs are passionate
And a smile has flash in it
And a kiss has art in it
For you put your heart in it
And so I dream of old Brazil.
(From Bob Russell's English version of Ary Barroso's song Aquarela do
Brasil) |
On being asked to name a Brazilian word that came to mind when he thought of Brazil,
Celso said, saudade: "Saudade is on the tip of the tongue for all
Brazilians. We carry saudade everywhere we go. In music, life. Saudade is a
good thing. If you have it you can express your emotions more. Saudade makes you do
good things."
A clothes line with colorful clothes sways in the breeze in some country town as a
young boy, barefoot and content, walks by eating a slice of watermelon, evoking, perhaps
memories of a childhood in Brazil on the cover of his CD Varal on which he
composed, sang and performed all the music. According to the CD notes, the second
composition, "Varal," was inspired by the songs slaves would sing as they washed
their clothes, rhythmically slapping them on riverbanks.
Musically diverse, the CD begins with familiar samba and bossa nova rhythms as
in "Depois de Anos" (After Some Years) and moves through African-inspired
rhythms and indigenous themes born of the sights and sounds of the Amazonian rainforest.
According to the notes on "Corpo" (Body), first comes "mouth and body
percussion": "There is a saying in Brazil that samba begins with the feet.
" In Celso's family, which included his five brothers, "that soon spread to
bodies, mouths, tables, boxes, frying pans and pieces of paper, with each brother and
their mother imitating an instrument: surdos (bass drums), shakers, agogo
bells and tamborins." This was evident in "Virou Até um Baião"
(Sudden Change to Baião), which features digeridoo, ganzá, mouth
percussion, mouth thunder storm, and monkey sound, according to the CD notes.
You can imagine the sounds of the Amazon rainforest: the buzzing of bees, screeching
monkeys, the sounds of birds of paradise before the rain on other tracks. Melodic guitar
accompaniment to African refrains in "Que Fait Lit," segues to the very
effective "Canto do Escravo" (Chant/Song of the Slave), which ends this
thoughtful, reflective CD.
"I am a Brazilian who plays music, not a Brazilian musician. I make music,"
Celso declared, pointing to the influences in his music from Morocco, West Africa, the
Middle East and North America, allowing that he does a lot of research to incorporate
different elements into his music. He feels that, while Cuban music, primarily salsa, is
very popular, it is melodically and harmonically simpler. Of Brazilian music, he says,
"You have to listen carefully, it is very sophisticated."
Celso sometimes plays with other Brazilians in Vancouver, such as the musicians in the capoeira
troupe Aché Brasil, and occasionally plays small venues. This is a good time for him
professionally because he is doing different things and growing in many directions.
Married with one child, he now has to think about family as well: "I like Vancouver,
it's home for me. I wish there were more Brazilians, but there are beautiful mountains, a
beautiful sea, the ocean. What more do I want?"
CAPOEIRA
Perhaps the question where are the Brazilians is what Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tom
Selleck, dressed in the colors of the Flamengo soccer team, and Wesley Snipes flanked by
four bodyguards, asked during a break from filming when they showed up at Mardi Gras, a capoeira
show produced by Aché Brasil last year at the Maritime Hall here in Vancouver that
showcased the skills of this capoeira troupe in a half-hour segment on local
television news in February 1999.
Mestre Eclison de Jesus, a musician, poet, dancer and master teacher of capoeira,
who also does stunt work, has been teaching in Vancouver for ten years, seven of them as a
capoeira master. Teaching since he was 15 years old, thirty-six-year-old Eclison,
who is from Quilombo, Pernambuco, has almost singlehandedly launched an interest in capoeira
in Canada. He has done more than 1000 shows for schools, has appeared on TV talk shows and
has been the subject of many articles in Canadian papers like the Globe, Mail
and National Post. But it was a cover story in May 2000 The Georgia Straight
that catapulted him into the national Canadian spotlight causing an escalation of interest
in capoeira.
It's a family affair at his studio on Sixth Avenue in Vancouver that his wife
Christiane has managed for the past five years. Eclison conducts 18 classes and his
14-year-old daughter Vanessa, who has been studying capoeira since she was six
years old, helps out with accompaniment on the atabaque. He also has another
12-year-old daughter who also has an interest in this art form.
It was only two years ago that Eclison noticed an interest in capoeira beginning
to form in Vancouver, and when he started teaching capoeira, he only had one
student. Now, because of growing demand, Eclison plans to add new classes and another
master teacher from Brazil to help instruct a cultural rainbow of students: Canadian
students of various ethnicities, a Filipino drummer, a student from Africa, and one from
Germany playing the gunga (the big berimbau) for the roda or capoeira
circle formed to summon the votive spirits for the demonstrations and martial dance
contests. The studio, which operates at full capacity, occupies two floors and is
spacious, with mirrored art-lined orange walls and the colors of the Brazilian flag
evident everywhere. Downstairs there is a space for rehearsals and costumes for shows
Aché Brasil puts on all over Canada and elsewhere.
Eclison came to Vancouver in 1990 and decided to stay after performing at the Vancouver
Children's Festival and formed the performance group Aché Brasil. His credits in film
work include the Ninja Turtles series, The Sentinel and Mr. Magoo for
Disney, and he was invited to represent Canada in capoeira at Arnold
Schwarzenegger's fitness clinic. Aché is a Yoruba word that means "everything
positive in the universe," he pointed out, stating, "It was my dream to make a
Brazilian cultural society, but so far I have been too busy booking shows and taking care
of this [his capoeira studio]."
SAMBA E ALEGRIA
"Dance is about enjoying, connecting with the sound," exclaimed
twenty-something dancer-choreographer Ana da Silva, who epitomizes the spirit of
samba and the generosity and warmth of Brazil. "I really know every dance from
Brazil. Since I was five I have taken part in competitions. Dance is very easy."
Ana has also studied capoeira and has appeared in some of the productions of
Aché Brasil. Beautiful, with a cascade of almost-waist-length black hair and an enviable
figure, Ana, who is of Portuguese, Native South American and African descent, was born in
Maceió, a city of 3000 near Pernambuco, where she grew up with three brothers and two
sisters. For three or four years from the age of seven she attended candomblé rites
in her hometown and was infused with the spirit of candomblé and dance:
"Through dance you feel the presence of the universe," she declared, revealing
that she achieves a kind of elation when she does numerous turns. Ana, who makes her own
one-of-a-kind costumes, was happy to give me samba demonstrations while showing me her
colorful costumes.
In Brazil, she worked as an optometrist and danced in the carnavais (carnavals)
of Pernambuco and Bahia. She loves Rio but prefers Bahia for its art and culture. In
Vancouver she plans to continue teaching Brazilian dance and doing workshops in community
centers (she has been a regular teacher at the Roundhouse Community Center) but she is
planning to travel to other places to do more shows and hopes to perform internationally.
A former member of Balé Tropical in the province of her hometown, Ana has also performed
in New York, Toronto and the Yukon.
She explained the Brazilian mystique: "Brazil is about culture, music, lots of
music all the time." And she misses the beautiful beaches and Salvador: "It's
really magical, with a very strong energy."
Ana's heart may be in Bahia but her life is here in Vancouver. And wherever she goes
there is alegria.
FANTASIA E FELICIDADE
Born in Ipanema—"a Norman colony to which the Portuguese came in
1400"—Virginia "Vicky" Quental, who is known socially as Vinito,
is a painter, muralist, graphic designer, illustrator, poet, teacher, translator in three
languages (Portuguese from Brazil and Portugal, French and English) and consultant on
architecture whose résumé identifies her as a Renaissance woman. Eclectic, spiritual,
other-worldly, humorous, generous (some of the adjectives that come to mind in attempting
to describe her), Vinito has been living in Vancouver for twenty years and has three
children: Amanda and Bianca from her first marriage and an eighteen-year-old daughter from
her second marriage, Willow, the subject of one of her paintings, and a grandson whom she
adores. Gregarious, with a profound affinity for nature, Vinito has a large circle of
friends. A self-described muse, she is a seeker of truth.
Her reminiscences are endless: Experiences as an exchange student in Delaware in 1965,
where she used to visit the American painter Andrew Wyeth, "an important influence in
my life"; meetings with Antônio Carlos Jobim about the time that he wrote his
world-famous "Girl from Ipanema" with Vinicius de Moraes; playing the berimbau
with Dois de Oro; memories of the politics of the time in the era of Gal Costa, Maria
Bethânia, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil and others: "We represented a stand for the
future for joy, the joy of being" is how she described the period.
A graduate in Visual Communications at the Escola Superior de Desenho Industrial
(School of Industrial Design) in Brazil, where 81-year-old Dr. Carmen Portinho was its
director, Vinito has a résumé that also includes drawing and painting in the Greek
Islands over a three-year period and lecturing at the Casa do Estudante do Brasil
on Brazilian Native aboriginal design. She also studied piano with Lúcia Branco, did work
on a master's at Lesley College Graduate School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and
postgraduate work in ancient art techniques (mural, fresco, mosaic, etc.) at the Museum
School of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, and taught art at the Guilford School and
the Emily Carr College of Art and Design in Vancouver.
Vinito, whose granduncle is Anthero de Quental—a renowned Portuguese poet from the
19th century—came to Vancouver in 1971. Of Dutch descent on her father's
side (he was a millionaire in Pernambuco who "recovered and lost a fortune"),
Vinito grew up in a family of five boys and two girls and was encouraged to succeed and
taught "never to be afraid of losing." After studying industrial design and
visual communication in Brazil, Vinito met her first husband, Peter Pratt, a Canadian, in
Rio and got married in Athens, Greece, where she went to study City Planning and
Architecture. She mentioned that she was a design consultant on the Canadian Embassy in
Brazil and that she collaborated with her husband on projects in Granville Island, a
picturesque market in Vancouver, B.C.
A return to Brazil found Vinito teaching and living by the river, where she used to
teach and translate the poetry of Olga Savary, a Brazilian poet, whose twelve books of
poetry, Repertoria Selvagem Obra Reunida she proudly owns. She also has vivid
memories of psychic experiences in Bahia. And she has also studied expressive therapies:
the importance of dreams (the arts and magic) and how to paint and relate to dreams, how
to paint and have a "path of self-knowledge through dreams." She sees her form
of painting as magic realism.
When Vinito first arrived in Vancouver she noted that there was no Brazilian consulate
and, because of economic reasons, there was no Brazilian consulate in 15 countries, so at
the time she helped found the Associação do Brasil in Vancouver to assist
Brazilians with consular matters.
Vinito plays piano and the flute and is now studying the Tao, which is a very important
aspect of her spiritual life. Some of her ideas: She feels that you have to find happiness
in your heart, that the roots of the samba are in sadness and happiness; that "there
is a natural sadness that we all feel"; alegria is rooted in African and
Native Brazilian culture; that when Brazilians get together they try to connect to create alegria
through cultural and artistic expression: by painting, doing the samba, or meeting at a
fiesta or a concert. She occasionally misses Brazil, and pointed out that the climate is
so hot that there is no separation between the inside and the outside. As the bars in
Bahia are almost on the street, life has an easy infectious charm.
On remembering having Pelé and the Brazilian team at her house after a World Cup and
dancing until five a.m. at her home in Vancouver, Vinito the Carioca, reminisced:
"Vancouver was very sad when we first came. We were going to bring Zé Kéti to
Vancouver in 1973 but it was very difficult to get things happening. We had a dream of
bringing music here, having a Carnaval. But lots of things got lost on a personal level.
It is more joyous now. The idea of life, living, is a very playful idea. We need a lot of
Brazilian joy."
HONORARY BRAZILIANS
Vancouver-born Robert Sexton, owner of the shop Marimba, has been an active
participant in the alternative arts scene for years. A world traveler, Robert, who is
endowed with movie-star good looks and a heart to match, has always tried to make artists
and visitors to Vancouver from around the world comfortable. Possessed of an easy charm,
he interacts effortlessly with customers in his shop Marimba on West 4th Avenue
in Vancouver featuring clothes and accessories from exotic locales. This shop has also
been a center for the arts, so to speak, where you can find out what is happening
culturally by checking out the flyers promoting concerts and myriad cultural events.
Sensing a need for Brazilians to have a place to socialize, Robert has generously
opened his home, which has now become a sort of place to meet and greet for Brazilians and
others at parties. Brazilians, he feels, create a certain kind of ambience that was
missing here.
And popular Jamaican-born realtor and fellow Brazilophile, Tennyson Haughton
(Tennyson to everyone), a resident of Vancouver for over 28 years, during which he has
seen the city change from a quiet residential town by the sea into a world-class
destination for travelers, agrees with Robert 's assessment of the "life" that
Brazilians have added to Vancouver. In expressing sentiments that Brazil has finally come
to him, he remarked, "This is just amazing!"
It is amazing. To Brazilians everywhere, Happy New Year. And, by the way, Happy New
Millennium too. The same to Van.
A special thanks to Tennyson for taking most of the photos and helping me meet the
Brazilians. Thanks also to Aché Brasil for providing some professional photographs
and to a member of their staff who took some of the pictures. I'm sorry that I did not get
to talk with Dinho Ribeiro, an expert at capoeira, but he may be in one of the
photographs.
For the love of Brasil, Dawn Tyler is an occasional writer for Brazzil magazine
and can be reached at datyler2001@hotmail.com.
(© Dawn Tyler)
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