Under a busy overpass in Rio’s working-class neighborhood Madureira, far away from Copacabana beach and Christ the redeemer, people are dancing together.
The collective are moving to a set choreography: One step forward, one to the left, half a turn, a swing of the hips, then to the right.
I am here tonight alongside the choreographer Eduardo Gonçalves. Here in Madureira, a neighborhood also known as “the birthplace of samba”, everybody knows him. He created the “passinho” — Portuguese for dance moves — to the song “Escapism” by British singer Raye.
But samba is not on the menu at the Madureira dance party. Here thousands of people from Rio’s Black and Brown community get together every Saturday night to dance to the sounds of R&B as buses rush past. It’s a phenomenon that has received little attention outside Brazil, usually known for samba and funk.
Honoring Brazil’s Black culture
On this hot summer night, dancers are drying the sweat dripping from their faces with towels casually hanging over their shoulders.
“Up to 5,000 people come to dance here every weekend, since 1994,” Eduardo tells me.
The Baile Charme under the bridge in Madureira is not only the oldest, but also the largest dance party of its kind. In 2013, it was declared UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage by then mayor, Eduardo Paes.
Eduardo leads the way as we push through the crowd and across the dance floor before reaching the walls that enclose the area.
That’s where Eduardo stops and proudly shows me the graffiti on the walls. Once bare and gray, the area now resembles an open-air museum displaying icons of Black culture: Tupac, Michael Jackson, Grace Jones, Negra Li and others are gazing right back at me.
History, music and movement
The Charme movement, characterized by its culture of collective dancing in synchronicity, has origins in the 1980s as a slowed-down dance alternative within the Black music scene.
Back then, professional dancers and party-goers in the suburbs of Rio de Janeiro founded dance collectives and came up with their own choreographies influenced by street dance, samba, hip-hop and ballroom dancing.
The name “Baile Charme” was coined by a DJ named Corello, who had been integral to the Rio Black music scene since the 1970s. He is said to have announced at a Baile — Portuguese for dance party — in the suburb of Méier: “It’s time for the charm, move your bodies very slowly.”
Long before TikTok and Instagram, the choreographies danced at these parties went “viral.” But according to Eduardo, there is no recipe for the success of a passinho or dance step sequence.
“If the people like a passinho, they will dance it and the choreography spreads,” he explains.
Two years ago, when he came up with the choreography for the current Charme-anthem “Escapism,” Eduardo was standing in a crowded subway as the song played on his headphones.
Back then, the idea was to create a passinho for him and his friends to dance to at the parties. But things turned out differently.
Eduardo’s passinho became so popular among “the charmers,” as attendees call themselves, that more and more began to pick it up. Today, it is one of the most popular choreographies in the scene.
People are dancing it not only in Rio, but also in São Paulo, Brasília or Minas Gerais, where Charme movements are emerging.
‘Histories are written here’
Eduardo still remembers his first Baile Charme party some 25 years ago, when he was still a minor.
He had told his Pentecostal Christian parents that he was going to sleep at a friends’ house. Instead, he went to the party with a fake school ID on which a five had magically transformed into an eight.
“It was this inhaling of Black culture, like you see it in the movies,” he recalls. “Beautiful, well-dressed people dancing … My God, that was all I ever wanted!”
A regular at the Baile Charme in Madureira since that first night, he has also made a living from dancing, teaching and choreographing, and coordinates a social project that offers free Charme dance lessons.
For Eduardo, the Baile under the bridge is now much more than just a party. “This place has become a therapy. People who suffer from depression come here to dance. Friendships and dance groups are formed here, couples meet.”
“Histories are written here,” he adds.
Dancing to heal and forget
Many of the people I talk to explain how the dance floor under the bridge has impacted their lives.
One of them is Siton Santos, who works in a cookie factory by day and dances in every free minute that he has.
But dancing was never really Siton’s thing. It was his mother who took him to the Baile Charme when he was a child. When she passed away 11 years ago, he was just 18 years old and fell into a severe depression.
Under the bridge in Madureira, Siton found solace. “Here, you are surrounded by people who just want to dance and forget the problems of everyday life. When I dance, it feels like my mother is here with me, dancing and smiling.”
A choreography conquers a subculture
Around two o’clock in the morning, the time has finally come. DJ Michell plays the song everyone is waiting for. Eduardo gently taps my shoulder: “Escapism.”
As the beat kicks in, hundreds of people bring Eduardo’s passinho to life. The experienced dancers are up front, those learning the moves remain in the rear. They dance with so much self-confidence that one could believe they had come up with the dance moves themselves.
How does it feel when a choreography that you’ve made up between appointments on the subway conquers an entire subculture, I wonder?
Eduardo watches the dancing crowd; he shakes his head in disbelief. “I could never have imagined this reach.”
DW