Manaus 354 years: Local talents that won Brazil

Manaus (AM) – Dances, songs, paintings. Among the most diverse artistic manifestations, each citizen has the potential to expand their roots and reach more and more people who support their art and their work.

With the arrival of Covid-19 in Brazil, the artistic sector was one of the main losers, as due to social isolation, the public became more reclusive, and those who were unable to adapt to the new daily life ended up losing their space.

According to the 2020 Cultural Information and Indicators System, from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), in the year in which the pandemic arrived in the country, around 5.6% of the employed population belonged to the cultural sector, that is, approximately 4 .8 million people. In relation to 2019, there was a decrease of 11.2%.

The advancement of vaccination has made it possible to return to the various activities that the cultural sector provides. The Itaú Cultural Observatory revealed that the area generated 7.4 million formal and informal jobs in the country during the fourth quarter of 2022; this is equivalent to 7% of the total number of professionals in the Brazilian economy. Compared to the same period in 2021, there was an increase of 4%, adding 308 thousand new jobs in the sector.

Resisting the impacts of the pandemic, Manaus artists also experienced difficulties over a certain period of time. Finding strength in their hometowns, some of them managed to establish themselves on the regional scene, and today they are exploring the country, proving to everyone the strength of the talent that comes from the north of Brazil.

Victor Shaman

One of the main national hip hop names, Victor Xamã, is from Manaus and currently has more than 100 thousand monthly listeners on the Spotify platform. But to reach stardom, the artist’s journey began in his adolescence, to treat a problem that bothered him.

“I started playing music when I was around 12 years old, it was more as a communication mechanism, because I suffer from a speech disfluency problem, the famous stutter, so when I was younger, music, especially spoken music, It gave me confidence to present work at school, sometimes to defend an idea, express an opinion”,

said.

Taking his first steps in his career, Victor began to conquer his space through presentations in the center of the capital of Amazonas.

“I started in the rhyme battles, in Praça Heliodoro Balbi, better known as Praça da Policia, and we organized the battle of the square, where I tried out a rhyme of freestyle, which are freestyle rhymes, and I developed into that”,

recalled the artist.

The leap forward in Victor Xamã’s artistic career began after the release of his first album, entitled “Janela”. Through this work, Manauara began to be noticed by national musicians and realized that listeners from other regions were also interested in his art.

“I’m a rapper and I’m a producer too, I did some music production work for some big artists between 2014 and 2015. In 2015, when I released my album, I started to get noticed by people from the Rio de Janeiro-São Paulo axis, Since then, I have been focusing my work not only on the local environment, but also on the national environment”,

specified.

Taking advantage of life’s opportunities and focusing on his career potential, Victor moved to São Paulo and nowadays, he has a broader view of the national market. Even in a new environment, the artist continues to include the Manaus scenario in his performances.

“I came to São Paulo to amplify my music, my dream, and it has worked very well. My album released in March reached 1.5 million stream only on Spotify and I have been able to sing a little about the northern region and take our city wherever I go”,

highlighted Shaman.

Gandhicats

Just like Victor, another type of talent is taking Manaus’ name to other regions of the country. The Gandhicats Urban Dance School is one of the main artistic references in the capital of Amazonas, participating in major Brazilian events, such as the Parintins Festival and the Joinville Dance Festival.

Directed by choreographer Gandhi Tabosa, Gandhicats began its activities before the pandemic, when the professional decided to take a further step in his cultural career.

“The project started in 2018, it started with the intention of me following the work, my compositions and that was when I left La Salle. I worked at La Salle for many years, and many students came with me. So, we continued the work”,

explained Gandhi.

Focused on urban dances, the project is aimed at the performance area, adding new elements, according to the purpose of each performance.

“We work with urban dances, but we are very artistic and within the performance sphere, so we are always developing other things. In the midst of our work, we are always researching contemporary dance, jazz technique, but the focus of the school and the company is urban dances”,

pointed out the choreographer.

With the dedication and determination of everyone involved, Gandhicats went on to win awards at national level, some of which were unprecedented for Manaus and Amazonas.

“Due to the pandemic and also the change we went through at the beginning of the year, we haven’t competed abroad for a while. But we have already competed in the FIH2 (International Hip Hop Festival) and the Joinville Dance Festival, and in both, we won first places, and won the unprecedented title for Amazonas, the title of Best Company of the Festival in 2019”,

Tabosa is proud.

Even with the difficulties imposed by the pandemic, the dance school persisted in its purpose and since the resumption of cultural activities in the city, Gandhicats has stood out in the eyes of the population.

This year, people from Manaus had the opportunity to view the work developed by the company’s dancers through the Sou Manaus Passo a Paço 2023 Festival. In the first two days of the event, the Gandhicats Project presented the mapping performance on the facade of the Manaus City Museum.

“We received the invitation through Wallace Almeida, from the Municipal Foundation for Culture, Events and Tourism (ManausCult), and he was the one who conceived the whole idea, he wanted something like videomapping and a lot of performance; I sewed and directed the entire idea he wanted to execute”,

explained Tabosa.

For the performance to be perfect, there was a mutual contribution between the company and the municipal culture foundation. Analyzing this year’s presentation, Gandhi is already looking forward to next year’s edition.

“The presentation at SouManaus was incredible, we were very excited about the scale and grandeur of the event. We had everything from ManausCult, all the technical aspects of lighting, fireworks, sound, and everyone involved made the show the magnitude it was. We are already looking forward to next year,”

expressed the choreographer.

Incentives for Manaus artists

For Manaus to continue revealing new talents in the cultural area, there needs to be more incentive, according to Victor Xamã and Gandhi Tabosa. For the rapper, two transformations are necessary in the current scenario: the appreciation of the Manaus artist and the change in the population’s mentality.

”The Manaus scene is one of the most beautiful in Brazil, there are many talented people doing a lot with little. Art is a job like any other, and it needs encouragement. I also believe that people’s mentality has to change. I remember when I performed in Manaus, I always received compliments like: ‘your music is so cool it doesn’t even sound like it’s from here’. That’s a compliment in quotes. In addition to having better working conditions for artists, it is necessary to change the mentality of the people to value the art and culture of the city and region”,

declared Victor.

In Gandhi’s view, few artists are able to maintain themselves independently, which is why it is more than necessary to expand programs that promote the Manaus cultural sector.

“The artist in Manaus can only produce if he has partners, or if he has a lot of drive, courage, determination, to do it independently; When you have the support of notices from other companies, these jobs always take on different sizes. So it is visible when a work is conceived independently and when it is created with support”,

declared Tabosa.

To subsidize more and more work in the capital of Amazonas, the City of Manaus, through ManausCult, is currently developing the following projects to enhance local culture: promotion through a notice for artistic segments, dissemination and realization through Art for the City, actions to promote the appreciation of Material and Intangible Heritage through National Museum Week and Museum Spring, and training through the Municipal Artistic and Cultural Training Program – PROMFAC.

According to ManausCult, since 2022, with the relaxation of Covid19 health measures, the foundation has supported, through notices, bands, street blocks and folk festivals in the neighborhoods. It also supports neighborhood anniversaries in all areas. There are projects that are external achievements or initiatives that also receive support from the institution.

The largest integrated arts festival in the north, Sou Manaus Passo a Paço 2023 was also one of the ways to value the city’s artists. In three days of celebration, more than 700 cultural workers, including music, theater, circus and visual arts, actively participated in the event. This number registers an increase of 580% in relation to the number of artists who participated in the first edition, which took place in 2015, where only 12 people from the cultural segment were selected.

The Paulo Gustavo Law is another alternative to encourage artists from Manaus. According to Manaus City Hall, every care was taken to make it the broadest and most pluralistic notice. To make this a reality, hearings, preparatory meetings and active searches were held, ending with assistance in filling out registrations and training for the development of cultural projects. Until the 18th, 1028 registrations were recorded, according to data from ManausCult.

Read more:

Federal government delivers 1,651 Minha Casa, Minha Vida homes

Halloween Kids cheers up children with a children’s party in Manaus

Multiartist from Manaus launches poetry book “Before we die”