Scene Report – Brazil July 2009: The Brazilian Independent Cultural Revolution
By: Eduardo Curi
Not many years ago, Cuiabá, in the pantanal area state of Mato Grosso, deep in the Brazilian mid west, didn´t have much to offer to the mainstream circuit of arts and entertainment. The city is far away from the Rio de Janeiro – São Paulo axis and never grabbed much attention from the media in the rest of Brazil. This has been changing (a lot), though, in the past few years.
Kicking off an independent cultural revolution may have never been the intention of Pablo Capilé and Lenissa Lanza when they first started what was going to become the Instituto Cultural Espaço Cubo, but they did achieve one all the same. Espaço Cubo is the main player, along with 36 other partners from all over the country, running the Circuito Fora do Eixo (the Off-Axis Circuit, to translate literally), a network uniting the independent music scene in Brazil, and the rest of the chain that comes with it.
Working in the basis of solidary economy and the exchanging of services, Espaço Cubo fed the music chain in Cuiabá and has turned it into one of the reference scenes in the circuit. The managing model from Cubo is being followed by other initiatives in several cities, making “collectives” pop up all over the place. A “collective” (coletivo in portuguese) is nothing else than people joinning up together to strengthen their efforts in order to build up a sustentable music scene and circuit. This initiative don´t put together only musicians, but journalists, designers, photographers, producers and all other sorts of people that develop some kind of work within the music market, and are intereasted in making it grow.
To achieve that, most work is done voluntarily and is based on the exchanging of services. Thus, a band can “sell their gig” to a producer that has a recording studio to make their demo, EP or even an album. The revenue will come from the gig, thus paying off the recording. Cubo, and recently Goma, a collective from Uberlândia in Minas Gerais, has taken it to another level. They´ve coined complementary currencies, that make services exchanging viable, fixxing prices both in Reais (Brazillian currency) and in complementary currency. The advantage of the complementary currency is that if you have no money at all, you can offer whatever service you can do in order to make some credit and hire services from people in the chain.
Rockfeedback has spoken to Ney Hugo, press releations from Espaço Cubo, who explains what are the advatages in working like this and tells us about the Off-Axis Circuit.
Rockfeedback: How did Espaço Cubo bagin?
Ney Hugo: “Espaço Cubo began from a need in Cuiabá, wich was the lack of relevant cultural production. By the time Cubo appeared, there was in town only a bar circuit where the bands played cover songs. The process began with the mobilization in academic directories in universities in Cuiabá. Pablo Capilé, planning consultant, and Lenissa Lanza, Cubo Card consultant, were leading the works in the directory and afterwards carried out the endevour, along with other people that are not in Espaço Cubo anymore.
First to appear was Cubo Mágico wich came to support and help new autoral bands. There were built rehearsal and recording studios, offered to the bands in exchange of work, shaping what would become the Cubo Card, the complementary currency that is coined and makes cultural action in the Cuiabá scene and in the Off-Axis Circuit viable. As the process was developing and the need of articulation in cultural, planning, talks with civil society and other were detected, the Cubo Mágico becomes Instituto Cultural Espaço Cubo, developing works not only in the musical field, but also in audiovisual, literature and schools, among others. From 2005 and on, the Institute claims responsability in producing the Festival Calango de Artes Integradas, achieving success and national repercussion. At this point Abrafin (The Brazilian association of independent festivals) was created (Cubo joined in with Calango and Grito Rock Festivals) and the Off-axis Circuit, where Cubo had active action and played a fundamental role in its creation.
RFB: How did the collective structure itself ‘til getting its current form?
NH: “By turning itself into an institute, Espaço Cubo began to operate in work fronts. Working in a workshop model, Cubo bred countless managing technologies, capacitating the working fronts. This work also includes the exchange of technologies, since all tech made has a free software logic, making this open code avaliable to other people, thus making the exchanges. And the same thing happens with the technologies bred by partners wich are integrated in the Off-Axis Circuit. As new people are joining in and occupying the space within the structure, the collective heads foreward and new working fronts emerge. The newest is Negócios ao Cubo (which translates to something like “business to the third power”), wich works on getting resources, difusing actions for the Cubo card, Cubo´s clients relations (bands, producers, etc), campaings estimulating the profissionalization of bands amongst other actions.
RFB: What is the Off-Axis Circuit and how did it began?
NH: “The Off-Axis Circuit is a network integrating several collectives all over Brazil. It appeared in 2005 from meetings that happened in the Goiânia Noise festival earlier that year. A lot of producers had come to the festival because of the debates cycle that followed the Calango na Mesa, wich had proposed this action in 2005, three months before Goiania Noisa. With this huge amount of independent professionals around, Abrafin and the Off-Axis Circuit were created, the latter from a dialogue between the producers in Cuiabá and in Rio Branco (Catraia Records, wich, later on, would become the Coletivo Catraia). In common, both localities had the fact of quality culture producing and little penetration in the national scenario, wich always had its eyes focused on the mass media, concentrated in the Rio de Janeiro - São Paulo axis, hence the name. With the talks kept in a strong and regular basis the idea grew and in a little time there were several collectives formed. In 2007, the Off-Axis Festival was staged in São Paulo, in a strategic action of showing to the business capital of Brazil the musical production made in other states of the federation. Repercussions were great and encouraged more collectives and bands and gave a lot more credibility to the OAC in the mass media. The OAC web portal has just been chosen as a free media point by the Federal Cultural Office, which shows a notable recognition estabilishng the Off-Axis Network.
RFB: How did Grito Rock Festival begin and what is the ideology behind it? How was it made integrated within the continent?
NH: “Grito Rock initially was staged only in Cuiabá. The festival came with the aim of being an option to the public that didn´t leave town during Carnaval and didn´t like the traditional events with marchinhas, axé, samba, etc. Grito Rock had fundamental importance to the success of bands such as Vanguart and Macaco Bong, for instance. From 2007 the festival became integrated, being spreaded in tens of Brazillian cities, working in the same way as other free techs, with its code open, in the way each town uses only the concept and develops the festival with total freedom, only following the characteristics and particularities in each place. In 2008, Grito Rock was staged in 50 Brazilian cities and in Santa Cruz in Bolivia and Montevideo in Uruguay, where it was attended by a massive audience of 4,000 people. It appears as the festival is becoming an international landmark. This year the dutch band Cenobites played Grito in Cuiabá and took advantage of the existing circuit to play also other brazilian citis, including Psycho Carnival in Curitiba.”
Here are the contacts of all collectives that make the Off-Axis Circuit:
Mid West: Bigorna / Espaço Cubo / Fósforo Cultural / Torneira Produções /
Northwest: Coletivo Mundo / Coletivo Noize / Lumo Coletivo / Rede Cearense da Música
North: Coletivo Casca / Coletivo Catraia / Cuia Rasa / Coletivo Palafita /Interior Alternativo / Raio Q U Parta / Coletivo TomaRRock / Vilhena Rock
Southeast: Cidadão do Mundo / Escárnio e Osso / Massa Coletiva / Rock Alive / Travolta Discos / Anti-Herói / Azimute / Forceps / Goma / Pegada / Retomada / Semifusa / Megalozebu / Peleja / Cinnamon
South: Alona / Extremo Sul / Macondo Lugar / Timbre Noise