The Viaduto Madureira, a self-managed cultural center under a highway on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, has been around since the late 1980s. Here, the baile charme has been pulsating beneath concrete stilts every weekend for more than forty years. The dance movement emerged from the anti-racist Black resistance against the military dictatorship in Brazil. Baile charme is carried by global Black music, soul, funk, R&B, Afropop, highlife, rap, and hip hop. It is the place where Rio is at its liveliest and most beautiful. Yet tourists almost never find their way to this dancing community, mainly from the Zona Norte, the outskirts of Rio, the favelas. Here, people of all generations, skin colors—predominantly Black—sexual orientations and social groups come together. You never see couples dancing, nor even individuals, but always a community as a whole, coordinating spontaneously with each other. This is not a socio-cultural or pedagogically mediated action. The baile charme arises again and again from a deep need for a cultural identity that connects people through shared movement and expression.
