Gira Passista

From August 2023, I discovered and shared the everyday lives of the dancers of the Unidos da Tijuca samba school, known as passistas. Through this investigation, friendships were formed: Adrianna, Rafaella, and Nathanny opened the doors their passion.

From August 2023 , I shared the daily lives of the dancers of the Unidos da Tijuca samba school, known as passistas.
Gira Passista is a two-year investigation seen through the eyes of a young white French woman discovering Brazil for the first time. Having practiced dance for many years, I wanted to meet those who prepare Rio’s Carnival and document the rehearsals leading up to the event. The project was built around the figure of the passista of Rio de Janeiro’s Carnival.

Faced with cultural and linguistic barriers, I developed a method of exchange by producing photographs for my protagonists. This barter eased my integration and helped build a relationship of trust with the dancers. I formed particularly strong bonds with Adrianna, Nathanny, and Rafaella, who opened the backstage world of their passion to me: samba.

A popular dance rooted in slavery, samba is a powerful vehicle for resistance, affirmation, and the transmission of Black cultures.
The passistas, mostly racialized Black women between 20 and 35 years old, live in the outskirts of Rio and occupy a marginal position in the samba school hierarchy, despite their numbers and their talent.

Filming and photographing them created a space for a different kind of representation, one that values and legitimizes their art. Gira Passista pays tribute to them.
An emblematic figure of Carnival, the passista contributes to shaping both Brazilian and global imaginaries, and crafts her image through regular visits to beauty salons.

Places of weekly waiting and exchange, the beauty salons of Rio de Janeiro’s favelas and peripheral neighborhoods are spaces where new aesthetics of the periphery are born and evolve. These highly codified aesthetics express a form of struggle: these young women transform themselves and perform a new role in order to be recognized in society.