O Globo reported today on a new Rio state government program to fund late-afternoon street shows that draw on local memory, in occupied favelas this summer. Dubbed O Verão das UPPs, or Summer in the UPPs, the program has funds totaling US$ 312,000 to support projects in the favelas of Batan, Borel, Chapéu-Mangueira, Babilônia, Cidade de Deus and Providência. These are six of the 12 Rio de Janeiro communities that have been occupied and “pacified” by “police pacification units”, or UPPs, since late 2008.

The groups chosen to receive funding are to create community workshops to produce the shows. Marcus Vinícius Faustini, a young man who grew up in a public housing project in the west zone neighborhood of Santa Cruz, and has long experience with the arts in low-income areas, directs the program, a part of the social outreach that follows on pacification.

“Rio’s vocation in 2014 and 2016 is not an indoor stage, but the street,” he told O Globo. “After applauding the sunset on Ipanema Beach, a tourist can go hear some samba at Providência or see an MC show in Borel. Rio is a city of encounters. We can’t let it become a city of fear.”