With the 2016 Summer Olympics, the world’s focus on Rio de Janeiro has never been greater. The big media players are making sure they provide consumers with a relentless buffet of content surrounding not only the Olympics itself, but Brazil’s varied and colorful culture. Capoeiristas know the importance of capoeira in Brazil’s identity, but its presence in the media remains a novelty at best.
Enter the Google Cultural Institute, which invites us to explore “content and stories from Rio” through its Google Arts & Culture project. The main feature is Rio: Beyond the Map, a compelling 360º interactive video that takes viewers on a tour through Rio’s infamous favelas. Several paths may be taken, meant to both inspire us and shine a light on the lives of people who live in these neighborhoods—which mainstream coverage typically reduces to brief side stories. Even Google’s own Maps feature was lacking any street data for the favelas, hence the title of the project.
While Rio: Beyond the Map is indeed interesting, important, and worth the time, the Google Arts & Culture property as a whole seems to be missing capoeira as a vital piece of the puzzle. There is no capoeira (that I’ve been able to find) in the interactive video—even in the background—and a search for “capoeira” on the project’s main page yields no results.
Searching for “capoeira” on the Google Arts & Culture project page
We encourage our readers to dive into all that this project offers, as the spotlight on Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, and Brazilian culture will be moving on very soon. Here’s hoping capoeira is someday recognized in the mainstream as part of the cultural story of Brazil.
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